May, 2019
This was my final full day here in the Yakima Valley. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. There has been so much to see on this trip! As you can guess, I was out and about again today to see even more.
I saw so much stuff today. Man I saw stuff. I’ll show you the highlights. First I’ll show you a few photos from this morning’s drive out and about, and then in the next and final blog post, I’ll show you photos from this afternoon’s excursion.
So … this morning, I headed a wee bit north this time, and west again … just on some quiet back roads. I simply meandered and looked at homes and farms and animals and such.
My first exciting find was loads and loads of goats. For some reason, the people along the road that I was traveling liked to raise goats. Everywhere I looked there were goats. All kinds of goats. Black goats, white goats, brown goats, spotted goats, tan goats, fluffy goats, big goats, little goats, goats with ears that stuck UP, and goats with ears that hung down. I never knew there were so many different shapes and sizes and variations of goats!
I’ll share just two photos of this one herd here with you.
They were pretty cute, all of them.
My next find was this gorgeous horse. Oh, she was pretty.
There were lots of horses out here, but this gal was my favorite.
As I drove further away from the city of Yakima, the homes and small farms that were relatively close to each other soon gave way to larger farms and more space, more room, more elbow room, more room to breathe. It felt good.
And then fairly soon, those larger farms disappeared altogether.
Have to admit, after just five days here, I was beginning to appreciate the distances, the length and the breadth, the space, the sky. Maybe I could learn to love this place.
The road I was on started following a river, not as wild of a river as the one yesterday, but a small river that was coming from some place and going to some place. That small river continued along with me for a few miles. Around one bend in the road, I spied a lake with a small dam … the river I had been following flowed from that lake.
I was thinking about where I could pull off the road to take photos of the lake and the dam when a LOUD CRANKY decrepit pickup truck rammed up behind my big white truck and honked and swerved and was all manner of rude. I resisted the urge to respond in kind … my big white truck could out-blast his any day … I simply pulled over and let him pass. Be gone you fool.
And I’m so glad I did that! You’ll see why in a moment. It had nothing to do with him. After I stopped my truck and took a few deep breaths, I looked to the left.
Here’s what I saw out my truck’s window …..
Do you see it?
Ok, here’s a clue ….
Yes, an eagle!
Right there on top of that power pole!
I would have driven right past it.
It was across the road from me and it was quite a ways away from the road, not at all close to the road, but it was there. I never would have seen it but for my “friend” in that decrepit pickup truck.
I shut the engine off and just sat in the truck for awhile and watched. The eagle sat there as well, for several minutes.
I got out of the truck, camera in hand, and walked back down the road to a place where I hoped I could get a better view and be a little bit closer.
Problem was that I was then looking at his/her back … not particularly exciting. And I had this solid mud/rock wall in front of me that I didn’t dare try to climb.
It seems to me, over the years that I’ve been rattling around in this world and whenever I’ve been near wildlife, that making a little bit of noise is good … it let’s them know I’m there so they aren’t surprised, but it’s not so much noise that it bothers them. I clicked and whistled a bit for this eagle and he/she promptly turned her head and looked directly at me. Of course, that’s not when I had the camera focused. But I did manage the photo above, just a moment later. She knew I was there, but turned her head away from me and turned back to look in front of her. She preened herself and watched her surroundings. I was disappointed not to get a better photo, but I also thought that was pretty cool that she let me stay that close. I could just hear her thoughts, “oh my word, there’s another one of those bipedal things with a black box in front of their face … sigh … they are all rather odd, those bipedal no-wings things aren’t they?”
I was so thrilled. 🙂
I walked along the road back towards the truck, but on the same side of the road that the eagle was on. As soon as I got around that mud/rock wall, I clambered out over rocks and scree as far as I dared towards her.
I think she looked at me a few times … with one eye. But she sure didn’t seem bothered by me at all.
Mostly I just stood or sat, and watched, and wondered. I just was. Sometimes I watched her, sometimes I watched the river, the lake, other things.
I continued to chirp and whistle occasionally, very quietly. She always turned her head and looked at me when I did that. I hoped I was saying nice things.
Then I moved again, further along the road to a place where I could get further off the road and closer to her. I was as far off the road and as close to her as I could get without getting into really rough terrain.
I was there with her for almost two hours. Part of me wanted to stay there forever. But I was getting hungry for my lunch. Eventually, I scrambled back to the truck and drove on up the road a bit … not very far. Then I turned the truck around and headed back down the road. When I drove back past the power pole, she was gone. Maybe she was hungry and had headed out in search of her lunch too. I hope she found a most extraordinarily delicious lunch.
I have to wish the fellow well … that fellow in that loud banging decrepit pickup truck. Maybe he had just heard that his dog or his father or his daughter, or who knows, was sick and needed help asap. That interaction with him brought me a miracle. I hope it brought him one too.