Eastern Washington State is a place apart in its unique geology and cultural history. Gently rolling, arid and at first glance unproductive farmland sits side by side with sagebrush. Tumbleweeds blow across fields until reaching the Columbia, Snake and Yakima Rivers that converge in the adjacent Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco. Vast blue skies give a sense of space not found in the forested and mountainous western part of the state. The mighty Columbia River that Lewis and Clark navigated is tamed now by innumerable dams. Its water irrigates enormous stretches of otherwise dry shrub steppe. That irrigation, coupled with 300 days of sunshine annually, results in some of the nation’s largest harvests of fruit, grain, potatoes, hay and wine. Enormous barges move this abundance from the Columbia River Basin to the Pacific. Equally significant, the dams produce electricity for the entire area.

The scenery along the Columbia and the Palouse rivers provides views unknown in the East. Eons ago a cataclysmic flood equaling the contents of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie broke through surrounding land barriers during a single 48-hour period, fundamentally reconfiguring the downstream landscape. It created deep deposits of fertile topsoil forming the basis of today’s agriculture. Subsequent smaller-scale floods created undulating hills, gorges, and terraced configurations. Earlier volcanic formations were exposed leaving striated basalt formations. Waterfalls abound as streams and rivers make their way downstream.