Snoqualmie Pass summit
When I visit my daughter, I start out on the cloudy, sometimes rainy, side of Washington State. The side of cedars and Douglas firs, salt water beaches, and skyscrapers.
I begin at sea level and head up into the mountains. The drive on I-90 takes me up 3022 feet to the summit at Snoqualmie Pass. From there, I drive into a whole different world.
Almost immediately the firs and cedars of Western Washington give way to Ponderosa pine.
Before long, the forests are gone. Eastern Washington is farm country, sunny and dry, a land of deserts, rivers, and irrigation. Without the rivers and irrigation, sagebrush would be king.
I cross the beautiful Yakima River several times. But at 70 mph, I can only glance at its rapids and lazy places.
Columbia River
The biggest river, the one largely responsible for turning Eastern Washington green, is the Columbia.
During my visit, my daughter and I took a couple of walks along its banks.
After dinner one night we drove a a few miles from her house. This is some of what we saw.
A corn field, a cherry orchard. (These cherry trees had already been picked clean.)
Hay stacks and irrigation and cattle …
And, of course, grapes for wine. Washington is the second largest producer of wine grapes in the United States, 99.9% of which are grown on the eastern side of the state.
Going home, even with my cruise control set at seventy, it takes almost five hours–four if the traffic is good and I don’t stop for lunch. So even though the scenery cried out to be photographed, I just kept driving, storing the beautiful sights in my mind, wishing I could share them with you.
My next post, “In the Days of the Dressmakers,” will continue my series taken from the letters my mom saved.
Thanks for sharing your photos and your visit with us. Washington state is gorgeous.
It’s my pleasure to share it with you, Michelle. The world is a beautiful placed. And I do love my little corner of it.
Traveling is so much better when you have great scenery, and it appears you did! And there are those times if you stopped for photos at all the beautiful sites you’d never arrive at your destination!
That’s exactly right, Suzicate. I’d never get where I was going if I stopped to take too many pictures. I’m practical enough to just keep going. On the other hand, writers, artists, and photographers are never satisfied with letting the world pass by too quickly. I always have the urge to savor it deeply, to keep what I see and experience long enough to do it justice. Even better, to share it with someone else, especially when I’m traveling alone.
Glad that one of your daughters live within “easy” driving distance, Nicki. Looks like a nice visit.
Yes, it is nice to have one daughter within “easy” driving distance. I’m not a snow driver, though. So in the winter, I fly.
You just transported me into another world Nicki then it finished!!!
Thanks, Muriel, for joining me on my little trip. I wish I had had a chance to visit New Zealand when we were in Vanuatu.
I have lived in the tri-cities for almost seven years. Our son lives about an hour north of Seattle so we are forced to drive through it. I’m always so happy coming back to the east side. By the way we relocated from central Illinois so the differences are vast but I sure love it here especially in the winter when it is freezing back east and I am enjoying a mild winter here in eastern Washington.
No matter which side of the mountains you’re on, I think Washington has some of the best weather in the country–not too hot, not too cold. Goldilocks weather.
I can never get over how faster the scenery changes in the Western half of the continent. On the East Coast, it’s green, green, green and trees, trees, trees for days in every direction. In Colonial times, they used to say that a squirrel could climb a tree on the Virginia coast and not touch the ground until it reached the Mississippi River.
The West has its spectacle; the East, a gentler beauty. Spring, for example, is so fresh and pretty in Indianapolis where one of my daughter’s lives. I guess that’s the Midwest, but to me, it’s the East.
I always enjoy your weekly stories, Nicki.
Thank you, Barb. I’m glad.
Wow. i didn’t know Washington State was such a large producer of grapes!
Great photos! Such beautiful scenery!
Cows are always fun to see. 🙂 I’m glad you had such a great visit. Glad you concentrated on enjoying the moments off camera.
California used to be the main place in the West for visiting wineries. But imagine, with the number of wineries in Washington increasing by 400% during the past decade, things have changed. And the wines they’re making are winning awards. This year two Washington wines were sweepstakes winners in the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition: the Barnard Griffin 2015 Rosé of Sangiovese and the Claar Cellars 2013 White Bluffs Vineyard Riesling ice wine. Both are from wineries near my daughter’s house. We like to visit the wineries mainly for the outing. On this visit we visited one winery and shared a tasting.
Always lovely to visit a new place. The sights to and fro eastern Washington are sights to behold. Grand mountain and so much land. Pity the cherries had been picked clean or else I’m guessing you’d probably pick a few yourself. The sweetest ones usually are the first to go 😀
I don’t blame you for not taking photos on the ride home. Today I was on the train going out to the country and the views of land and farms were stunning. Had to control myself to put my camera away and just enjoy the shot – and I did 😀
I’m always struck by how different one side of Washington is from the other. But then, Australia must be similar with its big populated cities and its wide open spaces.
It’s always tempting to pick fruit off the trees of strangers. On my ordinary afternoon walks, I pass some apple trees belonging to homeowners who don’t seem to have time or interest in picking them. Even with apples all over the ground, I hesitate to pick one up. Maybe I should. My sister is growing cherry tomatoes this year. Yesterday I picked and ate quite a few. They’re always better off the bush.
The best photos of Eastern Washington are taken by photographers who go out with the express purpose of taking pictures. They get up with the sunrise and explore back roads. Still it’s amazing how much one can see from the highway.
You are right in describing Australia: we have cities that are crawling with people from all over the world, and then there are the quieter towns further away with lots of space to roam about.
“homeowners who don’t seem to have time or interest in picking them.” I wonder why, and I wonder why they upkeep these trees in the first place :/ I’d say pick up those apples and don’t let them go to waste 😀
Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos, Nicki. I love the curious cow. 🙂
I’m glad you liked them, Jill. I liked the sprinklers behind the curious cow, but they didn’t show up in the photo the way they looked to the naked eye.