Crescent Bar, Washington

Crescent Bar is about 10 miles west of Quincy, Wa right on the Columbia River. Normally it is a big tourist resort area, but the river in this area is very low because they discovered a design fault in one of the dam's down stream from the resort. They are lowering the amount of water coming to the dam so they can fix the problem.

For us from SoCal it still appears that there is a lot of water here, but they are not allowing anyone on or near the water until it is fixed. This is severely hurting the economy here.

This is our campsite #54 at the Thousand Trails Crescent Bar campground.

Crescent Bar Thousand Trails

The next day we went to the Gingko Petrified Forest. We had been to the Petrified Forest in New Mexico, but had no idea there was also a petrified forest up here in Washington! 

Gingko Petrified Forest

Neat the visitor center there were some petroglyph rocks. These were real petroglyphs, but had been moved from their original site because they would have been underwater from the damming up the river.

Indian Petroglyphs

We went to the petrified trail. You start up the hill from the building you see below.

Hiking the trail

This is an Interpretive Trail. You take a brochure and follow the trail. There are many types of petrified woods here.

Interpretive Trail

We got to the top of the mountain and it started to rain. Who would have thought, rain in Washington!! Problem is we didn't have jackets or coats with us! We carefully started back down the hill because the gravel trail started getting slick.

Top of trail

We got down safely although a little bit wet. We did stay cool thought!

Bad Hair Day! :)

On Monday we decided to go to the Grand Coulee Dam. At 10:00 PM they have a lazer light show on the dam face, so we did not go early. On the way we stopped at Dry Falls.

Dry Falls is a dormant falls that was the largest falls in the world when it was active.

Dry Falls

At five times the width of Niagara Falls it is or was huge! 400 feet tall and 3.5 miles wide.

Dry Falls

We continued on to the Grand Coulee. This is a major piece of engineering. Here the water is not yet spilling over.

Grand Coulee Dam

We took the tour of the hydropower plant. Because they are doing some fixes right now it was not a complete tour. At least it was free. :)

Water Turbines

Usually about half an hour before the laser show they start spilling water over the top. Right now the water is only about four feet from the top, so to prevent flooding they starting letting water out about 4 hours early.

Water Flowing

The white of the water works as a screen for the laser show. Right at 10:00PM the show started. It is about a 45 minute animated laser show. Talks abut the history of the dam and the impacts good and bad. Pretty impressive.

Laser Show - Eagle Soaring

We really like Crescent Bar. Probably the only thing that surprises us is that we were not aware that the eastern part of Washington is a desert. Not at all green like we remember it on the western part that we have seen before. Yet there is still so much water here, even in the eastern part of the state!

Well that is it for now.

Next we will talk about July 4th and the accident that totalled our Huntram truck. 

Also continue to pray for my brother Bruce...

Love you,

Brian and Patty