Blythe Lake, Goose Lakes Plateau — Sunday, Apr. 11, 2004

Do not avoid Potholes Reservoir like I did for so long, thinking it’d be crowded and full of noisy party people. We had a great, relaxing trip and the campground was quiet. Sarah and I stayed at the Soda Lake car campground within the Columbia Wildlife Refuge near O’Sullivan Dam (camping elsewhere within the Refuge is prohibited). We took the scenic drive down to the Marsh Units and Frog Lake area, wandered along Crab Creek and enjoyed the fruits of the wetlands restoration project – lots of birds and frogs. We continued on, and stopped at the end of the road at Goose Lake, and walked along the bottom of the coulee poking at tumbleweeds and posing with them for photos like a couple of dweebs. We then wandered to the top of a coulee wall and lay on rocks (no snakes yet). Here we enjoyed the sounds of a playful crow, making whimsical clucking and clicking sounds, each routine different from the last. We could hear his wings slice the air as he swished by us every few minutes. Soon I heard a strange trilling cooing sound that got louder and louder. I looked up to see a large flock of sanhill cranes high overhead. The scent of the sagebrush and of the freshly disced and churned farmland hung heavy and sweet in the air. Because we were constantly stopping to appreciate the sounds, scents, silence and views, it took us about 3 hours to do a 20 minute walk. That’s what happens in central Washington. And that’s okay. Sunday we headed to the Blythe Lake trailhead. From just west of the Mar-Don Resort which is just west of the dam, turn south. Take the road that runs next to the blue maintenance shed – it looks like you’re headed into the equipment yard, but keep going anyway, and soon you’ll be driving along a beautiful coulee floor, studded with glistening lakes. Drive to the end of the road, park, and then start walking the gated road. Head up when it’s obvious to do so, and take a short, steep huff of a trail to the top of the coulee wall where a glorious expanse of shrub steppe awaits you. When the choice to do so arose, we headed down to the wetlands restoration. There we saw hundreds of goofy-looking buffleheads, brilliant red-winged blackbirds, coots, grebes and hundreds upon hundreds of sandhill cranes, their cooing reverberating against the canyon walls. We got a bang out of the frogs there. When you walk up to the rim of the pond, they make a funny meow-hiccough sound as they plop into the water. We bothered them for quite some time, just to hear them meow and plop. Nature is so funny. If you doubt that a frog can meow, you should go here. There are dozens of walking roads you can take in the Columbia WLR. I'm going back here soon, before it gets too hot! And now for the restaurant recommendation: We drove up to Moses Lake and ate at Shilo Inn’s restaurant, “Bob’s.” It sounds stupid and boring, but the life-sized aluminum palm trees out front piqued our interest and drew us in. It’s right off of I-90 just west of Hwy 17, the road you take from Potholes to Moses Lake. The hamburgers were excellent, and there I had the best bread pudding I’ve had in a long time, only $2.25. It even beat the $6 bread pudding I had at a certain Redmond establishment a few weeks ago. I’m a bread pudding connoisseur, so you can trust what I say.