I have always loved the ocean. I spent my growing-up years in, on or at least somewhere near the Atlantic Ocean and its various bays. The feel of ocean water, its movement, how it smells and all the amazing life that it supports – wonderful. And whenever I looked over the ocean’s horizon, it wasn’t scary, but rather full of potential for what was just beyond what I could see. When I moved to Spokane – clearly, no ocean, but lots and lots of freshwater lakes and rivers. I have spent I can’t tell you how many of my adulthood hours, swimming in Lake Coeur d’Alene, Lake Pend Oreille, Priest Lake, etc. And sailing. And walking along riverbanks. And tossing sticks into whatever body of water, fast moving or still, that was before me, for our dog to fetch. Water is wonderful. As a young bride, newly relocated to Eastern Washington, lo those many years ago, I took my first drive to Seattle with my husband. Heading up the Sunset Hill, passing Four Lakes, then Fishtrap, then … yikes. Where did the water go? There was a long stretch – broken up briefly by Sprague Lake and Moses Lake – of what was the thirstiest landscape I’d encountered. It wasn’t until we crossed the Columbia River and drove up and past the Vantage Grade did I begin to see deciduous trees and bigger leafy plants that suggested the rainfall amounts required to support them. It got lush and humid and wet as we drove west. We were heading to … water! I just endured that unappealing stretch of land between Fishtrap and the Columbia over a number of years driving back and forth to Seattle. Not only was it dry, it was essentially treeless. One friend of like mind said it was best just to drive through there at night because the view would be just as interesting. So much for being young and stupid. It was still kind of dry for my taste, but I began to appreciate how the sunlight hit the terrain at different times of year and in different weather conditions. It still wasn’t water, of course, but it kind of grew on me. It’s hard to live in this neck of the woods and not learn about the wonderful Columbia Basin Project that brought irrigation to east-central Washington (ah, water!), which produces amazing amounts of agricultural products for export and to feed us all. But what really sold me on that, to me, foreign scenery was back when I worked at Eastern Washington University and I met the terrific Bob Quinn, professor of geography, who loved the environs of the state’s east side with a zeal and passion I couldn’t possibly imagine. He gave me some information, and I began to read about this landscape I’d so easily dismissed – land that was scoured by massive floods some 18,000 to 13,000 years ago (the last Ice Age), floods from glacial Lake Missoula that carved out the canyons and created braided waterways now known as the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington. The floods were cataclysmic, with estimates indicating that 500 cubic miles of water that was 2,000 feet deep, burst forth at 386 million cubic feet per second – all headed this way, and beyond, in one darn big rushing, gushing explosion. And then it built up and did it over and over again. That’s a lot of water. I began looking at the landscape differently as I drove through, marveling at the magnificence of that creation, and saw that it has its own beauty – not to mention a heck of a back story. How ignorant of me to just have ignored all that geologic magnificence because it didn’t fit into my preferred norm. I thought about that again on our most recent drive to Seattle to visit our son. Clearly, I am no longer a young adult full of not-burdened-by-knowledge opinion and attitude, but an older person with a fair number of miles on her and, I hope, a greater realization that everything deserves a second look – and also, that a little research is also a good thing. Because I read a book and some supporting literature, I discovered things that gave me a different set of eyes with which to see a particular section of the world around me. I’m trying still, even in my old age, to keep doing that. Never too old to read a book and learn something. Or to change a mind. The Spokesman Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net
