We headed into Eastern Washington, mostly so I should show my cousin just how different the other side of the state was.

The mountains strip the Pacific Air of moisture, condensing it out as rain as its pushed higher, into colder altitudes.  Just to demonstrate, it seemed, we drove up into the clouds, which ended up being a wet fog at the pass, which quickly faded as we drove through the pass.

By the time we were heading out of the hill country on the other side of the Cascades, barely a half hour away from the rain in North Bend, we were obviously in MUCH drier terrain!

Its almost shocking how different every thing is!

We drove through Vantage, where they built the first bridge across the Columbia East of the Cascades, which changed the entire region as far as trade and commerce goes.

We also drove through George, Washington, the town with a very clever name.

We got off the Interstate, and onto a State Highway.  I like driving on these kinds of roads -- they are MUCH more interesting.

Looking back, we had a great shot of Mt Rainier towering over the rest of the Cascades on the Horizon.

The "creosol bushes", as we called them when I was in the Army, and would train out in this type of environment at Yakima Firing Center, give testament to just how dry this area is.  They're actually trees, and some of them are hundreds of years old, yet only the tallest ones are as tall as you are -- most are waist high at best.

 
Up on a ridge overlooking the highway, a monument to days gone by captures the view, and your imagination.

I took a panoramic series, to show how expansive the view is from along the highway.

 
Our destination was Dry Falls state park, which was formed at the tail end of the ice age when an ice dam broke, and released the equivalent of 3 times the water in all of the great lakes in 48 hours... pretty incredible!  A sizeable amount of the state shows the effects of these floods -- it happened more than once (A dozen or so times, according to the film we watched), and portions of the flood swept into Oregon.

Its an impressive site!  its not hard to imagine the massive volumes of water that poured over the cliffs, forming the gorge that we drove up to get here.

We walked around for a bit, and checked out the welcome center, and the movie, which explained the events that shaped the scene we could see outside.  It was very interesting. 

 
After that, we took a few more pictures, and then headed on our way back to the "green" side of the Cascades, where it was still drizzly and overcast.

It was a fun trip!

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