From Dam to Dam; and “Oh, Damn!”


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North America » United States » Washington » Coulee Dam
October 3rd 2006
Published: October 6th 2006
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From Dam to Dam; and “Oh, Damn!”

Points of Interest for Day Twenty Six – October 3, 2006

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We had a little hiccup this morning - we stayed in this little motel in Orofino (just 18 rooms), which to our surprise had Wi Fi - for about 10 minutes after we checked in! One of the owners had been working on upgrading the router and didn’t quite have it right… So we waited around ’till it kind of got fixed before we started out our journey at Dam number 1…


Statistics


Starting Destination: Orofino, Idaho
Ending Destination: Coulee Dam, Washington
Ending Destination GPS: N: 47° 28.843’ W: 116° 15.237’ Elev: 1086’
Miles Driven: 245.4
Most Interesting Road Sign: No parking on highway, except during Ball Games
Most Difficult to Pronounce Town Name: Wawawai


Dworshak Dam


The Dworshak Dam is the highest straight-axis concrete gravity dam in North America at 717 feet. For those of you who didn’t take dam building 101 in college - a gravity dam is one where the weight of the dam needs to be greater than the weight of the water being held behind the dam… Of course it also needs to be sealed at the bottom and around the sides or the water will leak out!! We drove out to the dam site which was about 5 miles down the river from Orofino, both as far as we could to the toe of the dam and then to the top - the road to the top would have been quite challenging on the bike, so we were glad that they were safely in the back of the truck! We didn’t make it to the visitors’ center as it was across the crest of the dam and it looked like it was closed from what we could see with the binoculars! However, we were particularly intrigued by the comment in the guide published by the US Army Corps of Engineers: “Convenient floating restrooms are located throughout the reservoir,” unfortunately we didn’t have a boat so we couldn’t check these out!!
After visiting the dam we had to back track as there wasn’t a convenient bridge - we think there was one further down, however, we would have had to brave the “primitive roads.” As were more interested in making some progress we re-traced our steps! We continued along Route 12 as it followed the river valley into Lewiston, by this stage we had really dropped in altitude (4495 feet since the LoLo pass). We kept wondering what was outside the valley - it was relatively wide and had pretty steep sides and interesting rock outcroppings (they looked like more of the columnar basalt), but we also kept seeing more and more evidence of agriculture.


The Ultimate Bike Hill - Lewiston


Our questions were answered when we took the turn off for route 195 just before getting to Lewiston - the road took us up this incredibly steep road right up the side of the river valley, nearly 2000 feet… And at the top as far as our eyes could see was wheat stubble! Also at the top of the hill was a turn out for a viewing area, historical information and a view of this road that meanders all over the hill to get to the top. The historical information said that the road was constructed in 1917 - taking 10 miles to traverse the 2000 feet elevation change and allowing automobiles to travel at the good-speed-for-the-time of 20 - 30 miles per hour. It would certainly have been easier to ride our bikes up this road than the highway!!


On the way to... Grand Coulee Dam


From Lewiston we followed Route 195 North into Washington State and almost due North towards Spokane. It almost felt like we were back in Kansas with all the wheat (or what we presume was wheat) stubble, except for the fact that the terrain was more like rolling hills than the flat prairie of Kansas! However, there were a few interesting things to see along the way - The barn with the wagon wheel fence, the Rainier Cherry (Maria’s favorite kind) tree in the rest area, and Steptoe Butte - where someone had built a road spiraling completely around the Butte all the way to the top - where they built a resort! This was all in the early part of the 1900’s - before the land was donated to the state for a State Park after the resort burnt down. In Spokane (well really outside of Spokane) we changed direction and took Route 2 West and then North West… For a while the terrain was pretty similar, but it soon changed and we saw lots of evidence of volcanic activity in the soils and the plants… Our next destination - the Grand Coulee Dam!


Oops, perhaps I shouldn’t have done that?...


As we were driving into town we were not exactly sure where our destination would be for the night - it was getting dark and we hoped to take as many pictures of the Dam as possible. Unfortunately, we took about 3 pictures too many!! We stopped briefly on the road level with the crest of the dam to take some pictures right across the crest… This excited the “Dam Police,” as they thought we had been taking pictures of the guard and the guard shack… The “police” followed us a little way until we pulled into the next rest area so Maria could take some more pictures… Meanwhile, Carl answered all the questions… “Supposedly” there had been an incident earlier in the day and everyone was a little jumpy - we even merited a visit from the supervisor on duty! So after about 30 minutes of answering questions, showing and deleting pictures and general chit chat, they let us go. At this point we decided that we should probably call it a day and found a motel just down the road to hang our hat for the night!!


Carl’s Travel Trivia


Yesterday’s Answer: Meriwether (Lewis) & William (Clark) Lots of people got this correct, perhaps we will need to find more difficult questions?
Today’s Question: During the administrations of what two presidents was the dam initially constructed?


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8th October 2006

I got lucky!
Being the only driving car I could see anywhere coming or going around Hoover Dam on night, I stopped to take a picture of the spiffy art deco statues they have on the east side...right in front of two police vehicles. :-D They got on the bullhorn and informed me that I was, in fact, in the middle of a highway and to keep it moving. :-P My picture didn't come out either with too little time for a proper exposure. Dam It! :-)

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