J. and I spent a wonderful 3 days in Eastern Washington State, following the sunshine. We started by driving to the Richland/Hanford area in search of burrowing owls and were lucky enough to find one of these very elusive birds before it flew away.
Then on to Palouse Falls State Park where we set up camp and spent the rest of the day wandering around, flirting with yellow-bellied marmots, birding, and soaking up the sunshine. We had a wild turkey walk right past our campsite that evening.
Next day we hiked out to a ledge below the falls, along the Palouse River, in search of wildflowers, but were a bit too early in the season and only saw a few. We then drove to Lyons Ferry State Park, which is closed, but we spent a while walking around the area looking for birds, and found a bald eagle next on the way back that we were able to get photos of. In the afternoon we hiked to Upper Palouse Falls, not nearly as much of a drop, but very wide with churning water that looked like it was boiling. Recent rains and all the runoff meant a LOT of water flowing through, and even though it was muddy it was just gorgeous.
Clouds rolled in the 2nd evening, and unfortunately so did an extremely rude, obnoxious, loud, disrespectful group of 14 who thought that they could camp wherever they wanted to, even though all the sites were taken. They pitched camp in the dark on top of everyone else, and proceeded to be loud and absolutely horrid the rest of the night, so loud that we could hear them through the wind and rain that pelted us all night long. A boyscout troop actually packed up and left in the middle of the night because of them. So… not a good ending to a wonderful 2 days, but still very glad we spent time there!
On the way home we hiked at Columbia National Wildlife Refuge near Potholes, saw a lot more birds and some absolutely beautiful scenery, before heading home. We were going to stop and hike at Whiskey Dick, but the wind was so strong by that time we could barely get the car doors open, much less hike in it.
Overall, a wonderful 3 days (minus the pond scum people at the campground) and I finally got to check Palouse Falls and Potholes off my wish list 🙂
