Coming back home

Truckin' - got my chips cashed in,
Keep Truckin - like the doodah man,
Together - more or less in line,
Just keep Truckin on,

It would have been nice to sleep a bit longer on Sunday morning, but the key to getting out of the Gorge alive is definitely pulling up stakes and leaving before the party hangovers wear off and the hordes start packing up and moving out. We managed to get up and out before the traffic had a chance to build up, so the way back home was pretty easy.

I was so tired that for the most part I dozed off and on the entire way home, waking up only to look at some of the scenery now and then.

Across the Gorge from Quincy (the dry side), you drive through some unbelievably dry land covered in sagebrush which I absolutely love
the smell of.

Most of the drive out to the Gorge passes through the dry rocky terrain of the Eastern Washington desert, and it's awfully hard to believe it's the same river that passes through our area (we live on the wet side). Things green up again as you pass through Ellensburg, but as you veer south again on 82, you pass through more desert. At this time of year, it's dotted with the purple blooms of lupines, phacelias, balsamroot, and further south, pink bunches of phlox, and some orange flowers that are unknown to me. With some exceptions, it's a dry landscape until you get near the Dalles back on the Oregon side. There are parts, notably the agricultural valleys around Yakima, where it's much greener.

The drive as a whole is rather scenic and rich with wildlife. Along the river itself, you see a lot of hawks and egrets (and people out fishing). The high ridges and rolling plateaus are no doubt good places to find coyotes, raptors, and elk. Passing through the fruit orchards in the valley around Yakima, you get really dramatic views of Mt. Adams. Along the highway (97), you follow the river that flows through the drier southern stretches of the Yakama Indian Reservation, where you can see a variety of birds such as swallows and magpies. (Something I'd like to check out sometime is the Ginkgo Petrified Forest.) There is a wonderful array of plant life that blooms in the desert of the Columbia Basin. Occasionally you see small stretches of sand dunes, but it's mostly a world of rock carpeted with sage brush, wild rye grass, dotted with desert flowers in bloom. It's not quite dry enough for cactus, and you don't really get the juniper either (like in northern California). As you near Oregon again, you hit the forested areas above Goldendale where it greens up for awhile before you hit the dry slopes near the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side.

From the time you leave the Gorge (near Quincy), it's not until you are basically right on top of it near Marysville, do you see the Columbia river again. And heading back east through the Dalles, it's not until you get to about Hood River, that you get the usual lush topography typical of our area--Douglass firs, ferns, and so forth. After driving past Multnomah Falls (would you just look at the traffic!), I passed out again until we were practically almost home.

Sometimes the light's all shining on me,
Other times I can barely see,
Lately it occurs to me,
What a long strange trip it's been...