YAKIMA CANYON

BUM and BUMMER (1939) RANCH ROAD, YAKIMA CANYON, WASHINGTON

SNOQUALMIE PASS, I-90, NEAR SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

SNOQUALMIE PASS SKI RESORT, 50 MILES EAST OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

I-90 NEAR CLE ELUM, WASHINGTON

CLLIMBING OUT OF YAKIMA CANYON...ELLENSBURG DEAD AHEAD

FISHING IS GREAT (Rainbow Trout), YAKIMA RIVER, YAKIMA CANYON

INTERESTING SADDLE-BACK MOUNTAIN, YAKIMA CANYON

VAN & SAM'S TRAILER, YAKIMA CANYON

IN 1940'S, CARS FLEW OVER THAT CLIFF - YAKIMA RIVER IS BELOW

THE HEAD OF THE LOWER PIC

THE TAIL OF THE UPPER PIC

GRASS BLANKET CLINGS TO FALLEN HILLSIDE, YAKIMA CANYON

ONE MUST HAVE - AND DISPLAY - A FISHING PERMIT TO "ANGLE" HERE

RV / CAMPGROUNDS ARE PLENTIFUL IN THE YAKIMA CANYON

BUM and BUMMER RANCH ROAD...YES, WE ATE BOTH OF THEM - GREAT DEPRESSION WAS JUST ENDING IN 1939

MULTI-COLORED CRYSTAL CLEAR YAKIMA RIVER WATERS - YAKIMA CANYON

ABANDONED CAMP - NOW "IN" THE YAKIMA RIVER, YAKIMA CANYON

IN 1940, THIS WAS THE "ONLY" ROAD INTO THE YAKIMA VALLEY FROM SEATTLE.

SOUTH ENTRANCE TO THE YAKIMA CANYON, WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State has a little known Vacation Playground only a couple hours from Seattle. This Playground used to be the main highway - before I-90 and I-82 Freeway - between ELLENSBURG and YAKIMA, Washington, East of the Cascade Mountains on I-90. It is called The Yakima Canyon. The Yakima River runs thu it. Rainbow Trout fishing, I was told was great on Saturday as dozens of boats drifted with the slow moving current.

Driving SAM back from Denver, I decided to take the old Canyon Road. It was much as I remember it back in the 30's and 40's when top speed limit was about 35 mph and gas cost $0.16 a gallon. I vividly remember earning a penny a minute for scratching Dad's head as we drove along (YUCK).

I took it slow through the Canyon, stopping often to take pictures. I would like to share those pictures. To enlarge, double click the pics...I was told by a fisherman drifting by in his boat that there were a number of Big Horn Sheep on the steep slopes...I have looked, but have not found them.

One picture, BUM and BUMMER, is memorable as our baby lambs were purchased from a Ranch at the end of that road (I stopped, took the picture, and had a silent few words of rememberance). Little Brother, Jim - 2 years old, and I - 4 years old, were allowed to sleep with our lambs the first few nights...we shared a single bed in the unheated upstairs which had no floor...we had to hop from rafter to rafter to get to the bed. In the really cold months, we didn't bother to go down the stairs and outside to the two-holer (we had no running water)...we simply tinkled between the wall studs; that is until we both got switched with Willow branches for smelling up Mother & Dad's clothes closet below. In 1943, we got well water piped into the house and a toilet was installed.

BUM and BUMMER were served up with Potatoes & Dumplings in the Spring...we were still in the Great Depression and ate mostly what came from our Stump Ranch and the forest leading up the hillside to US 99.

In mid-Summer, we had a Wild Blackberry stand on US 99. We also took orders for Christmas Trees on Seattle's Queen Ann Hill during Thanksgiving at Mom Brockman's (Mother's Mother). We cut each tree for a specific order, but usually had to go back to cut another one because cars stopped us on US 99 and bought them as we dragged them home.

Jim and I worked since we were still babies - Jim was 4...I was 6 when we started work in the Kent Valley Japanese Truck Farms in the Summer of 1941. We had to walk 5 miles each way. Neither of us let a non-work day go by since. Brother Jim died in June 2008. I miss Jim.

Guess I should write a blog or two about our Stump Ranch. I am the only one still living who lived through those times on our Stump Ranch...and what times they were. Most everything we built still stands and is lived in to this day...OK...I'll drive down in the next week or so, take a bunch of pics, chat with the folks who live there now...then, share it all here on "Seniors".

It is now 7:00 am, the next day, Tuesday. I am astounded how the subject matter above has travelled. Started out as a trip report about the Yakima Canyon and WOW, where it ended up.

Don't know if this kind of transition is wise or appropriate. I just let my "fingers do the typing" and am amazed as what comes out. Seems to be how private conversations with friends go...start one place and end up on seemingly unrelated paths.

Reminds me of some of my writing instructors..."just write...write anything...just let the words flow...they will find their way...". Yeah, but how about sticking to the subject, fella.

Then again, on the umpteenth time re-reading this narrative, I find a thread from the Stump Ranch leading back to that lonely canyon road pictured in the BUM and BUMMER pic.

Snow is in the Mountains...made it home with SAM just in time.