Fields of Dreams

 Remember that Kamiak Butte I mentioned earlier?  Well, I decided to give it an early morning try (much too hot later in the day!).  Unlike Steptoe, where you can just drive to the top, this required a little easy hiking.

 Mystery wildflower...  

 Finding textures in the landscapes below.

 Nice patch of yellow wildflowers.

 Now put them together...

 The grand view.

 Singled out.

 The trail near the top.

 Seas of green...

 Making waves... 

 Looking back at Steptoe.

 The trail back down.

 Time in town...

 Cute buildings...

 Cute curtains...

 And while we were there, they had a "rat rod" event.

 Lunch at the "Palouse Caboose"  : )

 And some scenes from camp... 

Looking out the RV window at the family...

And getting looked at back!

 Time to take Bill and the dogs up Steptoe.  He might not be taking pictures, but he needed to see this view!

 Zouey says it's good but too hot!!! (was in the 90s I think)

 One cool-looking dude on top of a power line (Great Horned Owl, dontcha know?!)

 And ever the glutton for punishment, I decided to drive to the falls again, in the hopes of my elusive sunset photo...  This time, I was much more careful with timing and took a more straightforward drive there.  But...nature had other ideas...again.  No spectacular sunset.  Pretty late light but no pink, alas...

 So I went ahead and dorked around, shooting the plateau.

 And while I didn't get the pink glow, at least it wasn't totally dark when I shot the falls!

 While there are lots of great perches for seeing the falls, there's really just one tiny spot to get "The View," and both nights I was there, it was already taken!  But that's OK - it looked a little scary.  This shot doesn't show you where their tripod feet are sitting, or how very close to the edge they have to be to get "The Shot!"  The falls were awful pretty - but not THAT pretty!

Well, that was A LOT of Palouse pictures!  I hope you enjoyed them.  I sure had a great time collecting them!

Day 2 in The Palouse

I loved Palouse and The Palouse so much, we stayed a little longer than I'd originally planned.  In fact, at first I wasn't sure we should even make it a destination.  I was interested photographically but wasn't sure Bill would enjoy it, wasn't sure the campground would be that good, wasn't sure it wouldn't just be too damn hot, wasn't sure it wasn't too much of a detour (although we were probably as close to it as we'd ever get!),...  But we went for it, and I'm sure glad we did!  It ended up being one of my favorite stops of our trip!!  On this day - and the next - I ended up doing very long drives.  Even spending three days in the area wasn't quite enough.  To do it justice, we really needed to stay longer and in at least two different spots - the good stuff was just too spread apart, and my efforts got spread too thin.  But better than not at all!!

 I loved the way things were sometimes hidden, tucked away, surrounded by green - houses, barns, silos...

 Some of the legumes (peas, beans,...).

 Lotsa legumes (foreground).

 Must be wheat.

 'Nother duster.

 I know, I know, me and my cemeteries...  But there are some really cool or unique ones - like this place...

 And here we are, in Uniontown.  And what's so special about Uniontown?  Well, there's this artsy-fartsy place...

 And it's known for its...

 fence!

 Pretty cool, eh?!

 Past Uniontown, I drove all the way D-O-W-N the 95 south to the Snake River, in Lewiston (ID)/Clarkston (WA).  It's a pretty steep descent, dropping about 2000 feet in 7 miles.  

But what a view!

  

 At the bottom, heading west on the 12, I planned on getting to the Palouse Falls in time for sunset.  Unfortunately, I had a brain scramble and somehow got my routing-timing confused, and somehow my drive time gained an hour or so...

 My bad.  It was a very pretty sunset.  And would've made for the desired photos...  Sadly, I was in the wrong place at the right time...  

 Pretty wispy clouds glowing pink...  The vetch and grass-covered plateaus were beautiful in the rosy twilight...

 Trying to make the most of cars getting in the way of my pictures...!  ; )

 Getting to the falls chasm...too late.  The tripod allowed me to get photos, but it was much darker than it looks in this photo!  The sunset was long gone...

I had wanted to shoot these falls because of the cool circle effect in the pool below.  And how neat it would've looked with that pink light bouncing along those canyon walls...