Lori's Travels

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.

This is a 3-day trip to the southeast corner of Washington with my friend Dave. We’re here to visit state parks, see birds, and visit places from Dave’s youth. Being retired, we can travel in the middle of the week, missing the traffic and crowds. The first day was a great start.

After sailing over Snoqualmie Pass from Issaquah, we took a right after Vantage, heading southeast on highway 26. Right away, it was easy country driving on a straight, 2-lane road through beautiful green fields and orchards, and hills with wildflowers blooming. I think we got lucky that it’s been a cool and wet spring, keeping the landscape verdant longer than usual. It was a wonderfully sunny day with little traffic on the road, making for easy driving.

Our first stop was Potholes State Park, where we found an empty picnic area under trees and near a flicker nest in the rotted post of a picnic shelter. After making lunch from the various snacks we brought along, we walked down to the lake where there was a boat launch, a few fishermen out in small boats, and more birds to enjoy.

We made our way back to highway 26 and continued on through the tiny town of Washtucna and to Palouse Falls State Park. The park was two miles off the highway over a washboard gravel road, but Dave did a great job of finding the smooth parts of the road. Palouse Falls is a small park, but it wasn’t crowded and the falls were beautiful.

On to the third state park of the day, Lyon’s Ferry, just a few miles down the road. This was the site of a ferry across the Palouse River a long time ago, but today was another lovely, quiet, green park on the river with a swimming area.

By this time, it was around 3:30 pm and was maybe 75 degrees. Very pleasant. We started the last driving leg of the day, down a long slope into Clarkston.

Dave had spent a lot of time as a kid in and around Clarkston, where his grandparents lived. After reaching town and stopping for gas, we drove into the residential part of town and he found his grandparents’ former house. We then drove around town, looking for somewhere to spend the night, and finally drove into downtown Lewiston. There, on a hill above town , we chose a Quality Inn next to a Chinese restaurant. After unloading the car, we walked next door to the restaurant and enjoyed a good and very filling dinner.

I woke up to fog in Galveston on Wednesday, a soft gray everywhere. After breakfast at the hotel, I drove to the western end of Galveston Island to a small nature preserve in the Lafitte’s Cove neighborhood, an upscale area with large, elevated houses built along artificial canals. The preserve was in the middle of the neighborhood and built around three ponds and a wooded area.

I walked around the boardwalk and paved paths, carefully heeding the snake warning signs while also looking for birds. The ponds held many egrets, ibis, and spoonbills as well as a few blue-winged teal ducks and some black-necked stilts. The wooded area was very quiet, but one of the other birdwatchers there pointed out a Louisiana waterthrush ahead on the path and I identified a brown thrasher there too, both new bird species for me.

After spending some time there, I drove back to the hotel, ready for some “down time” and feeling a little travel weariness. I spent much of the rest of the day in and around the hotel, catching up on emails and finishing the e-book Owls of the Eastern Ice, a really great memoir and account of research done on Blakiston’s fish owls in northeastern Russia, by Jonathan Slaght.

For dinner, I returned to the Gypsy Joynt, driving through drizzle, this time enjoying the restaurant’s rendition of a Vietnamese bahn mi sandwich.

Thursday, my day to travel home, was sunny and cooler in the morning (about 70). All the fog of the previous day was gone, the humidity lower, and a steady breeze blowing. Knowing that I would be returning home to cold temperatures and rain made me savor the last few hours of warmth and sunshine. I ate breakfast, packed up my things, downloaded a new e-book to read on the airplane, and then took a walk around the block near the hotel. Leaving Galveston in the late morning, I drove to the Houston international airport, spending the last few hours in Texas navigating through Houston freeways in the sunshine.

After a restful night, I woke up on Tuesday to overcast skies and a breeze. Going downstairs to the hotel’s free breakfast, a man in the hallway said, “You must be the other birder here!”, indicating the reception staff had told him of another person (me) who was here for birdwatching. As we both gathered breakfast food, he introduced himself as a birding tour guide from Northern California, guiding a group of four people here and headed to High Island. The Texas coast is somewhat of a birder’s Mecca in the springtime.

After breakfast, I met my guide for the day, Kristine Rivers, the owner of the local company Birding for Fun. She was waiting for me just outside the hotel lobby before 8 a.m. We took off in her van, headed toward Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, located on the mainland northwest of Galveston Island. Before we left the island, however, we stopped at Corps Woods, a small woodsy area across the road from the Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District office. I was interested to see the office, albeit from a distance, since I had worked for the Corps’ Seattle District before I retired. As we walked the path around the small area, Kristine pointed out a northern parula warbler, a new species I hadn’t seen before and not found in the western half of the U.S. It was the first of many “lifers” of the day for me, birds I had never seen before. The only snake we encountered during the day (thankfully) was here too, a tiny, dark, 6-inch long snake that scrambled off the path in front of Kristine.

Thus a great birding day commenced, with Kristine using her longtime Galveston knowledge to know just where to stop to find birds. We drove through the refuge, stopping along the way to see birds, alligators, and even to rescue a large turtle that was in danger of getting run over while crossing the highway. We went to so many different habitats, including wetlands, estuarine areas, lake shores, a sandy Gulf of Mexico beach, soccer fields, and ponds next to the road, all with different birds. Kristine was a fantastic guide and naturalist with wide-ranging knowledge of birds, plants, natural history and all things about Galveston. She was really fun and interesting to talk to and she made sure I was comfortable and seeing as many birds as possible. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day despite cloudy conditions and high wind at times, and we saw 75 bird species, many of them being lifers for me.

The trip ended about 4 p.m. when Kristine returned me to my hotel, leaving me with recommendations for dinner and next-day birding locations. The time spent with her was definitely the highlight of my time in Texas.

In the evening, I went to dinner at Gypsy Joynt, a restaurant and bakery Kristine had suggested, where I enjoyed a really great fish sandwich on freshly-baked bread with a little indulgent mac and cheese on the side. And I found a self-service car wash to remove the dried-on salt spray from the Bolivar-Galveston ferry ride that was making it nearly impossible to see out the side windows.