Heading West
17/06/14 06:35
Last night we were looking at a map of the State of Washington with the scenic roads highlighted. We noted that we have driven most of those roads. Although we have never lived in Washington, we did live for 10 years in Idaho, a neighboring state. For most of my adult life, I have had a family member who lived in Washington. My brother lived on Whidbey Island for many years and later in Everett. Now our son and daughter-in-law have made their home in Olympia. Over the years, we have crisscrossed the state from East to West on Highway 12, Intersate 90, US 2 and State Route 20, also known as the North Cascades route. We have explored part of the Columbia gorge and basin, driven around the Cascades and made the run around the Olympic Peninsula. It is a place of amazing natural beauty and many different climates and types of scenery.
We noticed another thing about that map, however. Much of the center of the state had no officially designated scenic highways. We decided that high plains desert just isn’t viewed by many people as scenic. Last night we camped in Moses Lake. It is the second time in as many years that we have spent the night in this place. I knew that the lake had been depend and broadened by the Columbia Basin project, and I had assumed that it had gained its name from the Biblical Moses, perhaps because the lake had originally been shallow, like many of the other pothole lakes in the area. There might have been times, before the building of the Columbia basin dams, when one could walk through the lake. The wind certainly blows here at times. That story, however, seems to be untrue.
The official history of this place notes that the original name of the community was Neppel, after the town in Germany from which one of the settlers had come. Early attempts at different ways of developing industry for the town were not successful. They attempted to harvest jackrabbits and export them as gourmet food. They attempted to harvest carp from the river and send them to urban markets. They attempted to set up elaborate irrigation schemes to increase crop yields. People seemed to be leaving the town as quickly as they arrived. In 1938, the 300 or so residents of the town decided to take action and incorporate their village. They renamed the town Moses Lake in honor of Chief Moses of the Sinkiuse tribe. Moses lived in the 2nd half of the 19th century and had been forced to negotiate the moving of his tribe several times under pressure from setters and the government. In the 1880’s the tribe traded the Columbia Basin for a reservation in the north, stretching from Lake Chelan to the Canadian border. Later they were forced onto what is now the Colville Indian Reservation.
Life changed in the area with the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1941 and Larson Air Force Base a year later. The air base later closed, but Boeing Aircraft still uses the facility as a test and evaluation center for its commercial aircraft. The community has over 21,000 residents these days.
Like many reservoirs, Lake Moses isn’t all that impressive at first look. It is about 3 miles long and a mile wide, but has several different fingers, so it has quite a bit of shoreline. The land farther away from the lake is mostly irrigated wheat land and open prairie, so the trees around the lake make it seem inviting and pleasant. I’m sure it is a bit of a refuge on hot summer days.
I’m pretty sure that there is a lot more to explore in this area of Washington, even if the people who made the map don’t find this part of the state scenic. Perhaps some day we’ll take the time to do some more exploring. Today, however, we are aware, as we start our day, that we are only about 2 hours’ drive from our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. We should be there to share lunch with the family.
Over the years I have had a lot of road trips that ended with the excitement of reunion with family. Having been raised in Montana, with much of my extended family within the state, our move to Chicago a year after we married was a real adventure for me. I didn’t have any experience with city living and I had a few fears about the dangers of the city. I loved our studies in Chicago and we had a good time living in the city, but each trip to Montana had a sense of returning to the place I belonged. I would relax as we drove west and as the country opened up and there were fewer and fewer people I began to feel more and more at home.
We never again lived in Montana after our Chicago days. We lived in North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota and Montana has always been a destination for visiting family and friends. These days, however, with fewer member of my family living in Montana, it is often a really large state that must be crossed in order for us to visit family on the West coast. With lots of distance to cover, we have a tendency to take direct and familiar routes, but we like to explore new roads and sometimes we take the backroads on our adventures and check out new territory. Both Washington and Montana have several different routes to cross the state. Because we travel at at a slower speed with the camper, we don’t lose as much time traveling more obscure routes as would be the case if we were traveling at 75 mph.
Today, however, we’ve got the GPS set for “quickest route” and we’re headed for those grandchildren with no small amount of excitement and anticipation. It’s going to be a great day!
We noticed another thing about that map, however. Much of the center of the state had no officially designated scenic highways. We decided that high plains desert just isn’t viewed by many people as scenic. Last night we camped in Moses Lake. It is the second time in as many years that we have spent the night in this place. I knew that the lake had been depend and broadened by the Columbia Basin project, and I had assumed that it had gained its name from the Biblical Moses, perhaps because the lake had originally been shallow, like many of the other pothole lakes in the area. There might have been times, before the building of the Columbia basin dams, when one could walk through the lake. The wind certainly blows here at times. That story, however, seems to be untrue.
The official history of this place notes that the original name of the community was Neppel, after the town in Germany from which one of the settlers had come. Early attempts at different ways of developing industry for the town were not successful. They attempted to harvest jackrabbits and export them as gourmet food. They attempted to harvest carp from the river and send them to urban markets. They attempted to set up elaborate irrigation schemes to increase crop yields. People seemed to be leaving the town as quickly as they arrived. In 1938, the 300 or so residents of the town decided to take action and incorporate their village. They renamed the town Moses Lake in honor of Chief Moses of the Sinkiuse tribe. Moses lived in the 2nd half of the 19th century and had been forced to negotiate the moving of his tribe several times under pressure from setters and the government. In the 1880’s the tribe traded the Columbia Basin for a reservation in the north, stretching from Lake Chelan to the Canadian border. Later they were forced onto what is now the Colville Indian Reservation.
Life changed in the area with the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in 1941 and Larson Air Force Base a year later. The air base later closed, but Boeing Aircraft still uses the facility as a test and evaluation center for its commercial aircraft. The community has over 21,000 residents these days.
Like many reservoirs, Lake Moses isn’t all that impressive at first look. It is about 3 miles long and a mile wide, but has several different fingers, so it has quite a bit of shoreline. The land farther away from the lake is mostly irrigated wheat land and open prairie, so the trees around the lake make it seem inviting and pleasant. I’m sure it is a bit of a refuge on hot summer days.
I’m pretty sure that there is a lot more to explore in this area of Washington, even if the people who made the map don’t find this part of the state scenic. Perhaps some day we’ll take the time to do some more exploring. Today, however, we are aware, as we start our day, that we are only about 2 hours’ drive from our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. We should be there to share lunch with the family.
Over the years I have had a lot of road trips that ended with the excitement of reunion with family. Having been raised in Montana, with much of my extended family within the state, our move to Chicago a year after we married was a real adventure for me. I didn’t have any experience with city living and I had a few fears about the dangers of the city. I loved our studies in Chicago and we had a good time living in the city, but each trip to Montana had a sense of returning to the place I belonged. I would relax as we drove west and as the country opened up and there were fewer and fewer people I began to feel more and more at home.
We never again lived in Montana after our Chicago days. We lived in North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota and Montana has always been a destination for visiting family and friends. These days, however, with fewer member of my family living in Montana, it is often a really large state that must be crossed in order for us to visit family on the West coast. With lots of distance to cover, we have a tendency to take direct and familiar routes, but we like to explore new roads and sometimes we take the backroads on our adventures and check out new territory. Both Washington and Montana have several different routes to cross the state. Because we travel at at a slower speed with the camper, we don’t lose as much time traveling more obscure routes as would be the case if we were traveling at 75 mph.
Today, however, we’ve got the GPS set for “quickest route” and we’re headed for those grandchildren with no small amount of excitement and anticipation. It’s going to be a great day!