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chris_gerribThe title of this post, 699, is the number of miles I put on the rental car. They were, for the most part, fairly easy miles. The only mountain driving was in Mount Rainier National Park, shockingly enough. Most of the rest was flat, especially the part through the desert.
What, you say? You thought Washington State was all temperate rainforests? No, Virginia, about half of the state by land mass is a desert in all but name. From really Yakima on the east shoulder of the Cascades to about 30 miles west of Spokane (which is ~20 mile to the Idaho border) is flat desert. The Columbia and Yakima rivers (which meet at the Tri-Cities area of Washington state) provide irrigation, but the water they carry is mostly from places elsewhere.
So, along the rivers there is a thin ribbon of agriculture, dotted with the very occasional and not very big town. Unlike out East (and here Illinois counts as "out east") most of these towns were founded as railroad junctions, and as the farms were larger, didn't need to be as close together. Once you get away from the rivers, civilization ends. The drive on US 395 from Richland, Washington to Spokane via the tiny town of Ritzville is one of nothingness upon nothingness.
Eventually I'll be uploading pictures, and I'll have thoughts on the Worldcon and Spokane.
What, you say? You thought Washington State was all temperate rainforests? No, Virginia, about half of the state by land mass is a desert in all but name. From really Yakima on the east shoulder of the Cascades to about 30 miles west of Spokane (which is ~20 mile to the Idaho border) is flat desert. The Columbia and Yakima rivers (which meet at the Tri-Cities area of Washington state) provide irrigation, but the water they carry is mostly from places elsewhere.
So, along the rivers there is a thin ribbon of agriculture, dotted with the very occasional and not very big town. Unlike out East (and here Illinois counts as "out east") most of these towns were founded as railroad junctions, and as the farms were larger, didn't need to be as close together. Once you get away from the rivers, civilization ends. The drive on US 395 from Richland, Washington to Spokane via the tiny town of Ritzville is one of nothingness upon nothingness.
Eventually I'll be uploading pictures, and I'll have thoughts on the Worldcon and Spokane.
