Camping at Banks Lake for Memorial Day

Over Memorial Day weekend we went to Banks Lake across the mountains with Karie, Jess, Mark and Tif. It was a lot of fun aside from not being able to stay in the state park. It's bizarre around here, I guess because the camping season is so short, but people make camping reservations MONTHS in advance. And don't even bother trying to get a site at a state park over a holiday weekend unless you book it a year beforehand. It's nuts. We had to stay at more primitive camping grounds with just an outhouse and a fire pit. But Jess was nice enough to buy us (mainly the girls) one of those portable showers/outhouses and built a toilet seat and we used a 5 gallon bucket and kitty litter. When Chuck and I first got there the girls said that the outhouse didn't smell but there were quite a few flies. Plus, our private outhouse was much closer to our campsite than the public one!! We had a lot of fun, us girls and Aaron hung out Friday and shot the breeze, chilled out with the guys for the afternoon and then sat around and read magazines while they went out in the evening.


On the boat






Aaron and Daddy having fun



We threw a lot of tennis balls for Skeet. That dog could go for days!!!


The guys enjoying the first day out


And, of course, Copper enjoying the sun

We also decided to make ice cream. I don't think I've ever made ice cream while camping, never wanted to take that much stuff, but Karie wanted it and we all enjoyed it!

And our lunch time fish fry


And Copper laying around, again. What's new?!

Tif and Mark enjoying the campfire with Aaron



Saturday we decided that we wanted to hike Steamboat rock. Yeah, that was a no-go. It stunk because we really wanted to hike to the top but it was so steep and slippery with loose rock, I just didn't feel safe with Aaron on my back.

Ha! Right!

These are the guys that took the first picture for us. It didn't seem too bad!

Tif going up, a little steep but we can do it!!

Uh, this is the going down part, not too sure about this. You can see part of the "trail" on the left side of the frame, right where the shadow starts and then it curves around to the right. Hmmmm...

Yeah, I don't think so. So here's Karie and Tif as far as they went up.


This was after we came down. We SO wanted to do it, but the down part was going to be the worst!!!

So we decided to go hike a canyon. It was definitely our cup of tea. Some shady parts, pretty level but some ups and downs and we could turn around without having to feel like we didn't reach our goal.



And while we were doing that, the guys were doing this


Yes, it has teeth!!!


Then Mark and Tif left and the rest of us enjoyed the evening coolness. I think Karie and Jess were trying to do his hair:



Aaron fell asleep with Daddy on our last night during our campfire

What ended up being the last day we were there, Karie and I went to the Dam to take the tour. We were all looking forward to the laser light show but a couple days before they were to kick off the season they decided they should check all the lasers and they didn't work. So the show was canceled indefinitely. Second time we didn't get to see it (October). The elevator for the tour was also broken, so the tour was much shorter and less informative and interesting than it should have been. Can we say "not prepared for the tourist season"? The lady said "maybe you can come back and see it" to some people obviously traveling from Asia. They laughed.
So this is the dam, Grand Coulee

This is the water above the dam, Lake Roosevelt, the biggest lake in the state

This is a really big crane that does something (we weren't very close to the tour guide so I didn't hear what it does. But it lifts a LOT!!!)

I thought this was funny. You throw this to someone who has fallen in to the water above the dam. Won't the people be sucked under before you can break this thing out?

This is us at the dam

These are where the water goes through the turbines and makes electricity, hence the power lines. He said something about the water going through one of each of the turbines is like the Colorado river going through each turbine, just as much force.

This is where the elevator goes down.

See those 12 tubes at the top of the hill? Water gets pumped from Lake Roosevelt into Banks Lake, that's what makes Banks. They said over 1 billion gallons can be pumped a day!!

This is what is at the top above the tubes

And the power plant on the other side of the dam

These views are from a lookout on the other side of the river/reservoir




And this is what Chuck caught while we were gone. Good job, honey, bringin' home the bacon...or, fish...

And that's Steamboat rock behind him.

When we decided to leave, we drove through Wenachee and got Sonic again!!


Well, I think that's about enough. I think I've taken a couple hours to write all of this, now to go pack!!