Finally in the Palouse area! .. And with a decent place to stay in Pullman, Washington.
After spending last night about an hour north of here, I drove down through Idaho and learned yet another lesson, or maybe I had forgotten the same lesson from before. If a scene looks good, find a way to make it into a picture. Right then and there!
I drove by some fields that the farmers had harvested, burned, then tilled. There were actually fields with all three stages evident. I thought to myself, I'll just look for this when I'm closer to Palouse. Not good: Palouse is in Washington where they no longer allow burning...
The picture below was made near here [in the Palouse area] before lunch time. It gives you a pretty good idea of the intensive farming that is done on these rolling hills.
The next picture is of a neat two-toned car... Thanks again, Nick and Mark; it looks great! By the way, do you think I made the tracks down the hill?
Not yet! The scene below is one of those weird crafty things that develop a beauty of its own: a welded fence made up of hundreds if not thousands of steel wheels. The fence has to be nearly 400 feet long and stands about 4 feet tall. Quite a feat! I'm sure it's been photographed a thousand times. It surrounds an artisan barn that was closed when I was there. It's in Unionville, over an hour's drive south of here.
Past Unionville, I drove down this horrendous hill that probably dropped down a good 2000 feet to the Snake River which at that point is the Lower Granite Lake, a huge reservoir contained by granite mountains on all sides. Unfortunately, that also means very high bridges, but that's another story. I probably drove 30 miles along the south shore of this lake before crossing the high bridge that took me back North towards the head waters of the Snake River. The picture is misty because it was stinking hot: 36 Celsius or about 97 F!
About a half hour away from the Snake is the Palouse Falls State Park. It's a good 20 miles away from everything! ... but well worth the effort. I arrived after 4 pm and the sun was lighting up the whole basin. It's quite a sight! The falls drop 198 feet into a huge basin that continues through the canyon as the Palouse River. The only thing missing were puffy white clouds...
Past Unionville, I drove down this horrendous hill that probably dropped down a good 2000 feet to the Snake River which at that point is the Lower Granite Lake, a huge reservoir contained by granite mountains on all sides. Unfortunately, that also means very high bridges, but that's another story. I probably drove 30 miles along the south shore of this lake before crossing the high bridge that took me back North towards the head waters of the Snake River. The picture is misty because it was stinking hot: 36 Celsius or about 97 F! 
About a half hour away from the Snake is the Palouse Falls State Park. It's a good 20 miles away from everything! ... but well worth the effort. I arrived after 4 pm and the sun was lighting up the whole basin. It's quite a sight! The falls drop 198 feet into a huge basin that continues through the canyon as the Palouse River. The only thing missing were puffy white clouds...
This last picture was made on the way back to Pullman at about 6 pm. I'm expecting more of these rolling hills tomorrow. The farmers are quite the artists the way they sculpt these hills! I'm hoping to see some farmers working on these huge and sometimes very steep hills; they have humoungous tractors and bulldozers. What fun!
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