Trip through Washington Wine Country

 

Palouse Falls



Teapot Dome Filling Station in , Washington

Grain Elevator

On the way back from Yellowstone we followed the Lewis and Clark route to a fair degree along the Clearwater and then the Snake River.  We made a side trip to Palouse Falls in Eastern Washington.  Very impressive and in the middle of nowhere, it was formed by the cataclysmic breakage of ice dams associated with glaciers.

The Teapot Dome Filling Station was built in Zillah, Washington after the Teapot Dome Scandal in Wyoming during Warren Harding's administration.  Zillah is now a part of the wine trail in Southeastern Washington.

Finally, a grain elevator, somewhere along the way in black and white to be a bit more artsy.  There were a lot of photogenic barns and grain elevators.  I was struck by the grain elevators being larger and closer together than they are in Alberta where I was so taken by the old wooden ones.  Apparently they reap larger crops.

One of these days I'll have to write about the wine country itself....




Grand Teton

Teton Range

The Teton Range is another one of those sights that must have had incalculable film and electrons burned while cameras pointed at it.  The day we were there was cloudy but we didn't get rained on.  We walked around one of the lakes strung along in front of the range.  The geology is great - There are "dead" glaciers in this picture, as well as ones that are still with us.  The lakes were formed by glaciers and the morraine that formed the dams when they retreated is clearly visible.

Yellowstone

Old Faithful

Norris Geyser Basin

Mammoth Hot Springs

Lower Yellowstone Falls

You guessed it - a bison

We just got back from Yellowstone earlier in the week.  Fantastic scenery.  I was thinking that Old Faithful must be one of the most photographed objects in the world, especially now that everyone carries a camera or cell phone.  In 1958, probably only dad had a camera and he could afford to take only one shot and hope it came out.  I probably took a hundred.  Anyway, the top photo is my contribution to the millions of photographs of Old Faithful out there.  Of course there are bubbling pools, steam vents, and hot springs (roughly half of the worlds visible geothermal features are here).  There are waterfalls but the mountains aren't that spectacular.  We spent a couple of days and saw a lot.  The one thing we didn't see that much of relative to my expectations was wildlife.  Anyway, here is a picture of a bison just to round things out.