Drive home

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Drove 435 miles from Dillon, Montana to Ritzville, Washington. All on I-15 and I-90 with no tourist stops.

The sky was very smoky in Dillon, but eventually cleared up north of Missoula. I stopped for lunch at Silver Dollar gift shop and restaurant. It has dozens of billboards on I-90, like the more famous Wall Drug in South Dakota. This gift shop is in Montana, 10 miles from Idaho.

I had lunch and enjoyed the blue sky at Silver Dollar gift shop/restaurant.

I drove back into the smoke heading south towards Coeur d'Alene and Spokane. Tonight I'm staying in Ritzville, Washington again.

Pioneer Man and Woman in Ritzville, Washington.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Drove 505 miles from Ritzville, Washington to my home in Oakland, Oregon with a major detour to see Palouse Falls for the first time.

I left the motel at 7 AM which seemed like 8 since my body is still on Mountain time. That allowed me to arrive at Palouse Falls State Park at 7:50 AM while the entire canyon was still in the shade. Unfortunately I was looking at the low sun when looking towards the falls. That was hard to manage but it's better than the canyon being in part sun and part shade.

The state park has 3 cliff-edge viewing areas. The main visitor area is fenced because there is no safe access into the canyon.

The stream is the Palouse river. Southeast Washington is quite arid now, but was deeply eroded by giant ice age floods. The erosion exposes basalt layers from much older volcanic eruptions.

Canyon view from the middle viewpoint. Upper viewpoint on the right.

Palouse Falls is very inconvenient to visit on a bicycle. It's far down a secondary road to nowhere, then 3 miles down a dead end gravel road. I think the state park keeps the gravel road rough to stop visitors from speeding.

The upper view of Palouse Falls has a view outside the canyon. Middle viewpoint on the left.

It's not signed as a trail, but I walked the well trodden trail 1/4 mile upstream to a view of both the falls and the canyon. This area has no fences.

Palouse Falls State Park has limited parking. I read that the parking lot is often full on summer weekends, but I was the only person there from 7:50 to 8:20 on this Sunday morning.

On the way out of the park I stopped on the bridge over a railroad track which is blasted through miles of lava. It seems like an impractical route for a railroad.

Railroad blasted through lava at Palouse Falls State Park.

I took a few more pictures at I-84 rest areas along the Columbia river. The sky got gradually more clear as I drove west, escaping the smoke.

Columbia river looking a bit smoky upstream.

Columbia river with clearer sky looking downstream.

At a rest area near Hood River everybody was looking at a plane flying low over the Columbia river. I had never seen this type of plane before. It flies very slow like a biplane. As slow as 40 mph because of the fat flying boat fuselage.

I had never seen this plane before. It flies very slow like a biplane.

The plane made a U turn and flew gradually lower, closer to the river. It landed on the river for a few seconds, then gunned the engines to take off. It was obviously an air tanker scooping water to fight a wildfire. Later I learned that the new flying boats cost $30 million, can scoop 1400 gallons of water in 12 seconds.

It scoops 1400 gallons of water in 12 seconds.

3 miles west I drove past the fire. I drove through half a mile of dense smoke and saw flames 100 feet from I-84. The planes and helicopters were more focused on the burning slopes above. It had to be a human-caused fire.

The fire near the river was tiny compared to the wildfires that create all the troublesome smoke. I quickly drove back to clearer skies. I took a final stop in Troutdale to look upstream at the Columbia river gorge, where the river slices through the Cascade Range.

The temperature was only 70F when I drove through Portland. Far cooler than anything I experienced during this trip. I got home at 5:15 PM, in time for dinner. Home again after a 25 day trip.

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