Dry Falls in Wasgington State

Friday 9/28/2012

While in Moses Lake we took a day drive to the north of the town.

The next few pictures are just a few of the views we got along our drive.

Unfortunately the forest fire haze was still sitting in the valley of this area.

You can see that the this country side is basically desert.

When we came to the very small town of Coulee City, Joe went inside a business to get directions to the Dry Falls. We had traveled up Stratford Road to get to Coulee City and should have taken Hwy.17 which was a direst route to the falls. We decided to do a loop to the falls so we wouldn't have to drive on the same roads there and back.

I walked Mallery while Joe got directions.

The west sure likes their murals on the buildings.

At Coulee City we turned south on Hwy. 17 which was the direct route from Moses Lake and crossed Banks Lake. If we followed Hwy 155 further north we could have seen the Grand Coulee Dam that creates Banks Lake, but we got a late start and decided to skip it. The gorge of Grand Coulee is up to 800 feet high and up to 1 mile wide in some places.



Dry Falls was just a few miles south of Coulee City.

Dry Falls was once the worlds largest waterfalls.

At 31/2 miles long and 350 feet high, Dry Falls is said to have dwarfed  Niagara Falls. The plunge pools below are now fed by groundwater.

A point to get a better view.

You can barely see it, but there is a car on the road across and below the Dry Falls to help you get a perspective of the size of the falls.

This area was formed by some of the largest floods ever known. The flood water came from the Clark Fork River in Idaho that was dammed up by icebergs that continued to fail..

A picture of what the Dry Falls would have looked like during the last ice age.

Our drive on Hwy. 17 south toward home took us through the steep carved wall canyons called coulees, formed by 60 mile  per hour traveling floods.

The flood waters raged through eastern Washington and through the Columbia River Gorge to the Pacific ocean.

On the way home we swung to the west a few miles into the town of Ephrata.

Ephrata is a fairly small town of 7,664 people. I knew that the town had a health food store called Settlers's, so we made a stop for a couple of things.

On our way home we missed our road back to Hwy. 17 and ended up going south to I-90. Then we had to travel to the east on I-90 to get back home. My fault, I was the navigator! This picture shows how the country side looks when irrigation sprinklers are used where ever crops are grown.

                                    Saturday 9/29/2012

If you have followed me for a while on my blog you know what I like to do on Saturdays.

Moses Lake's Farmers Market is located in McCosh Park.

It was a medium to large size farmers market. I am a strong advocate to buying local produce when ever possible. Not only is it healthier, but it is fresher and taste better than food that has been shipped across our country or from Mexico and beyond. It also conserves energy. It's win win for all.

Dogs were allowed, but we didn't bring Mallery because we didn't know for sure at the time if they were allowed.

The day before we left Moses Lake, a couple we met in St. David, AZ., pulled up next to us. Lynn recognized Joe, but Joe didn't recognize her. Joe never recognizes anyone.  Lynn and Doug invited us over that night to sit around their propane fire pit. ( those things are pretty handy if you have space for them) at cocktail hour.

Our neighbors Skip and Bev who were in front of us, who Joe had meet earlier, also knew Lynn and Doug and came over to enjoy the fire and Dutch Star camaraderie.

Currently we are still driving east on I-90, and just enter into Minnesota. We plan on staying at a RV park in Welcome, MN for the night and plan on arriving into Cedar Rapids on Thursday afternoon.