Random review . . .

So after unwillingly donating blood at the wildlife refuge, we restored our strength at Quiznos in Moses Lake on the way home. I was pretty excited to see that they now have a buffalo chicken sub, so of course I got it. Disappointing, I've got to say.

Many moons ago, I had this idea myself and crafted such a sandwich. I put a chicken patty on a bun, added blue cheese crumbles, blue cheese dressing, small-sliced celery sticks, and Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce. It was deeeelicious, and genuine chicken would've made it even better.

The Quiznos version . . . well, I liked the bread. Otherwise, though, the chicken was kind of boiled and mushy, the sauce was spicy but not really buffalo-y, and there was no form of blue cheese on it anywhere (they used ranch dressing and some kind of white cheese . . . provolone?). Kind of a stretch, in my opinion, to say it was a true buffalo chicken sandwich.

I still dig Quiznos. There will always be a warm spot in my heart since I first went there the night my daughter was born. I appreciated the yummy sandwich that night and also the fact that they helped me avoid hospital food.

Columbia National Wildlife Refuge

South of Moses Lake and northwest of Othello is a large area of land that was scoured in a major way by prehistoric flooding. On Google Maps it looks like:

According to Wikipedia, the area is:
"an extensively eroded channeled scablands landscape, characterized by hundreds of isolated, steep-sided hills (buttes) surrounded by a braided network of numerous channels. All but the channel through which Crab Creek flows are currently dry. It is a classic example of the tremendous erosive powers of extremely large floods such as those that reformed the Columbia Plateau volcanic terrain during the late Pleistocene glacial Missoula Floods."

It really is a weird landscape. Since we'd already spent a good chunk of time at the playground (see previous entry), the temperature was up closer to 80 and, as you can guess from the image above, there isn't much in the way of shade.

I checked some maps in advance and the marquee trail seemed to be the one along Crab Creek. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes over here hadn't gotten the word that it's near the end of September and they're supposed to be done munching on people. I got EATEN alive and had trouble sleeping last night from all the bites on my legs. Also, it turns out the rattlesnakes have not gotten the message either, seeing as we did have a little run-in with one (who rattled a lot but was happy to escape into the brush). I also saw a reddish brown/black snake that was really fast (thankfully heading away from us). Wasps/hornets were in abundance too, although thankfully not aggressive either.

So maybe this is a good hike to do in a month or two in the morning if you really like birds. As it was, I have no desire to do it anytime soon. (Man, I ITCH!) The kids did NOT dig it either and L soon took them back to the car. My 2 year old was in the backpack, so he had to come with me.

Perhaps I'd be game for going back, though, with a mountain bike to do some exploring. Or the paved route through the heart of the park with be good to work into a road bike loop.


You can really get the idea that a LOT of water has poured through here in the past. From this angle, it seems there wouldn't be any mosquitoes, right?


Ah, but now that you see this angle . . . "riparian habitat" . . . "ripe" for breeding blood-suckers!

Potholes State Park

Summer is not quite going away yet, so we headed down south of Moses Lake yesterday to do some exploring. We were heading to a wildlife refuge mostly, but along the way I saw a turnoff for Potholes State Park.
Since I enjoy exploring, we detoured in to have a look around. Quickly, my playground junkie kids spotted a nice, huge, new-looking piece of equipment. The whining began. Eventually we relented to let them "play for a few minutes".
The park was pretty and the weather was 70-ish degrees. We found lots of wide open space with green lawn and pretty trees. If I had a boat, this would be a really fun place to put in and head up to explore the Pothole lakes to the northwest.
Signs posed a FAQ including "Why are there so many mosquitoes?", which wasn't a concern for us but hey, it's nearing the end of September.
OK, now for some photos!

Cheeeeeeeeese! Looks like he wore his crash pants . . .


The joy of going down himself!


He's freaking out not because the slide was so high but because he wanted to go down himself. Ah, the joys of being 2.


Like I said, pretty grass and trees along the reservoir.

Trip to Winthrop and North Cascades National Park

We drove a whole lot yesterday and I put together a little slideshow because I wanted to play with Aperture 3. The audio I used got axed by YouTube but I still went with them anyway because I was able to upload the show in HD.