Vacation – Part 2- Palouse

For the second leg of our trip, we were in Eastern Washington visiting family and enjoying the wide open spaces. Eric’s grandfather, Otto, is an avid photographer and took us for hours through the Palouse, to select barns and photo opportunities. The Palouse is a region of the Northwest United States and it stretches from eastern Washington to Northern Idaho. It is incredibly rich farm land, largely wheat producing but also produces lentils, canola and barley. It is FULL of big sky, rolling hills, textures, historical barns and much more. It is largely unknown , so to have our own personal tour guide was invaluable. We only had a few hours, but I think you could spend at least a week photographing this region. In the spring, the rolling hills are all different shades of green. For our trip, most of the crops had been harvested already. I am hoping to return another time when it is full of green crops and wild flowers. It is such a vast and interesting part of the US.

My favorite image of the day.

It was amazing to stretch out, see wide open sky and wide open land. It gave both Eric and I space to breathe deeply. I mean, don’t you want to be here??!!

The next few pictures are from the top of Steptoe Butte. It is a quartzite island jutting out from the loess hills that surround it. It has a windy paved road that leads you to the top. I have no idea how far we could see.

This next picture is incredible. What you are looking at is land! I took this at an overlook from Steptoe butte with a 500mm lens. The lines you see within are from the agricultural equipment harvesting and tilling the land.

This lovely building was an old flour mill in a neighboring small town.

Wheat and more wheat!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 11:41 am and is filed under fine art, personal and tagged with travel, us, vacation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.