Grand Coulee Dam

We drove up to Grand Coulee. It is a very pretty drive between Coulee City and Grand Coulee because the road follows Banks Lake. The dam is incredible and there is a very nice visitors center that contains all kinds of stuff that was used during the building of it. They have a laser show at the dam when it gets dark starting Memorial Weekend that is supposed to be worth seeing.

We stopped at Steamboat Rock State Park along Banks Lake. I took a picture of the "steamboat rock". The rock broke off and was pushed out from the canyon wall during the great flood that caused the huge waterfall at Dry Falls way back at the end of the ice age.

We survived the walleye tournament at the park this past weekend. Most of the fishermen were nice guys but we had a few that made life miserable. The other problem with our park is that it doesn't have any closed hours. We have people drive through the park at 1AM -- slowly--and it makes us very nervous -- but they aren't breaking any rule so we are kind of stuck putting up with it. Not sure we are going to stay if we don't feel safe.

Smallmouth & Two Bears Falls

Jim caught a very nice smallmouth over 3 lbs. I still have yet to catch a fish. I also took a picture of this "falls". If you click on it to make it bigger you can see the two black spots that give it the the name "two bears falls".

We are getting ready for a big walleye tournament that takes place here on May 21st and 22nd. Guys are coming in a week early to "prefish" and get a camping spot. Our campground doesn't take reservations its strictly first come first serve. Jim gets to be out on the launch where the judges sit and watch as they start the tournament. Its fun to watch all the boats take off full blast to get out to their fishing spots. Last year some big walleyes were brought in -- up to 14 lbs.

We are not looking forward to Memorial Weekend. There is a rodeo in town and they say we might have 1000 people in the campground. There are only four of us camphosts and maybe and extra police officer on duty. We have decided to stick it out and see how it goes.

First Fish

We have had the boat out twice so far. The weather seems to be stuck in the 50's and the nice days are very windy. Jim managed to catch a nice trout. The meat is pink like a salmon and it was very tasty. We were also given a fresh caught "lingcod" or eelpout. I boiled it and we dipped it in butter -- poor man's lobster -- it was good.

We are fishing in Banks Lake and the sides of the lake are canyon walls. The white streaks along the walls are from spring waterfalls. We missed the actual falls -- that's when the snow is rapidly melting. Life here is a bit different with everything being a long drive. We had to go all the way to Spokane to get the trolling motor for the boat fixed. That is 180 miles round trip and when you are lucky to get 10 to12 miles to the gallon it gets expensive. There is a Walmart about 30 miles away so we are trying to stock up when we do drive that far. The good thing is there is a small grocery store here in Coulee City that sells good meat.

We are surviving the typical challenges of a new home for the summer -- finding good meat, good places to get things fixed, where to get haircuts and where there might be a good place to go out to eat. So far we haven't found much in the way of restaurants. The campground is nice so far -- not busy at all so we have it mostly to ourselves -- I should say us and another camphost couple. We work three days on and then have three days off and just keep rotating the schedule that way. We have met lots of nice local people -- who feed Jim cookies and cinnamon buns.