Sunday, July 4, 2010

Coulee Dam






Over Father's Day weekend we went to Eastern WA. to Coulee Dam. It was a beautiful sunny day as we drove there. Eastern Wa. is a lot different than here. It's pretty flat and no trees. Theory has it that an ice berg broke in Canada due to the force of a lake in Montana backing up against it and it caused a huge river of water that ran through Eastern Wa. down to the Columbia river and out to the ocean. That is what caused the deep ruts in the landscape. There are many lakes and rivers where a lot of people were fishing. As we were driving we thought about Matt and how he would enjoy fishing there. From what we heard fishing is really good there. When we first got to the dam the water was flowing over the side and it was really pretty. We went on a tour of the dam and was quite surprised that we couldn't take a purse or any other type of bag. Including a camera bag. A camera was OK but no bag. We had to go through security just like at the airport. On the tour we found out that Coulee dam produces enough power to supple most of the United States. It then made sense as to why they had such tight security. Just as the tour started they had gotten word that the water spilling over the dam had been closed off. Most of the time the water isn't spilling over, so we were lucky to see it. However when we drove by it, we didn't know that so we didn't get a picture of it. At 10:00pm they have a laser light show over the dam. Just before it started they opened the gates again and the water started spilling over. It wasn't as magnificent as it had been earlier when we first saw it. The laser show was interesting to as they told the story of Coulee Dam with lights. Pres. Roosevelt had it built to help put men back to work during the depression.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool! Looks like you guys had fun! Mom, I can't believe you wouldn't go off looking for rattlesnakes...I was hoping for a good picture of a snake! :) The pictures are great!

Our Biggs Family said...

What a fun weekend. I loved seeing all the pictures and reading what you learned about it. It's amazing that the dam can generate that much electricity. I agree with Alanna...there should have been a rattlesnake hunt in your agenda!