Wednesday, June 26, 2013

06-26-13

Yesterday it rained off and on all day.
We took a ride to the Mc Nary dam.

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We drove to the Oregon side of the river and went to the dam visitors center and watched some salmon swim by the fish counter on a monitor.

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From there we went to the town of Hermiston where they have a Walmart where we picked up a few things.
From Walmart we went back to plan “B” and had lunch.

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Around 3:00 we took a drive west on the Washington side of the river. We saw a bunch of wind generators across the river.

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At the time none of them were turning.
I thought that the windmills were a bit superfluous with all the Hydro Power that the river produces. 
The ride wasn’t very exciting so after about 40 miles we turned around and headed for home.
On the way home we noticed that the wind mills were turning. I’m not sure what controls whether or not they turn, it may be just a matter of wind speed.

We decided to take a look at the Locks which are on the Washington side of the dam.

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We sat for a while watching the river and saw several Pelicans,

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Cormorants, and Gulls flying, floating and sitting on posts near the locks.

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While we were watching the water and birds we could hear some loud booms coming from the opposite side of the river. I figured that it was a Carbide or Gas cannon being fired to scare off the birds. 
After a little while we could hear a different boom coming from our side of the dam.
As it turned out it was a dam worker standing on the top of a wall near the locks throwing fireworks toward the water.

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All this noise didn’t appear to disturb the birds a bit.
 

We watched for a while and then went home.

Today we are leaving here for Redman, Oregon.

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