David Columbia River Piloting Theo & Ruby In Eastern Washington

Til yesterday I did not get around to asking about the Labor Day Weekend at Lincoln Rock State Park, which was the Eastern Washington camping location David, Theo & Ruby opted to take their parental units to for the last weekend before the start of the new school year.

The route to Lincoln Rock State Park is over Stevens Pass. That is not David driving over Steven Pass you are looking at here. That is David piloting a boat on Lake Entiat. I do not know if David stopped the car at the Summit of Stevens Pass to partake in the summer activity of mountain biking via using the ski chair lifts to access mountain bike trails.

Theo & Ruby look totally okay with David piloting them at high speed on Lake Entiat. Lake Entiat is also known as Rocky Reach Reservoir. Rocky Reach Reservoir is a lake caused by the damming of the Columbia River by the Rocky Reach Dam.

Here we see Mama Michele & Ruby being towed at high speed by David.

Seems like just yesterday the parental units of David, Theo & Ruby were screaming at me to go no further out to sea with David & Theo in the extremely shallow waters of Birch Bay. Whilst above we see Ruby wild wave riding in the deep waters of one of the biggest rivers in the world with one of those formerly overly worried screaming parental units.

David, Theo & Ruby told their parental units they wanted to go camping at some point in time during the summer. The kid's parental units are not fans of the old fashioned primitive method of camping, so they opted to use the Washington State Park's new Glamping option of camping in a fully furnished cabin, complete with kitchen and bathroom.

The kids were successfully convinced they had gone camping whilst staying in a fully furnished luxury cabin. I am sure no one will disavow them of this notion anymore than anyone will let them know the truth about Santa Claus for a few more years.

I eye witnessed the new Washington State Park cabin option way back in 2008 when I met Spencer Jack for the first time, at Bay View State Park. Those cabins looked a bit more primitive than the one David, Theo & Ruby camped in in Eastern Washington.

Did it create any controversy when the state went into competition with the state's motel industry, I wondered, when I saw all the cabin options at Lincoln Rock State Park. Maybe the cabins are a private concession type deal. Such is not unheard of in the Washington State Park system.

I don't know if post 9/11 security overkill one can no longer take oneself on a self guided tour of Rocky Reach Dam. That dam has the best fish ladder I have ever walked beside, watching salmon and other fish struggle against the current to get themselves past the dam.

Just Googled to see if one can still tour Rocky Reach Dam to learn the answer is yes, according to the Wikipedia Rocky Reach Dam article...

The project is located on the Columbia River on Highway 97A, seven miles north of Wenatchee. The visitor center shows films describing the Columbia River. The "Look a Salmon in the Eye" exhibit from (May–September) is a fish viewing room. The Powerhouse includes exhibits on the fourth floor. The Rocky Reach dam is near the Lincoln Rock State Park a short distance upriver. The Rocky Reach Dam was featured on an episode of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, hosted by Mike Rowe.

I don't know if Theo & Ruby took brother David to Rocky Reach Dam where they were able to look salmon in the eye. David has some issues with some creatures which live in water, such as sharks and crabs, particularly Dungeness crabs.

However, I have heard David speak favorably about salmon, including verbalizing wanting to go fishing for salmon. But, I don't know if David knows how big those salmon fish can get, so looking one in the eye may explain why I saw no photos documenting David in the Lake Entiat Columbia River salmon infested water...

A Happy Thanksgiving From A Pair Of Poodles Has Me Homesick For Washington

Ruby, Theo & David With Kristin
Getting Ready To Ski

This morning I saw that Tacoma's best known Adventure Poodles, Blue & Max, had written their annual Happy Thanksgiving blogging.

Apparently, on or about Thanksgiving, Blue & Max sent my nephews, David and Theo and niece, Ruby, up somewhere in the Cascade Mountains with their secondary caretakers, Michele & Kristin, for some fun in the snow.

It looks like the snow location may be the Snoqualmie Pass summit zone. There are several ski areas in this location. The Snoqualmie Pass summit zone is a fairly short distance east of Seattle and Tacoma, on Interstate 90.

Among the things I miss about Washington, that I don't have in Texas, is the extremely varied topography within very short distances.

In my current location the topography is pretty much the same in any direction for 100s of miles. There are no snow covered mountains in this parched part of the planet.

Where I lived in Washington, in the Skagit Valley town of Mount Vernon, I could drive about 10 miles to the east and be up in the mountains. Or go 10 miles to the west and be on a Puget Sound beach. Or in the tourist town of La Conner.

In Washington I could get up on a Saturday morning in November and choose to go cross country skiing, or go have a weenie roast picnic on a beach, or hop a ferry 20 miles from my abode, in Anacortes, and head out to the San Juan Islands, which is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, and thus is a reliable escape from rain, if you feel in need of escaping the gray dripping.

View From My Bedroom Window Of My
Van & Car Covered By Snow

The Puget Sound lowlands do not get a lot of snow. Some winters pass with no snow. There was one snow storm in the 1990s that was the deepest snow I ever saw in the Puget Sound lowland zone. I was pretty much trapped in my house for a week. I could not drive anywhere, but I could cross country ski to the grocery store.

When the thaw finally came I had all sorts of problems. Water was backing up on the flat roofs. Two drain pipes broke off. It was a mess.

Go here to visit me in Washington. Scroll down and you will come to more photos of the most snow I ever saw piled up in my location in Mount Vernon.

In Western Washington when you want a really major change of scenery you can drive one of the passes over the Cascade Mountains to a starkly different type of topography than the evergreen western side of the mountains. East of the mountains the hills have no trees growing on them, except for the 1000s of acres of fruit orchards.

In Eastern Washington you have a climate much more like Texas. Very HOT in the summer.

There is a big river than runs through Eastern Washington, called the Columbia, with several big dams, like Grand Coulee. Because of the big river and the reservoirs behind the dams, much of the desert of Eastern Washington has been turned into land upon which all sorts of things grow. One of the side benefits of Grand Coulee Dam was the appearance of lakes in various coulees (Washington Indian-speak for canyons), like Sun Lake. Sun Lake State Park was one of my favorite places to go in summer in my younger years.

Dry Falls, by Sun Lake, is the location of what at one point in time was the biggest waterfall the world has ever known. The melting of the last Ice Age and its massive flooding is what made the coulees of Eastern Washington.

Can you tell I'm feeling a bit homesick for Washington? It has been over 3 years since I've been back. That is the longest I've been away from Washington in my long life. I'm thinking I will likely be going to Arizona and Washington soon.