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Palouse – Late Summer Edition

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Lone TreeI’ve blogged about the Palouse before. That earlier blog featured shots in springtime. However, late summer is also a great time to visit the Palouse. The greens of spring give way to golden fields in August. After the wheat harvest, the fields have great textures left by the combines. The weather is usually good, blue skies and puffy white clouds.

I say usually, because that is not always the case. Tanya and I visited the Palouse last weekend. Luckily we left early Friday and had a grand afternoon finding barns and vistas.We drove to the town of St. John, then took back roads this way and that. We eventually ended up in the town of Oakesdale, with it beautiful old flour mill. Then more backroads, looking for the perfect vista for sunset (which, unfortunately, we did not find). The day started partly cloudy, but as it progress, the clouds got thicker and thicker. This did lead to some beautiful dark skies near sunset, but did not bode well for the next day.

We spent the night in Spokane, and on Saturday drove back down into the Palouse with my Dad and stepmom. The morning started of with a little rain, and it just got worse throughout the day. We had lunch in the town of Palouse, and I took a few street photos there. We also drove down Becker Road, where my Dad grew up, and he told us stories of what it was like 70 years ago.  I didn’t get many photos on Saturday, but it was fun hearing some of my Dad’s memories of the area.

The Palouse deserves several days’ worth of exploration, whether in spring or in late summer, and the short trip last weekend just whetted my photographic appetite for more. With luck, I will get back there soon.

Birds and barn, somewhere west of the town of Steptoe
Palouse River, north of the small “town” of Diamond
Small cemetery along the Endicott – St. John Road
We found this nice red barn west of St. John on Highway 23
Old Richfield gas station with historic flour mill in the background in Oakesdale
The dark eastern sky made for some dramatic scenes.
Shot from the same spot as the above image – a typical dirt road in the Palouse, shot on Friday and likely impassable on Saturday during the rain.
However, even in the rain you can capture some good barn images – I shot this one on Saturday during some of the worst rain
Outside wall of an antique store in the town of Palouse
Red barn door, just south of Oakesdale
Here’s my Dad, Ernie Becker. Dad braved the rain while I took this shot. We were on the shoulder of Bald Butte, along Becker Road, north of the town of Colton, less than a mile from where he lived as a boy and teenager.
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