Friday August 26, Benton City, WA

Today has probably not been one of the highlights of our trip, but still enjoyed travelling through some pretty intensive agriculture areas. The heat though has been rather challenging this afternoon, it was well over 40 degrees when we parked for awhile…..whew, just too hot to do anything but sit with the air conditioner going. The weather forecast is for cooler weather in a few days which will be pretty welcome. We are watching the news at the moment with the story of Hurricane Irene’s progress up the East Coast, with millions of people evacuating, and much of New Yorks transit systems shutting down from tomorrow. Here’s hoping that it is not as bad as they are forecasting.

This morning heading south west, we were back in wheat country although most has been harvested and a lot of the country was already being replanted. We had a bit of a look around Moses Lake, an agriculture centre for this area. Surprised to see a large 747B circling around town as we arrived and felt a bit concerned as to what was happening, but found out that this town has an old Air Force Base which has one of the longest runways in the States, Boeing have a base and do a lot of testing here, especially as Moses Lake has about 300 days of sunshine a year.

Much more irrigation now, with many canals as part of the Columbia irrigation scheme. A huge variety of crops being grown as we headed on into Tri Cities, apples, cherries, grapes, potatoes, corn and lots of hay. Noticed that the small towns have large Mexican populations, who are employed in the fields.The store signs are in Mexican and saw many Mexican food stalls on the roadsides.

Stopped for awhile in Kennewick, one of the Tri Cities, spent some time in air conditioned stores to cool down. Found this small campground about 15 minutes out of town on the Yakima River, hooked up and turned on the air…bliss!

I received an email today from the lady we met at Steptoe Butte yesterday, and she sent details of the photography workshop that her husband Narinder is doing in the Palousse. Photographers might be interested in following a link to their blog.. www.podas.info