What Was New: July 08, 2001BC, Pendleton, Oregon, Idaho, Alberta, Saskatchewan, deer(Gregory Melle's Web Diary / Blog)
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While summer is hot in California, it almost as hot all over the west.
The last few weeks have been a good time to get out of town and to see
some new sights.
My software contracting has been getting a good reception. I will be back
at work tomorrow on my Fremont, California contract.
I just finished a very long driving trip through Western Canada. It drove
almost 4800 miles in 18 days. I have made it as far as Langley, BC before
starting on a short U-turn. I brought a storage locker of possessions from
Saskatchewan and left them in BC Among other things, I picked up a stack
of old slides, photos and documents. I will be using them for new scanning
and web page updates.
I have also been studying real estate bargains with the idea of setting up a more permanent Canadian home base. There are some good bargains in western Canada.
I started by heading past Reno to Northern Nevada. As in most of North America the small towns are losing population and small stores are closing. Who wants to shop and gamble in Winnemucca when you can buy at Costco and play the slots at Reno's Atlantis?
This was my first trip through southern Idaho. I was surprised at how dry that area is. Boise has only had 4 inches of rain this year. I had expected things to look more like Washington state than Nevada. Further north the landscape is sheep country rather than cattle country until one gets into Montana.
I also stopped in Pocatello. That is where my mother's mother was born. Made no big discoveries, but I did look up some facts at the local library.
I travelled fast through Montana and the northwest corner of North Dakota. On that quiet stretch of US 85 I saw a pair of dramatic Lutheran churches.
I noticed a lack of road kill along the American highways. I suspect this is due to the fact that so much wildlife was already hunted and poisoned and trapped into near extinction. There were more animals in Canada. I saw these pronghorn antelope beside the Trans-Canada in Alberta.
In BC I was traveling fast and took few photos. These two are from the shores of Kamloops Lake.
Travelling south a few days later I headed through eastern Washington and Oregon -- mainly along US Highway 395. There was a lot to see. While I had visited the area before I had never heard of Dry Falls State Park. Twelve thousand years ago this was the site of the greatest waterfall ever seen on the face of this earth. When the post ice age dam broke the water flowed more than 300 feet deep over these cliffs. There are some fine recreational areas just down stream...
I started early the next morning from Pendleton, Oregon. I took a lot of pictures. In two separate locations I saw a mother deer and twin fawns.
I was also quite impressed with the great lava cliffs along the shore of Lake Abert. The colours were subtle and hard to capture.
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