Spring Green

There is nothing quite like the color green . . . . . . . . especially in the Spring. It is alive and vibrant! Monday, May 10th (our 37th wedding anniversary) we drove over to Pendleton to photograph the Spring wheat fields and visit my mother for a few days. The wheat farmers plant the wheat in the fall, so it already has started to grow by the time winter comes . . . . . . . . hence they call it "winter wheat." By this time, it already looks lush and thick. My mother took the photo below, of Ron and I . . . cameras in hand.

(click on any photo to see larger version)

Time flies when you are having fun. We spent the entire day driving around the Walla Walla, Washington area, photographing the wheatfields. The clouds were absolutely beautiful that day.

The contour of the hills of the Palouse are soft and subtle . . . . . . however, there are places where the hills are quite steep, but they manage to somehow get a tractor up and down them.

I think the we took every dirt road in the county . . . plus some. Ron couldn't stand a dirty truck, so as soon as we got home that evening, he spent the next couple of hours washing it!

We love to explore . . . . . . and this trip was no exception. We found a road that said "Mormon Grade", so we had to see where it went. The photo below is where we saw the road sign . . . . . it was gorgeous, so off we went.

We discovered later, that around the turn of the Century (1900's) there were some Mormon settlers living in the area, and they used that old road to run their cattle up to the higher range areas.....hence the name "Mormon Grade." We also found out that everyone in the Walla Walla area knows Mormon Grade as a good place to test out your 4-wheel drive rig......so we fit right in!

My mother snapped this photo when we got to the top of the first open ridge . . . . . we had to put the truck in 4-wheel drive to make it up. You could see for miles and miles and miles. We thought that we would be the only vehicle up there since it was a pretty rough road, but much to our surprise, we encountered 8 other trucks!

We had packed a picnic, so we ate on top of the ridge. This photo is looking east, further up Mormon Grade.

We traveled for about 20 minutes, then decided that we would turn around and come back down, as we still wanted to explore more in the green wheatfields. As we retraced our route, we came across this sign . . .

. . . . . .it was also the border line of Oregon and Washington . . . . it was called Mormon Grade in Washington, but we don't know what it was called in Oregon.

I climbed quite a ways down a steep embankment to get these yellow daisies in the photo . . . .Mormon Grade is actually part of the foothills of the Blue Mountains.

Looking east across the Blue Mountains, from my vantage point on the hillside of Mormon Grade.

Another view of the farmlands of the Palouse from Mormon Grade.

Spring wheatfields, between Walla Walla and Waitsburg, Washington . . . . late afternoon.

The next day, we drove up old Highway 30, on what we call Cabbage Hill . . . . . the correct name being Immigrant Hill . . . . . past Deadman's Pass, and out to Squaw Creek Lookout. (below) The Blue Mountains don't look very tough because they are so deceptively smooth and rolling . . however, they are made of solid rock. The pioneers said that the Blue Mountains were some of the toughest part of the Westward trek. You can still see ruts that the wagon wheels made in the solid rock. This is one of my favorite viewpoints . . . . we had a nice picnic lunch here . . . . family, warm sun, pine trees and a view that goes for miles . . . . what more could you ask for?

Below: Picnic, at Squaw Creek Lookout. (mom's photo)

On the way down Cabbage Hill, we stopped on a sun-drenched hillside that was full of wild flowers. All three of us, Ron, myself and my mom climbed down the hill to take photos of the flowers. Mom counted at least 8 different varieties of wildflowers. (below: on Cabbage Hill photographing the wild snapdragons.)

This is the result of my efforts . . . . plus I got a seat full of stickers and thistles!

But the shot that was worth the entire trip, is one that Ron took of Diable Lake, below. It is a panoramic: which means, it consists of 6 photos stitched together. I wish that I had the means whereby to show it a lot bigger . . . . it is very impressive. We drove home over the North Cascades Highway. . . .we arrived here at Diable Lake around 7:00 AM, May 15th.

When Heavenly Father created the world, I think one of his favorite colors was green! (with blue coming in a close second!) There is nothing that compares to a Spring Green!