Colorado Springs to Spokane
We traveled through the northern Rocky Mountain States to the Pacific Northwest to see friends and relatives, to try camping out, to see some lovely scenery, and to get out of the too-familiar surroundings of home and work in Colorado. We left Colorado Springs on Saturday, June 28, and returned on Saturday, July 12, after 15 days, 14 nights, 3625 miles, and many gallons of gas. I worked out the costs and mileage from the last fill-up before the trip through fueling and washing the car on July 13. 3653 miles took 120.6 gallons of gasoline, at an average price of $4.17 per gallon, for a total cost of $502.91. The Subaru managed 30.29 miles per gallon on the trip.
The first day, June 28th, we drove only as far as Ft. Collins, Colorado. We had decided to make the first day a short one, in order to avoid rush-rush packing and last minute panics. The tactic worked well, and we had a pleasant morning packing the car and driving up I-25 to Fort Fun. We got to the Kiva Inn in Ft. Collins just in time, as it happened. There was a bike race for charity going on, and we got the last available room in the motel. We had lunch at one of our favorite sports bars, C. B. & Potts, and dined vegetarian at The Rainbow. On all of our trips to Fort Collins, we hadn’t ever tried The Rainbow, and it turned out to be excellent.
On the 29th, our 34th wedding anniversary, we drove out of Ft. Collins and took US-287 to Laramie. This was a pleasant drive, through rolling hills, some of them quite large, and with interesting scenery. The time one loses by taking the slower road is recovered by cutting off two sides of the triangle: Ft. Collins-Cheyenne-Laramie. We got on I-80 in Laramie and drove, drove, drove. We made it into Utah, and camped out at Willard Bay State Park, on the Great Salt Lake. We had not tried camping in a number of years, but we found a nice site, set up our tent, walked around checking out the birds, and quite enjoyed ourselves. We benefited from camping on a Sunday night; there were only two other groups in the campground.
On Monday, the 30th, we toured the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge at the north end of the Great Salt Lake. The refuge was very well set up, especially considering that they were still recovering from the disastrous flood in 1983. The refuge caters to freshwater birds, and is separated from the Salt Lake by low dikes and causeways. In 1983 the lake overwhelmed the dikes, destroyed the visitor center and other buildings, and wrecked the roads. More importantly, the salt water ruined the environment for the sort of birds that had been using the refuge. They have done a lot of work, and the proof of their success is in the results. We saw Yellow-Headed Blackbirds, American Avocets, Black-Necked Stilts, and many White-Faced Ibises. There were also both Clark’s and Western Grebes. Our tour of the refuge took some time, so we only made it to Boise that night. After staying in a motel in Boise, Idaho, on the 30th, we drove across the Western half of Oregon the next day.
The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon, is well worth a visit. We enjoyed the exhibits and found some postcards to send to friends and family. Otherwise, the trip through Oregon involves impressive scenery, alternating fertile valleys with impressive mountains, and a lack of decent places to eat. We finally found a Denny’s in Kennewick, Washington, for our belated lunch. From Kennewick we headed north toward Spokane, but turned off at Mesa and drove through Othello and the Columbia River Wildlife Refuge to Potholes State Park.
We camped there on the first of July. Potholes State Park in central Washington state is pretty cool: 120 campsites, a huge reservoir, lots of Ring-Billed Gulls, and interesting scenery shaped by lava flows and glacial floods. The park is named for the many depressions full of water, formed when the water table rose in an area of sand dunes. The Drumheller Channels, formed by the Spokane Floods which punctuated the last series of glaciations, contain dozens of these small lakes, each a little watery habitat in the desert. We enjoyed the camping at Potholes; each campsite was set off from the others by a ring of poplars, and there was a large (irrigated) grassy area where gulls and soccer players congregated.
On July 2nd we drove from Potholes State Park, by way of Moses Lake, to Spokane, the first destination point of our trip. Although we did some birding en route, I probably read more in Roadside Geology of Washington than in Sibley’s, and I didn’t bother to take formal notes of every swallow or House Sparrow we saw. It’s a long drive, and it took us into a fifth day of driving. We had left Colorado Springs about 10:00 AM on the 28th of June, and we arrived in Spokane at 10:00 AM on the 2nd of July.
We traveled through the northern Rocky Mountain States to the Pacific Northwest to see friends and relatives, to try camping out, to see some lovely scenery, and to get out of the too-familiar surroundings of home and work in Colorado. We left Colorado Springs on Saturday, June 28, and returned on Saturday, July 12, after 15 days, 14 nights, 3625 miles, and many gallons of gas. I worked out the costs and mileage from the last fill-up before the trip through fueling and washing the car on July 13. 3653 miles took 120.6 gallons of gasoline, at an average price of $4.17 per gallon, for a total cost of $502.91. The Subaru managed 30.29 miles per gallon on the trip.
The first day, June 28th, we drove only as far as Ft. Collins, Colorado. We had decided to make the first day a short one, in order to avoid rush-rush packing and last minute panics. The tactic worked well, and we had a pleasant morning packing the car and driving up I-25 to Fort Fun. We got to the Kiva Inn in Ft. Collins just in time, as it happened. There was a bike race for charity going on, and we got the last available room in the motel. We had lunch at one of our favorite sports bars, C. B. & Potts, and dined vegetarian at The Rainbow. On all of our trips to Fort Collins, we hadn’t ever tried The Rainbow, and it turned out to be excellent.
On the 29th, our 34th wedding anniversary, we drove out of Ft. Collins and took US-287 to Laramie. This was a pleasant drive, through rolling hills, some of them quite large, and with interesting scenery. The time one loses by taking the slower road is recovered by cutting off two sides of the triangle: Ft. Collins-Cheyenne-Laramie. We got on I-80 in Laramie and drove, drove, drove. We made it into Utah, and camped out at Willard Bay State Park, on the Great Salt Lake. We had not tried camping in a number of years, but we found a nice site, set up our tent, walked around checking out the birds, and quite enjoyed ourselves. We benefited from camping on a Sunday night; there were only two other groups in the campground.
On Monday, the 30th, we toured the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge at the north end of the Great Salt Lake. The refuge was very well set up, especially considering that they were still recovering from the disastrous flood in 1983. The refuge caters to freshwater birds, and is separated from the Salt Lake by low dikes and causeways. In 1983 the lake overwhelmed the dikes, destroyed the visitor center and other buildings, and wrecked the roads. More importantly, the salt water ruined the environment for the sort of birds that had been using the refuge. They have done a lot of work, and the proof of their success is in the results. We saw Yellow-Headed Blackbirds, American Avocets, Black-Necked Stilts, and many White-Faced Ibises. There were also both Clark’s and Western Grebes. Our tour of the refuge took some time, so we only made it to Boise that night. After staying in a motel in Boise, Idaho, on the 30th, we drove across the Western half of Oregon the next day.
The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon, is well worth a visit. We enjoyed the exhibits and found some postcards to send to friends and family. Otherwise, the trip through Oregon involves impressive scenery, alternating fertile valleys with impressive mountains, and a lack of decent places to eat. We finally found a Denny’s in Kennewick, Washington, for our belated lunch. From Kennewick we headed north toward Spokane, but turned off at Mesa and drove through Othello and the Columbia River Wildlife Refuge to Potholes State Park.
We camped there on the first of July. Potholes State Park in central Washington state is pretty cool: 120 campsites, a huge reservoir, lots of Ring-Billed Gulls, and interesting scenery shaped by lava flows and glacial floods. The park is named for the many depressions full of water, formed when the water table rose in an area of sand dunes. The Drumheller Channels, formed by the Spokane Floods which punctuated the last series of glaciations, contain dozens of these small lakes, each a little watery habitat in the desert. We enjoyed the camping at Potholes; each campsite was set off from the others by a ring of poplars, and there was a large (irrigated) grassy area where gulls and soccer players congregated.
On July 2nd we drove from Potholes State Park, by way of Moses Lake, to Spokane, the first destination point of our trip. Although we did some birding en route, I probably read more in Roadside Geology of Washington than in Sibley’s, and I didn’t bother to take formal notes of every swallow or House Sparrow we saw. It’s a long drive, and it took us into a fifth day of driving. We had left Colorado Springs about 10:00 AM on the 28th of June, and we arrived in Spokane at 10:00 AM on the 2nd of July.
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