Washington Trip Report part 44
As I continued east towards Spokane on November 20th, I didn't do much stopping. I just drove through lots of agricultural fields. The fields didn't look a lot different from similar fields at home except there was a lot more sky to go with them. Nothing at home ever looks that wide open.
I drove through some small towns. This cute little Catholic church was in Waterville.
There were hillsides with sagebrush
And rock formations
The hay had been cut and baled
Every so often there was a great big rock in the middle of a farm field
I had plenty of time so I drove down some dirt side roads to see if I could find any birds or anything else of interest. I found a lake with geese on it but they were rather far off. I also found some Red-tailed Hawks but not much else.
This is Jameson Lake
This was pretty much my last view of the Cascades in the distance behind me.
A zoomed in view of the mountains
Looking forward again, this is the view heading towards Coulee City. The lake in the distance is Banks Lake, which you may remember seeing in my photos from earlier in the trip. This is the southern end of it.
I found a place to pull off the highway just before going into Coulee City, where there was a good view looking towards Dry Falls.
This view is looking out across the scablands.
The south end of Banks Lake
There was a flock of Canada Geese at Banks Lake
These geese are smaller than the Canada Geese we have at home, but a little bigger than the Cackling Geese that I'd seen earlier on my trip. You can tell the difference by listening to them, or by looking at the size of their bills. The Cackling Geese have stubby looking bills.
This Red-tailed Hawk was perched on a utility pole by the highway
And finally, at the end of the day I got meal in Spokane, found a post office where I could ship a box of stuff that I didn't want to put in my suitcase home, and went to the airport to wait for my flight. I got there a couple hours earlier than I needed to, but I couldn't think of anything else to do in Spokane at that time of the evening. The airport was empty when I got there. There was no one in front of me when I checked my bag and no one else in the TSA line. I've never seen anything like it. The flight I was on was the last flight out that night and apparently there weren't any other flights for a couple of hours before it, at least not at that terminal. Eventually other people started showing up, but I had a nice time sitting by myself in a rocking chair for a while.
This Christmas "tree" was in the middle of the area where the airport shops were located.
And that was pretty much the end of my trip. I had a short layover in Chicago at about dawn then arrived in Baltimore, having slept for an hour here and an hour there along the way. I spent that whole time with a feeling of dread concerning what I was going to find when I got home. (It turned out that Crazy Mother's threats and descriptions of what was happening were overblown, but what I came home to was still plenty bad.) Needless to say, I did not feel like driving home from Baltimore that day. I took a good long nap and spent the evening with my sister then drove home the next morning.
I drove through some small towns. This cute little Catholic church was in Waterville.
There were hillsides with sagebrush
And rock formations
The hay had been cut and baled
Every so often there was a great big rock in the middle of a farm field
I had plenty of time so I drove down some dirt side roads to see if I could find any birds or anything else of interest. I found a lake with geese on it but they were rather far off. I also found some Red-tailed Hawks but not much else.
This is Jameson Lake
This was pretty much my last view of the Cascades in the distance behind me.
A zoomed in view of the mountains
Looking forward again, this is the view heading towards Coulee City. The lake in the distance is Banks Lake, which you may remember seeing in my photos from earlier in the trip. This is the southern end of it.
I found a place to pull off the highway just before going into Coulee City, where there was a good view looking towards Dry Falls.
This view is looking out across the scablands.
The south end of Banks Lake
There was a flock of Canada Geese at Banks Lake
These geese are smaller than the Canada Geese we have at home, but a little bigger than the Cackling Geese that I'd seen earlier on my trip. You can tell the difference by listening to them, or by looking at the size of their bills. The Cackling Geese have stubby looking bills.
This Red-tailed Hawk was perched on a utility pole by the highway
And finally, at the end of the day I got meal in Spokane, found a post office where I could ship a box of stuff that I didn't want to put in my suitcase home, and went to the airport to wait for my flight. I got there a couple hours earlier than I needed to, but I couldn't think of anything else to do in Spokane at that time of the evening. The airport was empty when I got there. There was no one in front of me when I checked my bag and no one else in the TSA line. I've never seen anything like it. The flight I was on was the last flight out that night and apparently there weren't any other flights for a couple of hours before it, at least not at that terminal. Eventually other people started showing up, but I had a nice time sitting by myself in a rocking chair for a while.
This Christmas "tree" was in the middle of the area where the airport shops were located.
And that was pretty much the end of my trip. I had a short layover in Chicago at about dawn then arrived in Baltimore, having slept for an hour here and an hour there along the way. I spent that whole time with a feeling of dread concerning what I was going to find when I got home. (It turned out that Crazy Mother's threats and descriptions of what was happening were overblown, but what I came home to was still plenty bad.) Needless to say, I did not feel like driving home from Baltimore that day. I took a good long nap and spent the evening with my sister then drove home the next morning.