Loose in the Palouse
I did another sojourn in eastern Washington this week, spending Wed - Fri in Othello, a small town in the dry-land farming country about 200 miles from Seattle. Other than working, it was a pretty uneventful three days. One amusing anecdote - The motel I where I stay in town used to have kitchenette-type rooms with sinks, ovens and fridges, and they had a sign just off the lobby requesting that guests not clean game in their rooms (the area around Othello is a big bird-hunting area). I always thought that this was a quaint throwback to less sophisticated times. The motel has since been remodeled, and the kitchenettes are gone, along with the sign. However, it’s hunting season over there now, and one night I noticed an old guy in the hall going from the laundry room to his room, carrying a plastic bag of some raw-poultry-looking mass, with a long feather sticking out of the opening. Sure enough, he’d bagged a pheasant that day, and was headed to his room with his prize (there are still fridges in the rooms).
As with my trip the week before, the drive was visually fascinating. The first dusting of new snow appeared on the upper peaks of the Cascades - here’s a range including Mt. Stuart:
Click any picture to enlarge
Here’s the Columbia River just where I-90 crosses it at Vantage. It’s startling to see such abundant water butted right up against such arid land, with virtually no transition:
On the drive home Friday night, I saw this picket fence of huge wind turbines on the bluffs above Vantage and the Columbia. There’s a short film of them below, and you can see their almost languid rotation, like a cartwheeling cheer squad for Team Renewable Energy.
 |  Windmill Farm Click to play (2.3 mb) |
