Lollapalousa

 Back in May, on Friday the 3rd, we moved on to Palouse.  Where's that, you ask?  Well, it's both a town and a general area.  The region known as The Palouse is primarily southeastern WA and north central ID.  It is rolling hill country covered with sprawling farms of mostly wheat and legumes and some canola and rapeseed.  Palouse, the town, is sort of in the middle of The Palouse.  It's a tiny, two-block town, with a tiny ten-site, city-owned RV park.  It was perfect. Perfect for what?  Photography!!  The Palouse is known to photographers, not only for the wonderful pastoral scenes, but for the amazing topographical textures this land produces - in hues of green or yellow/brown, depending on the season and lighting.  I had so much trying to capture the magic of this area.  So forgive the redundancy of the images - I was just having too much fun!

 Wow, talk about tumbleweeds!

 Purple flower escapees (probably vetch - I think the plant's seeds may get accidentally sown through hay...).

 Canola or mustard (rapeseed) fields.

 Already harvested...

 Colfax, WA.

 A beautiful park just across the street from our campground.

 Bill and Hayes on their way to the creek.

 Aaaaaahhhhhh...!!  Perfect for a hot day and hot dogs!!

 Zouey snorkeling for her stick!

 Some railroad history...

 And back to our campground.

 In the afternoon, I decided to launch the more serious photography portion of this visit...

 Beautiful cornflowers growing in a field.  One of my favorite shades of blue...

 Elkhorn clarkia.

 Cropduster dusting!

  My destination for the late afternoon/early evening - Steptoe Butte.  A high point in the area, it's a great place to shoot from.

  

 Interesting, backlit flowers on the road up Steptoe.

 Far-off windmills.

 And the patternwork begins in earnest...

 More of those cool-looking, lit-up plants...

 What do you think that airy, smokey stuff is?  I'll tell you in a minute...

 The view towards Kamiak Butte - the other nearby high point, although not as high.

 OK, here's some more of that stuff...  Know what it is yet?  Well, if not, keep guessing!

 Another (yellow) cropduster.

 Got it now?  Yup, dirt road dust!

 Heading back down to the bottom of Steptoe.

 Cool patterns from ground level...

And this was just the beginning of our three-day stay...