That’s a gravel road. It’s not a good thing when you run out of pavement. Especially hauling a trailer. Thanks Google maps. And no cell service. Fortunately, we found a place to turn around and a lady on a tractor who told us we weren’t the first ones to be led astray by Google. It was a good lesson for us. If we had looked more closely at the directions, we would have seen it wasn’t taking us to the campground we were going to. Instead it was taking us on a road that dead ended at the Snake River.
So we had headed east into Washington because I had read about the beauty of the area. In particular, we wanted to visit Palouse Falls State Park and drive the Palouse Scenic Highway. When we got to the turnoff for the state park we were told it was closed indefinitely because a young man had fallen from the top of the falls a few days before and died. The body was stuck in the vortex of the falls and they didn’t want people there when it finally surfaced. So, so sad! It was disappointing that we could see this spectacular place but in the scheme of things…….
But the drive was beautiful, although very different from the western part of the state. A cemetery:
Camped right on the Snake River.
There’s not much to do around here which is good for us to have a little down time. But at the advice of the campground host, we drove a couple miles down the road to a dam run by the US Army Corp of Engineers. We were given a two hour private tour that took us to see the inter workings of the dam including everything they do to keep fish traveling up and down the river. It was great!
We weren’t allowed to take pics on the tour but I was able to take this one in the visitor center. This is a window into the fish ladder. That Chinook salmon is at least 24″ long. Thought the grandkids might like this.
And us in hard hats.
Tomorrow is Saturday. We wish we were home on Saturdays. We will miss watching Selah and Duke play indoor soccer. We will miss watching Slater and Cruise play their Little League games and hanging with Maverick on the sidelines. We will miss hanging at the beach with Stone and Hux.
Neat! You are in Eastern Washington! I grew up in Wenatchee, right in the middle of the state on the Columbia River. Will you be going through there? Leavenworth is just a few miles west of Wenatchee, and is a beautiful little Bavarian town in the foothills of the Cascades. Lake Chelan is also nice and Lake Wenatchee, too.
Wenatchee is on our list!
Neat!
That happened to my fam when we were kids. But we cheered my dad to keep driving so we could “earn” bragging rights to another another State,. But like you the road dead-ended and all we got was dust. Remember when you got stickers at Parks & Ranger Stations for the family station wagon windows? No sticker that day….ha ha
I always love a tour with hard hats!
We will miss seeing you guys at the baseball games too! And you’re right, the boys dug the picture of the fish.
Slater wants to know if you bought them any Christmas ornaments yet. =)
Not yet. But I haven’t forgotten!
Might be a good idea to report the bad directions issue to Google so they can update their database and stop sending folks down that road.
Prayers for that precious boy who fell. I can’t imagine what that family is going through. Heavenly Father, please wrap them in your arms of peace and comfort.
What a great reminder to not lean on technology as much as we do! Still love your adventurous hearts! Beautiful pictures and continued safe travels! Love, J & A Smith
nice fish papa
Can’t believe you are in the Polouse!
How do you know about Palouse? I’m guessing not a lot of tourists go there?
Diane
If your a Pac-10 fan then you hear about Washington State and the Palouse. I always wondered what it looked like!
Pac-12 now actually