Our 5th month of Christmas trips was to the Grand Coulee Dam.. along the way, we stopped a few times to let the little guy shake his legs out, and we stopped at a few places to see... mostly, though, we realized that this was a place that we WOULD be coming back to!

Eastern Washington
Eastern Washington is so different from Western Washington that it feels like you've travelled a LOT farther away from home than you actually have

Wind Power
The wind blows a LOT near the eastern slopes of the Pass, so they've installed wind power generators to capture some of that free energy

New Fans
There's some new fan towers near the roadway

Big!
Those fans are pretty big when they're up close!

The Vantage near Vantage
The view from above Vantage, Washington is pretty ipressive!

Posing for a pic
The little guy didn't like the sun... but he posed for the picture anyay

The Horsies
The horse sculpture... we're heading to Vantage for one of our trips, and will likely head up there then.

Soap Lake
Soap lake is along the way to the Dam... it used to be a popular stop, for its mineral waters... but the spa's that drew the crowds are all closed now. People still come, but now its for the mud along the banks of the lake.

Driving through the Coulees
Driving through the Coulees is pretty impressive... great scenery!

At Lenore Caves
Not long after Soap Lake, we came to our first real stop... the Lake Lenore Caves

Trailhead
The hike up to the caves is very kid friendly.

Up to the caves
The trail is well-travelled, and not real difficult at all.

Steps through the basalt
The steepest part has steps cut into the rock.

Climbing
The little guy had a blast! He did real well!

Heading up the side of the canyon
He didn't really want to pose for a picture, but the view was very impressive as you went up the side of the coulee.

The little hiker
This was the first real hike he'd been on, and he had a great time!

The view
The view of the parking lot we'd just left, and the lakes in the coulee.

At the first cave
The caves formed naturally, eroded out by the waters that rushed down the coulee during glacial floods. Arrowheads and other evidence found in times long passed by give evidence that they were used by travelling natives for shelter.

Taking a break in the shade
The little guy really liked the caves!

Checking out the cave
He spent some time exploring around.

Nice view of the Coulee
From the cave, a great view was had.

Heading to the other caves
We continued on the trail... there's about a dozen caves in all that you can go to... we went to 3 of them, the third being the largest of them.

The Big one
The big one was pretty impressive, even from a distance

Heading into the coolness
The little guy really liked exploring the caves

Sizeable cave
The Shadow Lady provides a good example as to the size of the cave

Me
Heading into the cave, and the shade it provides!

Checking out the cave
The little guy roamed around, seeing what he could see

Me
I had a backback that was a carrier for the little guy, in case he got tired of walking.

Scrambling around the rocks
He had a lot of fun!

Chalk!
On the way back, he found some chalk, and had fun writing on some of the rocks

Heading back down
About halfway back down, he got tired, so I put him in the backpack... he's grown quite a bit, but it easily adjusted out, and it worked very well!

Drawing
He still wanted to draw from time to time, so I leaned over to let him...

Heading on through the Coulee
After the caves, we continued on our way to the Grand Coulee Dam

At the Hotel
The hotel we had was really nice... and it was right on the shores of Banks Lake

Back to the Dam
We picniced out at the Dam, and then went back to the hotel... it was a nice evening just taking it easy. The next morning, we headed back to the dam to check out the information center

explaining what we're looking at
The plackard explained the dam's working parts

FDR's wheel chair
FDR had a huge influence on the dam, as it was one of the 'back to work' projects during the Great Depression. 152 million man hours went into the construction of the Dam... it put a LOT of people to work!

A core sample
this sample, 29 inches in diameter, and 18 inches deep, weighs in at about 1800 pounds. The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest concrete structure in the US...

Diving bell suit
These diving suits were used to verify placement of blocks under water.. not a job I would have wanted!!!

flying around the dam
The little guy had fun flying a man in a jet back around the dam, which showed the different parts of the dam close up.

Water from all 48 states and territories
When it was dedicated, these jugs, containing water from all 48 states and 4 territories were poured over the dam...

working the drill
The little guy had a lot of fun working the pnumatic drill, wich was turned down to 10% of the force that the workers used building the dam.

Here's a video of him playing with it... "Just like how Bob the Builder does it!"

PlayingWithTheDrill.wmv
(wmv, ~2mb)

Heading to Dry Falls
After the stop at the information center, we went to Dry Falls

Dry Falls
The view of the falls from the information center is pretty impressive!

Impressive sight
When water flowed over these falls, they were the largest falls in the world. They stand as a testament to an event we can only imagine today... the draining of Lake Missoula

Way up there!
The little guy took one look down from here and said 'Woah! We're eay up there!'

The site
Here's the site of the dry falls from the air

What it looked like with water (maybe)
Here's what soe scientists think it looked like when Missoula was draining.

Another view with water
The floodwaters from the Lake flowed withthe force of 60 Amazon Rivers... which cut the Coulees that snake across the region

The view now
Its an impressive sight!

Cut by water
The Coulee stretches on for miles down stream of the Falls... its hard to imagine this canyon being filled with rushing water

Into the state park
From the Information Center, we headed down into to the Coulee, and into the Dry Falls State park

down in the coulee
We drove along a 4WD trail, getting as close to the falls as we could.

The Dry Falls Information center from below
The view of the Welcome Center from the floor of the Coulee was an interesting one

Dry Falls Lake
The lake at the bottom of the Dry Falls... it was showery, and the little guy was getting tired, so this was as close to the falls as we got.

Goslings
On the way out of the park, we happened on this gaggle of goslings, protected by very watchful parents...

View of the Coulee
As we headed up and out of the Coulee, the view was pretty impressive!

Nice Sign
On the way back, we stopped for an opportunity to stretch and shake out a bit... and saw this sign. Fun stuff! I looked, but didn't see anything exciting.

Down a short walking trail
We took a short walk down a path to an overlook of the Columbia River, well downstream of the Grand Coulee Dam.

a bit of history
The plackard told of the roadway we could see along the river. It dates to 1908, and was built by the US Government to help get the USMail delivery going.

Old Road
The old road can still be seen, even though it hasn't been used in a long, long time.

'in the distance'
At another stop, we noticed an 'In the Distance' sign for Mt Rainier... Most of those have been removed.

In the Pass
Before too long, we headed through the pass, and on back into Eastern Washington -- and clouds and drizzle.

Heading Home
We had a great time, and saw enough to know that we'll be back here... hopefully sooner rather than later! We're now looking forward to our next 'XMas' trip...

 

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