Road to Oliver, BC--June 10,2010

We began with sun but just a little cool. We stopped at Dry Falls--this WAS the largest waterfall on earth. It equaled 5 Niagara's in width, was 2 and a half times its height and 100 times more powerful. The water dropped 400' over a double crescent 3 miles wide. This was centuries ago during the Ice Age. The story about how this whole area was formed is very interesting. I have touched on this in my blog before. The rock is basalt. You see house sized boulders right in the middle of fields. The dry channels are all called coulees. Thus the name Grand Coulee Dam because this was the biggest coulee. We crossed the Columbia River again and saw another dam named Chief Joseph Dam.

The next interesting tidbit. Very soon after crossing the Columbia there is an unincorporated town called Monse and up on top of a mountain is a cluster of dishes and one large one in a field. These are part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Long Baseline Array. It is 1 of 10 sites spread across the US to allow astronomers to make detailed studies of celestial objects. Used simultaneously, the 10 sites function as a single antenna 5,000 miles wide. They can measure image detail of better than a 1,000th of a second of arc, which is equalivalent to being able to see a football on the surface of the moon. Now how cool is that?

We had no problem crossing the border. I threw out my apples and celery and my mace (which was 4 yrs old anyway) this morning before we left. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised at the age of my mace.

We went past the town of Malott which is the home of Johnny Appleseed and Omak which every year has a Stampede Suicide horse race down this 45 to 50 degree hill and across the Okanagan River, which is at the very base of the hill. Suicide is right. Oroville was the last stop stateside. The price of diesel was $3.42. They knew they had a corner on the market. In Canada it is $4.13 a gallon.

By the time we had crossed the Columbia River we started seeing orchards even way up on the hill sides and as we went on they were literally everywhere. People didn't so much have yards as they had orchards in their front yards. The Okanagan Valley is the principal fruit growing area in western Canada. They grow apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, apples and grapes. Agriculture and tourism is their industry (vineyards, wineries and fruit).Beautiful area.

After our get together this evening Marvin, Dee and us went sightseeing by just driving thru town and scoping out a breakfast place. One other couple is going with us tomorrow and then around 11am we will all get on a bus and go to a couple of wineries and a farmer's market although there isn't much ripe just yet up here. See you down the road.