Wild Horses in Eastern Washington

Grandma is having some deserved peace and quiet back home right now as we head out on the road again. My niece has arrived from Texas to ride with me. She’s been counting down the days to this trip as much as we’ve been awaiting her arrival. Let’s just say she’s had a crash course in noise. Not only did we breed loquacious kids, they all feel the need to speak at once! Questions just roll through their mouths continuously and, what can I say? I indulge them. I consider it a gift knowing what’s going on in their little developing minds. And when they follow-up by summarizing everything I say, at least it’s clear what they understood. For new arrivals like Niece, however, it can get pretty exhausting…

This morning we ran to the store for a bottle of shoe polish and we’ve written all over the car windows: “All 50 States Road Trip!!!” And our blog address is splayed across the back window -- we're in the road trip spirit to say the least. It's really easy to meet people this way and find out about everyone else's road trips, too.

Washington is one of those rare places that Earth Science majors study – lush Western Washington (a temperate rain forest to boot!) with dry, desert Eastern Washington just over the mountains. It’s quite a cultural divide as well -- those of us in Western Washington never appreciate those over in Eastern Washington. That could explain the political divide as well. Lets just say it’s a lot easier to appreciate the fuschias and orcas by Puget Sound, while taking for granted the Rainier cherries, apples and onions from other parts of the state. Life is never fair for the farmers, huh?

Crossing the state at this time of year is really beautiful. It’s hilly which makes the desert look more beautiful and unlike the Southwest, every now and then you get to cross a pretty bridge over the Columbia River – the very same river we crossed into Oregon (state #1) a couple of months ago! And there are shiny blue lakes in the middle of this desert as well that looked very, very appealing as we moved into the dry 90s.

Looking up from a winding road, we noticed a dozen or so wild horses cresting a hill overlooking a canyon. The kids freaked and I said, “Should we go?” Hoorah, we pulled over and overzealously made the hike to the top. Extremely steep incline, slippery hot dirt and one unprepared mama. Doodle was in flips, the rest of us in a version of shoes not at all resembling hiking boots and we had 5 bottles of water…back in the car. It somehow looked more manageable from the parking lot!

Still, I was really proud of the way they plugged on as unstable and hot as they were. Never mind that Little Man actually thought the horses were real for quite some time -- a compliment to the artist no doubt. Well, the downhill hike was much worse. (I should have listened to the descending foreign guy when we were just starting out.) Of course, while we all braced ourselves for death, Doodle managed to find herself a hip...complaining the entire way anyway!