A Dam Fine Day

Good morning, my friends. What an interesting little tour we created for ourselves yesterday. We first drove into the adjacent town of Brewster, Washington, to indulge ourselves with our beloved Egg McMuffins. Along the way we were able to fully take in the vastness of the apple and cherry orchards in this area. We'd noticed the abundance of fruit trees on our drive in, but seeing the landscape really brought it home to us. The green on the far hillsides…all apple and cherry orchards.

This is the Columbia River valley, lined with orchards on both sides.

Even more on those distant hillsides. 

And the harvest is on, my friends. In the image below, you can see the rows of trees at the top of the image. Below that hundreds (thousands?) of boxes that will be used to truck the picked fruit to market. And since this is labor-intensive work, we saw at least two old school buses bringing in workers. Both were towing porta-potties behind them, which gave us a chuckle. (How humiliating it must be for the school buses to have been retired in this way.)

Okay, and after all that marveling at the vastness of the orchards, we were hungry.

After breakfast, we drove back to Chief Joseph Dam. What an impressive structure!

Now, behave yourselves here, my friends. In our experience, dams are heavily guarded. We didn’t actually see any uniformed security officers, but the signs, barbed wire, locked gates, and cameras told us this isn’t a place to be too rambunctious. 

Also, watch where y’all are stepping.

So, I think I took pictures of the dam from every angle possible. Mike actually took the picture below. There was a tall fence here, and no real way for me to get a picture without also getting the fence. Mike climbed up on some guardrail supports (think of railroad ties on their ends), and held the camera over the fence. This is where the water collects behind the dam. You can see how close it is to the top.

This is the same area, only from the other side of the structure. We were at a viewpoint here, and so there was no fence.

Looking downriver, we could see the bridge we drove in on and the tiny town of Bridgeport beyond.

So, let’s just talk about the dam, shall we? It is massive: built with three million tons of concrete. It stands 236 feet high from the bedrock to the roadway on top. (Closed and locked.) The dam’s length and shape contribute to its primary purpose of producing hydroelectric power. The powerhouse on the far side of the dam was angled away from the spillway to form an “L” shape. By building the powerhouse parallel to the river, the Corps of Engineers was able to extend the powerhouse to nearly one-half mile in length. It provides room for 27 generators.  

And there it is. I took pictures from many different angles. Here, the spillway is on the left side of the image, powerhouse on the right.

The site for this dam was chosen partly because of its geologic history. The river’s carving action exposed granite bedrock. You can see it across the river in the image above. By taking advantage of this natural foundation of bedrock on the riverbank and the riverbed to support the dam, engineers were able to minimize cost and labor.

I’m hoping you can see the image below well enough to understand how it was constructed. Remember that you can make it larger by clicking on it.

I liked this next sign. These geologic processes fascinate me. I probably missed my calling as a geologist. But since I can’t really tell you exactly what a geologist does while on the job, then maybe not.

In this next image, we’d moved away from the spillway. I was trying to capture the whole of the structure from end to end, but it is HUGE!

Our next stop will be to see the Grand Coulee Dam. While neither of us had ever heard of Chief Joseph Dam before arriving in this town, we’d both heard of Grand Coulee Dam. Mike has seen it before. I have not. But it wasn’t until this trip that it occurred to me that it was a dam on the Columbia River. Our Columbia River. The one we routinely cross when we head north. I simply never stopped to think about it. 

And, so, realizing that on this trip made me appreciate how really big and long the Columbia River is. It is the state line between Oregon and Washington. And I’ve always known that it turns north in southeastern Washington. But I never actually though about where it goes from there. Of course, it’s actually flowing in the opposite direction, out to the Pacific Ocean, but its headwaters are way up there in Canada. Hey, Canada! Thanks for sharing your river with us! 

Below is an image I found online showing the path of the river from somewhere there in Alberta where it begins its journey to the Pacific Ocean…a journey of 1,243 miles (2,000 km). 

Okay, and then this next image is looking downriver again. That’s the bridge we drove in on and the little town. In the foreground is a fish hatchery.

We stopped in, but there didn’t seem to be anything going on. We could hear people in some back offices, but we couldn’t see anyone actually working. We really just wanted to use their restrooms. There were no fish to be seen…except this one hanging on the wall. I took its picture as we left. As I’ve said before, I love this form of art, and I swear I’m going to make a quilt from it.

Okay, so we were about dammed out by then. We decided to head into town to see the chainsaw sculptured trees. This sign explains the story behind that:

And I told myself I wouldn’t take pictures of every single one. I managed to resist a few of them. There are 29 in all, including the one in our campground I showed you the day before. I don’t necessarily have much to say about these, so I’ll mostly let you look. I’ll pipe up if I have something to add.

We loved the quail. They had their little dingleballs and everything!

This next one was my favorite.

I like this next one too. It was very detailed with an agriculture theme. If you look closely at the riverboat at the bottom, you’ll see a bit of white fluff. That’s a bird’s nest.

This next one is the same sculpture from the other side.

Beavers. 

This next one was beside a pretty garden.

Those were all on the main street. We drove to the other city campground to see this next one.

Several of them had plaques in memory of someone. I liked the dedication on this one:

There’s not much blooming here, and frankly, it’s awfully dry for this sort of thing. Still, I captured a few roses. 

And that was our day. We were home around lunch time and just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. There was time for some slow-stitching, and it was a pleasant way to end the day. We’ll probably spend most of today the same way. 

We haven’t had our blueberry pancakes since we’ve been traveling, but I’m going to make some this morning. There’s a jug of buttermilk taking up room in our tiny refrigerator, and the pancakes will get rid of it. So that’s where I’m off to next. Have a good day, Everybody!

Bridgeport, Washington

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday’s drive was pretty easy. Just about 90 miles, and almost no traffic. We’re in the hinterlands, and so there’s not a lot to see. We passed by a few barns.

And sadly, this big burn scar. This must be fairly recent.

And this was pretty much our view for most of the day…wide open spaces. The landscape is barren compared to what we saw just last week. The arid climate doesn’t support much in the way of growth.

Here was something of interest. Take a look:

This large collection of satellite dishes belongs to the Brewster Teleport, also known as the U.S. Electrodynamics Earth Station. Sounds pretty sci-fi, doesn’t it? They were built in 1965 by COMSAT (Communications Satellite Corporation) following the Communications Satellite Act of 1962. It was among the first major satellite earth stations in the United States.

It features over 55 antennas, including 16 dishes ranging in size from 9 to 30 meters each. It is operated by U.S. Electrodynamics, Inc. (USEI) and supports GEO, MEO, and LEO satellite traffic. (Don’t ask me.) The site is also home to an 82-foot radio telescope dish that is part of the global Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), used for deep-space astronomy. 

And why here? The location was chosen because it sits in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountain range, which naturally shields the sensitive receivers from heavy precipitation and radio frequency noise coming from major metropolitcn areas like Seattle. 

Who knew? I love finding this kind of stuff when we travel. And have I said lately how much I ❤ the internet?

We traveled alongside the Okanagan River for a distance. As we reached our final destination, I believe we saw its confluence with the Columbia River.

Soon, we crossed a bridge spanning the Columbia River. To our left (and out Mike’s window), we could see the Chief Joseph Dam. It’s a concrete gravity dam operated by the USACE Chief Joseph Dam Project Office and the electricity is marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration.

The dam was authorized as Foster Creek Dam and Powerhouse for power generation and irrigation by the River and Harbor Act of 1946. The River and Harbor Act of 1948 renamed the project Chief Joseph Dam in honor of the Nez Perce Nez chief who spent his last years in exile on the Colville Indian Reservation. Like the immediate upstream and downstream dams, Chief Joseph does not have any form of fish ladder system installed, and therefore, does not allow the passage of migrating fish. In a conversation with the camp host when we checked in, progress is being made to begin building a fish ladder to one side of the dam (if I understood him right.)

Construction began in 1950, with the main dam and intake structure completed in 1955. Installation of the initial generating units was started in 1958 and completed in 1961. Ten additional turbines were installed between 1973 and 1979, and the dam and lake were raised 3 m (10 ft), boosting the capacity to 2,620 MW, making Chief Joseph Dam the second largest hydroelectric power producer in the United States. The vast majority (80% on average) of the power from Chief Joseph dam is sent to the Everett area of western Snohomich County via the Bonneville Snohomish substation. However, power produced at the dam is not only used in Washington, but also in Oregon, Montana, Idaho, California, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada.

We’re planning to take a drive up there today to have a look at it. Up until yesterday, I didn’t know this dam existed. Looking out my window, I could see this.

After crossing the bridge, we were here.

The area that is now Bridgeport was settled in the late 19th century and originally named Westfield. Some of the earliest settlers in the area were Chinese miners extracting gold from the banks of the Columbia River. Developers purchased the town in 1892 and renamed it Bridgeport after where they had come from, Bridgeport, Connecticut. The city of Bridgeport was officially incorporated on March 21, 1910. The biggest economic boom to come to the city came from the building of the dam. 

The town’s old sycamore trees, which lined the main street, were in sad shape but instead of being cut down, chainsaw artist Jacob Lucas has transformed them into incredible sculptures. We saw them as we drove into town. We’ll take a walk up and down here today to get a better look at them. They’re hard to see in the image below, and so I’ve marked them.

This is a lovely city park, and we have the place to ourselves. We got Smitty out for a walk right away. A public road runs alongside our rig, and he wasn’t happy about the occasional car going by.

We’re just about 50 yards from the river, and there is a boat launch there. Sorry, my friends. No swimming. Put your beach towels away.

Walking out to the end and looking north, it looked like this.

Looking south, it looked like this. You can barely see the dam near the middle of the image below.

In this next image, I’ve zoomed in to get a better look.

And here’s one of the sculptures right here in the campground. Cool.

It’s a very nice park, and we’re in a good spot.

It was a nice afternoon, and so we sat outside and had margaritas.

Smitty joined us on the veranda.

Across the road from us lives a huge covery of Gambel’s quail. They kept us entertained for a good part of the afternoon. I was able to capture this one when he ventured close enough to my camera’s lens. There must be hundreds of them. Looking to where they’re congregated, there is a lot of movement.

Sadie helped me write this post, but she refuses to pose for a picture. She’s consulting an agent to see about creating a contractual obligation wherein she scores kitty treats whenever her image is used in any sort of promotional materials. We can hardly blame her. Would you give away your image for free?

Okay, so Mike has scoped out a nearby McDonald’s. Sometimes we just needs us some Egg McMuffin. And as I mentioned, we’ll head up to the dam today just to have a look-see, and then we’ll walk along the main drag and have a look at the tree sculptures. We really have nothing else planned here, and there are no hiking trails to speak of nearby. There is a path that goes alongside the river for half a mile, and we’ll probably check that out. 

We still have two days here. If I’m remembering right, when I planned this trip, I was trying to get us to Lake Chelan. I grew frustrated when I couldn’t find a place to stay that was closer than an hour’s drive away. Finally, I gave up on the idea of seeing it, and added those two days at other stops along the way, this being one of them. And that’s just fine and dandy. A chill day is always welcome, especially this late into a trip.

There should be plenty of time for slow-stitching over the next couple of days. It seems like a good time to get to it. Have a good day, Everybody.