After a brief summer in Idaho, back on the road in Riparia, Washington
Oh look. Trees. Aren’t they nice. Perhaps you are wondering: “Why are you taking pictures of trees, as if they were in some way remarkable?” Well, they kind of are remarkable when you compare them to the miles and miles of desolation that surrounds them. They are no doubt what gives ‘Riparia’ its name. Below the lovely trees there is a view from Riparia across the Snake River. It shows what everything else around Riparia looks like. So Riparia is like a little slice of heaven in the middle of a giant wasteland. I guess it wasn’t a large enough slice of heaven to keep anyone there, as the actual town of Riparia is a ghost town.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the desert. I expend a lot of time, money and effort to travel in the desert every year because I really love it. But there’s something about a lush, riparian landscape in the middle of the desert that you can’t help rejoicing over.
I spent a brief and hellish summer in northern Idaho building a new place to live. It was hellish because it was over 100 degrees (doesn't happen in northern Idaho) and we were choking on smoke from numerous forest fires. The smoke was so bad I couldn’t see across my property sometimes. And these conditions lasted for weeks. They did not relent until it started to rain, and that was when I threw in the towel and departed. Rain makes a nice sound on the roof, but I can’t stand dark, gloomy days. I just want to go to sleep until the sun comes out again. Thankfully, I finished my building project just in time to leave town when the rain started, and I now have a brand, spanking new rig. Gone is the 35 foot motorhome, and I now have a nano-house in the back of a pickup truck that’s about 6.5 x 5.5 feet. Nice and maneuverable. AND it has 4WD. So I’m off for the wide open spaces.
There they are: miles of brown hills. That’s what half the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho look like.