Things Seen on the Road

The Willamette Valley is just beautiful.  It is kept beautiful by very restrictive land use laws.  Thou shalt not buy a piece of prime farm land and subdivide.  Oh nay nay. One of the things they grow there is Meadowfoam.  Unfortunately I did not get a good picture out of the moving vehicle with all of the dead bugs on the wind shield.  It’s an oil seed, used for cosmetics.  The oil is very stable since it contains long chain fatty acids.  It’s pollinated by bees, they have a 24 hour window to get the job done on the flowers, so bee saturation is necessary. 

These are GE thrust reversers.  They will be used on 787 airplanes.  We know that because they had a label on each one.

Grain terminals along Columbia river near Kalama, WA.  According to the internet, its the largest grain elevator on the west coast.  Hopefully the proposed trade wars will not interrupt commerce here.

It always weirds us out a little to see deep draft ships this far inland.  The Columbia is deep.

I love this side car with the two people.  There is a dog in the side car – he has a windshield to protect his eyes, unlike his owners. 

The laurel has been growing since we were last in Issaquah.  We spent about an hour trimming it so we could put the slide out and open the door.

Look at the size of this thing! It’s an amazing plant.

Jim washed the windshield – too many dead bugs!  The weather is nice, it’s sort of unnerving, it usually rains Memorial Day weekend.

We’re here early enough this year to see some of the blooming plants.

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We are here for a while.  Now it’s time to go buy an outdoor rug.