Thursday, August 2, 2018

Tri-Cities, Washington -- Lots of Fun!


Our next stop was the Tri-Cities of Washington - Pasco, Kennewick and Richland. On the way, I stopped at Palouse Falls. Beautiful, but the road to the falls was terrible, and I was towing my trailer.


But I enjoyed looking at the falls with my new best friend.


We stayed at Hood Park campground. Quite a welcoming committee, but watch where you step...


The campground is really nice, but with their reservation system, most of us had to change sites more than once.


Our first outing was to Sacajawea State Park, at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Lewis and Clark camped here, and we posed in a remake of one of their dugout canoes.


There are quite a few White Pelicans around.


Just next door to the campground is a trail around some little lakes.


I walked it one morning and found another new friend.


The neatest thing we did at this stop was to go on a tour of B Reactor. This was the world's first full scale nuclear reactor, which operated from 1944-1968.


This is the reactor that produced the plutonium used in the atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki in World War II.


Outside were some cute locomotives.

On another day, we got another dam tour, our third this summer. This one was of the Ice Harbor Lock and Dam. On the far left is the Lock.


There's a 100-foot fish ladder on both sides of the dam.


We weren't allowed to take photos, so I got these two off the internet. Our timing was perfect, and we got to see a double barge like this go through the lock. We were standing on the walkway on the left.


It was amazing to watch them steer the barges perfectly between the very narrow walls!