Yesterday Mr Cow and I went on a roadtrip to pay land taxes in Ellensburg, and go hiking in the Yakima River Canyon.
I couldn't stop taking mountain and scenery pictures, it was just such a gorgeous day. Rain! Stormclouds! Dark day! Bright day! Sun's out! Blue sky! Puffy Clouds! Hail! Storm clouds! Blue sky! Puffy Clouds! etc etc.
Some selections from the day follow here.
SNOW! Yup, still snow up in the mountain passes:
Why all the different kinds of power poles?
Enjoyed many rocky hillsides as we followed the Yakima River canyon...
Lovely views unfold as you go further down the river....
We crossed the river on this suspension bridge
and hiked up the canyon along the Umtanum Creek.
In the canyon, some flowers are out, and the flowering trees are at their peak or just starting. Lots of pears, apples, almonds, and walnuts. And then this gorgeous flowering quince!
And this lavender was just a day or two away from bursting out:
And a lovely apple tree almost ready to blossom:
The basalt cliffs along the canyon are fascinating, the colors, striations, formations and caves make every new turn in the trail interesting.
I loved this stretch of huckleberry with quaking aspen growing up through the bushes.
Sadly, it was time to head for home - we turned around and realized how high we'd climbed, at least 400' in elevation. And a long way to the truck!
Of course we stopped for dinner at the Bar14. For one thing, we were hungry, but also we didn't want to hit city traffic at rush hour, on the other side of the mountains.
Of course, there were lovely snowy mountains to see on the drive home, because we were going back through them:
Got home for a lovely pink sky over downtown Seattle:
It was a great day, today I'm stiff from the hike but ready to go again!
