Grand Coulee Dam

Ken and I spent a week traveling just over the border in Washington State. We go down there usually twice a year. The Canadian long weekend in May is always spent with friends at Oroville State Park which is about five minutes from the border. Quite often it’s our first camping trip of the year so we are ready to blow of some steam and just relax, ready a good book and in the late afternoon and evening gather around the campfire with all our friends and have a few cold ones, a few laughs and sometimes some singing and dancing. It’s all good fun.

Our second week of holidays we spent camping in Omak which is a little south of Oroville and after a couple of nights there we headed to Grand Coulee Dam. We had always wanted to go there as so many have told us the laser show is a must see. The original plan was to go a few years ago on our motorcycle with friends but unfortunately that never worked out.

We had reservations at a campground south of the dam called Steamboat Rock State Park. What a beautiful campground. It’s called that because there is a mountain in the background that looks just like a steamboat. We were fortunate enough to have a spot right by the lake so it was easy to carry our kayaks down to the water.

The beach was lovely and the water was warmer than what we are used to; we took a swim to try and cool down as soon as we arrived as the temperature was about 95 degrees.

The park was so incredibly clean and well maintained with full services. There were three different grounds with a paved walk way that joined all three of them making it easy to ride a bike, skate board, roller blade or just plain walking from one campground to another campground.

This next part of the story comes with a bit of a warning label. That evening, we ventured back to Grand Coulee Dam to see the laser show. I had no idea what to expect. I suffer from time to time with a bit Vertigo so I wondered if the show would bother me. Like I said I had no idea what to expect. I thought the lasers would be up in the ski but no, they shine the lasers on the wall of the dam. It’s actually the story of the history of how Grand Coulee Dam came to be. It was very interesting and the show lasted about 30 minutes. Now, did it bother my Vertigo? Yes, but only slightly. I had some dizziness on the drive back to Steamboat Rock Park but once I sat quietly for a few minutes, I was better, not perfect but better. I stayed up for a while as sometimes when I lay down it’s a problem. The next morning I woke up and I was just fine. I said to Ken on the way back to the park that I was glad we hadn’t come down on the motorcycle because it could have been interesting getting me home.

So, if you suffer from Vertigo you might want to think about it before you take in the laser show.

The next day we hung out at the park and did a lot of swimming and then took the Kayaks out onto Banks Lake. It was such a beautiful afternoon. At that point, we wished that our reservations were for more than two nights because it was such a beautiful spot but when we got up the next morning, there was so much smoke in the area from all the forest fires around us that we thought we may as well head back to Canada. It was of course just about as smoky at home as well because of all the fires in our area.