One Park, One Museum, One Stamp at a Time
I moved to Spokane, WA last summer after living in Southern California for a number of years. I went to college in Spokane and lived there previously for a stretch. One of my favorite sites in Spokane is Riverfront Park located in the heart of downtown. The park was built to house EXPO '74 and the area once housed the regions rail yard. The park is made up of land and islands along and in the Spokane River. It is a beautiful park and civic center that is a must visit if traveling to Spokane. In all of my visits to Riverfront Park, I had never gotten around to walking down to the lower falls area to see Spokane Falls. There are a series of falls in the park and then a large waterfall on the west end of the park. Every time I have driven by the river recently, I have made a mental note to make it down to the falls during the spring run-off. Easter Sunday 2019 was a beautiful spring day so my wife and I decided to finally make the trek to falls and spend an afternoon in the park. We started with brunch at one of our favorite spots, the Logan Tavern near Gonzaga. We then walked downtown along the Spokane River and made our way to the falls. They have been doing a series of renovations in the park in recent years and have added some new features. For those interested, there is a gondola ride that takes you over the falls and the river as well as a skating ribbon in the park. Riverfront Park has a series of hydroelectric stations near the various falls and the power company Avista has built a park open to the public near the main falls. It was a beautiful day and the park was a perfect way to spend an afternoon as we took in one of the great natural sites in Eastern Washington.
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As my spring break from teaching came to an end, I set out on my first National Parks trip of 2019. April 1 brought the opening for many of Washington's state parks and made a few stamps available for the first time in 2019. I planned out a route from my home in Spokane to 5 sites in Eastern Washington representing a new NPS unit and stops on 3 NPS affiliated trails. Early Morning Drive Through the PalouseI hit the road early Friday morning with my first planned stop being Lewis and Clark Trail State Park outside Dayton, WA. This was going to be about a 2 hour drive south, a good portion of which would follow a portion of the Palouse Scenic Byway. The Palouse covers a large area of southeastern Washington state and is an interesting and serene landscape to take in while driving. The entire region is made up of rolling hills that resemble sand dunes and hills. The area was formed during the last ice ages as glacial floods swept across the area and winds blew dust from the large ice age lakes into the Palouse where it settled to create the rolling countryside that exists today. The region is home to abundant wheat farms and a number of small communities. I took highway US 195 south to WA 26 and then headed south toward the Snake River. A Day on the TrailsAfter leaving the Palouse Scenic Byway, I continued to head southwest and drove through the small town of Dayton. I stopped and wandered around to take in some of the historic buildings found along the highway. My first NPS stop was at Lewis and Clark Trails State Park to pick up their stamp for the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. This is small state park made up of a campground along a small river and a small interpretative area and picnic space. I was the first person to request the stamp since they opened earlier in the week and I got to break in the 2019 on the stamp. The Lewis and Clark NHT was the first of 3 NPS trails that I would make a stop in during the day. Whitman Mission National Historic Site.About a half hour after Lewis and Clark Trails, I passed through Walla Walla and made my way to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site. This small Parks unit commemorates the lives of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman as well as the Cayuse people that called the area home. The Whitmans and another family, the Spaldings, were some of the earliest settlers to travel across the United States and settle in the Pacific Northwest. Both couples traveled west as missionaries to spread their faith to the Native American populations of the Northwest. The Spaldings settled with Nez Perce nearby in Idaho and the Whitmans set up their mission with the Cayuse at Waiilatpu near present day Walla Walla. Narcissa and Eliza Spalding became the first white women to travel across the Rocky Mountains into the west. The Whitmans ran the mission for 11 years at Waiilatpu where they worked with local Cayuse people and began to serve as a rest stop and medical refuge for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. As more and more white settlers began to travel through the area, more and more disease began to spread among the Cayuse. Whitman, a medical doctor, tended to both white travels and Cayuse people. While Whitman's efforts seemed to benefit the white travelers, the Cayuse continued to die in large numbers. A group of Cayuse decided that Whitman was to blame for the death and disease inflicting their people. On November 29, 1847, Marcus, Narcissa, and 11 emigrants on the Oregon Trail were killed by a group of Cayuse. What became known as the Whitman Massacre. The killings sparked violence and war between settlers and the natives. The modern day mission and historical site is a small area that will not take terribly long to experience in full. There is a visitor center with a small museum and a video on the Whitmans and the Cayuse. I had watched the video on YouTube prior to my visit so that saved me some time at the site. Beyond the visitor center, there are two short loop trails to explore. The first climbs up a small hill past the mission cemetery to a monument overlooking the Walla Walla River valley. The return leg of this loop takes you along a refurbished portion of the actual Oregon Trail. There are wagon ruts and a replica wagon along the trail to demonstrate what the conditions may have been like. The second brief trail takes you through the former mission site. Nothing remains of the original mission so interpretive signs describe what the mission was like in the 1840s. Overall, the Whitman Mission site is an enjoyable, brief, NPS stop. The entire site can be taken in an hour or so. I found the video about the Whitmans and the Cayuse to be riveting history and interesting viewing. The site is its own Historical Site and is also a part of the Oregon National Historic Trail which adds an extra layer of history to your visit. A Few Stops in the Tri-CitiesFrom Whitman Mission I continued west into the Tri-Cities area. I made a quick drive through McNary National Wildlife Refuge and then stopped at Sacajawea State Park. Sacajawea is a small park located at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. The park is a day-use area with multiple picnic areas and a beach. There is a nice interpretative center that focuses on Sacajawea and the native peoples that called the area home. The museum is worth a visit and is home to another stamp on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. My next stop was for lunch at Ice Harbor Brewing at the Marina, a brewpub located on a small island in the Columbia in Kennewick, WA. The food was great, although I was not a big fan of the beer. The small island, Clover Island, is home to a light house and had some bike paths/trails to walk on if you have the time. The final stop for the day was the REACH Museum in Richland. The REACH is an awesome little museum dedicated to the geography, land, and use of the natural environment of the Hanford Reach and the area surrounding the Tri-Cities along the Columbia River. The exhibits on the Ice Age floods were very interesting and they had some fun interactive to demonstrate the floods and the impact they had on the geography of the area. Other exhibits include the wildlife of the Reach, the early settlement of the area, and the history of the Hanford complex of the Manhattan Project. I find the history of the Manhattan Project fascinating and would have loved the exhibits, except I visited the Hanford Reactor B last summer and was very familiar with the history. The exhibits and videos were well put together but had little new information for me. The REACH is a stop on the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail so I grabbed my stamp and hit the road for the 2 and half hour drive home to Spokane. All of these stops are very much doable in one day, even when starting in Spokane. Starting and ending in the Tri-Cities or Walla Walla would allow more time for exploring the different sites. If you planned your trip out in advance, you could time your trip to also include a tour of Hanford Reactor B through the Manhattan Project National Historic Park. New Units Visited: 1
Ice Age Floods NGT - Lewis and Clark NHT - Oregon NHT - Whitman Mission NHS Total Affiliated Areas This Year: 4 Total Units: 35 |
NPS Units:
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