Monument Hill Sunset

Sunset photo from windy Monument Hill in the Beezley Hills of Grant County, near Quincy, WA.

The floor of Dry Falls

That rock is huge.  The ones dotting the coulee floor are smaller. 

One of the amazing things about hiking at DFSP is the sense of humility caused after first seeing the erratics from the interpretive center at the rim of the coulee, then seeing them up close while hiking the coulee floor.  Adding to the magnitude of the experience is the fact that many boulders are basalt that appear to have an obvious top, bottom and side--yet in their current resting place they have been strewn about like gravel on a country road. 

The scuplted curves of the ground create interesting horizons.

Another surreal horizon.

As I was writing down these thoughts in the sweaty sun one day, I turned away from the strong breeze and looked up to see a cyclone of seagulls towering over me.  I’ve never seen anything like that before.  The gulls were so high up it was difficult to see them at first, then when I could shelter my ears from the breeze I could hear the faint sound of a huge flock of seagulls.  So there they were, starting at very high altitude, flying in a spinning pattern up higher and higher until they were tiny specks.  I looked down at the terrestrial beauty around me and thought it useless to try to figure out why these birds were flying like that.  DFSP is a very special place and if I was a bird flying by, I would probably start spinning around in awe of the scene.

This view made me feel like I was on the moon. Well, it was either the view or the searing mid-day heat.

Why I love the desert - DRAFT

As it approaches two years since I finished my two-year stay in central Washington, some of the nuances of my love for the area are becoming clear.  Here are some of them, in draft format...

The driving force in my life is emotion.  I do things in search of positive emotion, and I avoid negative emotion when I can help it.  People are driven by all kinds of things: money, family responsibilities, career goals, love, duty, retirement, and on and on.  It could be said I'm driven by love, but more specifically, I'm driven by emotions...of which love inspires many.  When I think of the best times in life, I think first of what I was feeling at the time.  Only then do I recall who I was with, where I was, what I was doing, etc.  Now that I've shared that about myself, let me share one more thing: I've been going through dark days in my life since before I moved to central Washington, and continuing to this day.

The reason I love the central washington desert and many of the specific spots that I cherish....is because they embody in geography what I was (and still do sometimes) feeling at the time in my heart.  The emotions of desolation, lonliness, unrealized potential, neglect, all are present in some of these special places.  The coulees and exposed rock structures & stratification lends to the feeling of being in a place of ancient history.  Half-buried sections of basalt and the synclines of the coulee walls appear almost like ruins of ancient temples.  Also everything is baked by the sun...