Month: June 2022

Thursday was the day for visiting the park I had wanted to see for the longest time, Steptoe Butte. It was an overcast morning in Pullman. The bistro downstairs in the Marriott Courtyard that was supposed to serve breakfast wasn’t open because their morning staff hadn’t shown up for work. So Dave and I drove to the nearest McDonalds, which was new and had very friendly staff, for a fast food breakfast. Then we returned to the hotel and checked out.

We drove out of Pullman and through more rolling fields of very green winter wheat to reach Steptoe Butte, which towers above the other hills. By the time we got there, the sky was mostly blue and it was another beautiful day in the Palouse.

The view from the top of the butte didn’t disappoint. We had the summit nearly to ourselves and the view was quite spectacular. We saw a raven enjoying the wind that was blowing upslope by doing several barrel rolls while croaking, plus a pair of Western Kingbirds and a Black-headed Grosbeak. Many wildflowers were blooming too.

After the butte, next was Steptoe Battlefield State Park, which was about 30 minutes away and tiny in comparison to all the previous parks during the trip. It consisted of only a monument to the Army soldiers lost in a battle with Indians in 1858, plus a couple of picnic tables, one of which was in the shade of an old horse chestnut tree. We ate our lunch under the tree while enjoying the birdsongs in the park.

The final state park of this trip was actually a trailhead near Cheney. The Columbia Plateau Trail is on an old railroad grade and stretches for more than 30 miles. We walked only a very short distance along the paved path.

It was time to return home. We had been able to visit 7 state parks on this enjoyable trip, during which we experienced perfect weather and fresh, green landscapes. We got on I-90 for the 4+ hour drive back home from our short visit to the southeast corner of the state.

We had a sunny start to the day in Lewiston this morning. After I enjoyed the free breakfast at the Quality Inn, we drove to the Vineyard Cemetery in Clarkston so Dave could visit the grave of his grandparents. A cemetery employee had left a map to their plot taped to the office door because Dave had called ahead to coordinate a visit. The cemetery was on a hillside overlooking the Clearwater River and was very well-kept and pretty. We easily found the gravesite, which had been marked with a small flag and fresh flowers by the employee. We spent some time there, enjoying the quiet, the view, and the birds. Then we left to head south to Field’s Spring State Park.

Highway 129 ran alongside the Snake River for a ways and we stopped in a Corps of Engineers’ park on the river because we saw a large flock of American White Pelicans sitting on a sandbar in a protected, shallow part of the river. After watching them for a while, some took off and soared in circles away from us. There were other birds in the river there too, including a Snowy Egret, which isn’t usually seen in Washington. Evidently it had strayed during migration. There was an older gentleman in the park that was very excited to see this rare bird and was calling his birding friends to tell them about it.

We continued the drive along the river and shortly past Asotin the road began a climb up from the Snake valley to the high plateau and on toward the Blue Mountains. Huge fields of green dry land wheat farms and pasture range spread out on all sides, with puffy clouds in the distance. It was another beautiful drive through the Palouse. It took a little more than 30 minutes to reach Field’s Spring State Park, in the forested Blue Mountains. It was a quiet green forest with an adjacent private farm that some lovely pastureland. We enjoyed walking and driving through the park and then chose a vacant campsite with a teepee and picnic table as a lunch spot.

The temperature was pleasant and the park was relatively empty. We enjoyed some birdsong and the otherwise quiet of the forest while eating our lunch.

Returning the Lewiston, we stopped at a Dairy Queen for some ice cream indulgence. My Girl Scout thin mint Blizzard was delicious. 🙂 We were well fortified to begin the drive to Pullman.

Pullman was only about 15 miles away, through more green, rolling hills. When we arrived, we parked at WSU, where Dave went to school, and he showed me around campus. No classes were in session and the campus was very empty and quiet. We stopped at the student union building so Dave could buy a WSU shirt. (Don’t worry Dad, I didn’t spend any money there, not wanting to favor the UW rival!)

After a driving tour of the town and seeing Dave’s childhood home in town, we found a nearby hotel, a Marriott Courtyard. It was a step up in quality for about the same price as we had paid in Lewiston. With no school in session, hotel demand was lower here, so prices were lower too. For dinner, we drove a couple of miles to a brew pub, where I had some tasty street tacos.