A Tinker and a Dam

Good morning, my friends. We had a very enjoyable day yesterday. On the day’s agenda were these items: visit Grand Coulee Dam, get some groceries, visit the Gehrke Windmill Garden. Check, check, and check. We left Sadie basking in the morning sunshine. And speaking of sunshine, we had a nice day of weather. A little breezy and on the chilly side, but no rain, and no dust.

The dam is just a few minutes away. We pulled off at a viewpoint. Here, we were on the back side of the spillway. Lake Roosevelt was formed when the dam was built.

That’s Lake Roosevelt, which is now designated a national recreation area.

At another viewpoint, we could get a look at the front side of the dam.

Looking up, those are some tall transmission towers, with lots of wires.

At that site was this image explaining what you’re looking at. I regret cutting off the left side of the image. There, it identifies the “sand pile,” which I’ll talk about in a minute. Also, the visitor’s center.

Here’s another look at the front side of the dam. There are two power plants. The power house on the right side of the image houses two plants and was a part of the original structure. The third power plant (on the left) was added later, and involved the destruction of that portion of the dam and then subsequent rebuilding. 

Grand Coulee is the largest hydropower producer in the United States, generating more than 20 billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year to 11 states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wayoming, Colorado, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Uta, Arizona. It also deliveres power to Canada…enough power for 4.2 million households. Knowing that makes it even more astonishing to realize that hydroelectric power was only its secondary reason for existence. It’s primary reason was delivering irrigation water to agricultural areas. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it operates under the auspices of the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau’s mission is to reclaim arid grasslands for agricultural purposes.

The dam is among the largest concrete structures in the world, containing nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete. With that much concrete, you could built a highway from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida. The original dam was constructed from 1933 to 1940 at a cost of $300 million. When the third power plant was added between 1967 and 1980, the cost was $700 million…so, a total of about $1 billion. As of 2016, the cost would have been around $8.26 billion.

Okay, now let’s get the rules straight, my friends. No flying of drones. Bummer.

Also, no climbing the fences.

Looking toward the town of Grand Coulee, it looks like this. We’re just about to drive across that bridge.

Okay, so we stopped off at the visitor center. It was built between 1977 and 1978, as a part of the construction that included the third power plant.

From there, we could get a good look at the spillway. Those bright vertical lines are water spilling over. You can also see the sagging power lines running horizontally through the image.

Walking to the doors, we spotted a few blooming things: coreopsis.

And lavender.

This large plaque was at the front door. There were a bunch of names at the bottom that I’ve cropped out. As for the rest, it was hard to get a legible photograph. It is all silvery, and so I’ve bumped up the contrast to try to make it legible.

Here’s what it says: Begun in time of adversity it stood in war as a sentinel of strength safeguarding the nation. Forever a monument to those who shared in its conception and its construction in peace it is the key to new American frontiers of opportunity in agriculture and industry. Conceived and advanced by the people of the state of Washington. Constructed by the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation. Then it lists both presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.

Inside the visitor center, we informed the man at the desk we wanted to go on the tour. He encouraged us not to dally because the tours left every hour on the hour, and the next one would be starting soon. To skip to the chase, I asked him if they had refrigerator magnets and/or shot glasses. No...they didn't sell that sort of thing. But he reached under his desk and handed me this two-sided token...about the size of a 50 cent piece. On one side, it says "Grand Coulee Dam" and "Scavenger Hunt." 

On the other, "U.S. Department of the Interior" and "Bureau of Reclamation." I'm telling you...it made my whole day. 

Okay, so let’s head on over to where the tour starts. First, we’ll cross this bridge.

Follow us. We won’t steer you wrong.

We checked in at an office, where we were required to empty our pockets, airport-style, and then pass through a metal detector. From there we got into a van and drove to where the dam's "pump house" is located. We parked in a parking lot, but this happens to be the roof of the pump house below.

Over our heads, we could see where irrigation water is pumped for delivery to the aqueduct and distributed to agricultural areas.

At another part of the tour, we were able to get above the piping, and it looks like this. We were told those pipes are 12 feet in diameter.

Below, where we were, we could see the pumps.

Zooming in a little closer, you can see the crane above the American flag. That can be moved along a track, and it is used for maintenance and repair on the pumps.

Zooming in a little bit, you can see that the three pumps closest to the flag are a little different from the others. Those are pump-generators that can be used to suck water from the lake and produce electricity during periods of peak demand.

This gallery is more than a city block long. The pumps lift water up into Banks Lake (the body of water beside our campsite) and then ultimately into the Columbia Basin to irrigate farm land. The water is pushed up 280 feet into the pipes pictured above and then into the aqueduct headworks at the top of the hill (pictured in yesterday's post). 

Each of the pumps in this plant could supply the total water needs of all the residences and businesses in the state of Washington. During high demand periods, all six pumps are needed to irrigate the one-half million acres in the Columbia Basin. The addition of the three pump-generators makes it possible to supply more than a million acres...an area much larger than the state of Rhode Island.

From there, we got back in the van and drove to the top of the dam. The image below was taken with me standing at the railing (at the bottom of the image), and looking down at the wall of the spillway and the water draining from there. The blue at the top of the image is the lake, and you can see power lines running through the image in the upper right-hand corner.

For the image below, I walked to the other side of the dam. Now I'm looking at Lake Roosevelt and the power house.

Here's another shot of Lake Roosevelt.

As we stood there, we watched a bald eagle soaring over the water in the spillway, looking for lunch, no doubt.

From this spot, we could also get a good look at the "sand pile." This is what was removed from the canyon when the dam was built. It covers an area of about six city blocks.

Looking out toward the town of Grand Coulee, you can see the bridge we crossed again. What I want you to notice about this image is the dark canyon walls. Merriam-Webster defines a "coulee" as a deep, steep-walled ravine, gulch, or dry streambed carved by water or glacial meltwater, or alternatively, a slow-moving sheet or stream of solidified lava. And so what you're looking at in the image below is the coulee for which the town and dam were named.

Also from here, I could zoom in on this display at the visitor center. One assumes this is a celebratory display for our country's 250th birthday. 

On a hillside beyond, we could see where new high school graduates had left their marks. Honestly, at my age is almost insulting to realize that people are actually graduating from high school in 2025. It makes me think of when I was an emergency department social worker. I can remember seeing patients, and first checking their charts for the year of their birth. Often, I'd find someone who was born the year I graduated high school. Then I entered the room to discover they were ADULTS!!! I'm telling you, it was downright rude for someone who was a baby when I graduated high school to have the nerve to be a fully grown person.

From there, we stopped at the local Safeway to pick up a few things we needed. We're usually motivated most when the kitty treats run low. On our way back to the camper, we stopped off at the Gehrke Windmill Garden. There was a gate one could open and go inside. This is what it looks like:

I took pictures of a few of my favorites. This one is a grasshopper, but its eyes reminded me of the Portland frog.

Remember that these are all made from materials sourced from junkyards or donated. I liked the ones made from kitchen items. 

The one below is funnels and at the top is a sort of chandelier. The part that would attach to the roof is at the bottom. (At least that's how it looks to me.)

This one has a teapot in the center with cups spinning around. All of these I'm showing you were spinning or rocking in some way.

I like this one with the skillet.

We had the feeling this hard hat had some logo meaningful to the area, but we don't know what it is. Just now I asked The Google to enlighten me. It said that a hard hat with this kind of coloring often identifies the site supervisor.

I loved this one. It's an electric drill with a skillet and waffle iron extending out to the right. And then that "propeller" is made from little metal trays...mug rug sized.

These were just outside the gate. They're made from the insulators you see on high voltage power lines.

There was a display case there, with a picture of the "tinker" who created all of these, Emil Gehrke. So creative and whimsical. It was fun to stand among them and see all that movement.

Okay then. We have less than a week left in our trip. Today we'll be moving on to Quincy, Washington. On the agenda there is to hike the Ancient Lakes Trail. It's looking like good weather ahead for that. And now it's time for me to eat something and start buttoning things up to head on down the dusty trail. We have about 90 miles to travel today. Not bad at all, and I've read there's good scenery along the way. 

It's looking like a day of sunshine, so be sure to bring your sunglasses.