dams

Today is travel day again.

Leo is going to go stay with daughter 4, who owns him. He may stay there a short or a long time. We will see.

It is a beautiful day. Temps in the low 60's. But temps that warm in February are not always good.

The fruit trees begin to think it is spring and they come out and bloom too early and then a good frost and there is little or no crop.

Today's trip is along side the mighty Columbia river. OK, it used to be a river. Now it is a series of still water lakes held in place by a series of huge concrete dams.

The dams provided cheap electricity for some, but pretty well killed the migration of the salmon back to their spawning areas in Oregon and Idaho.

Way deep in Idaho we have a lake called Red Fish lake. Once upon a time there were so many salmon that the lake was named after them.

Salmon eggs are laid in small streams high in the mountsins. As young fish they migrate down stream and through hundreds of miles of water to the pacific ocean. When it is time to return to lay their eggs the fish migrate all the way back to where they were hatched some years before.

It is pretty amazing, but in our progress we have pretty well eliminated the fish runs.

Even from the hundred foot wide strip of concrete known as Interstate 84, it is a beautiful drive. A more intimate, and slightly slower drive is along the Washington side of the river. That is a nice 2 lane highway that goes through a dozen or more tunnels.

But today we will drive along the Oregon side.

It will be good.