Week 169 Update

It was 05:30 in Spokane, Washington and 52º when I stepped up on our small traveling (Healthometer) Mr. Scale and he said, "186.5 pounds!"

Our week is over but we will carry the memories with us. It was a lot of fun! Dotti, Leroy and I all arrived on Saturday, and we almost immediately headed over to Costco for a quick bit of a shopping and a Very Berry Sundae before they closed.

During these weeks, Dotti and Tammy often take off on shopping and other errands and we don't see them until the evening. So, my eating sometimes degrades to what I did on Sunday, where I had 2 cheeseburgers at lunch and another hamburger in the evening. Still my points were only 53.5 for the day, so I didn't go crazy.

On Monday, Jim and I did a bit of walking, even though the temperature was 98º outside. It all totaled up to about 1.2 miles, and we did it at nice leisurely pace, so it was not bad at all. Just getting out and finally walking a bit was a very good thing. I did better on my points, only eating 42.0 that day, including a nice steak that Jim barbecued up on the grill outside.

Tuesday was probably my favorite day, although I enjoyed them all. We took a little trip to the Grand Coulee to see the Grand Coulee Dam, and Dry Falls. It was great!

The Grand Coulee is a huge trench that is cut into the volcanic basalt of central Washington State. It was cut by the water from the dammed Columbia River during the last ice age. Moses Coulee, a similar trench was cut to the west of the Grand Coulee earlier on, as the ice advanced southward damming the Columbia River at a more westerly point. However the ice finally dammed off that path as well and a new route was forced upon it.

At the Grand Coulee Dam they had a brochure with a picture on it that was taken looking south when the dam was first built. In it you can see what happened with the glacier came along and blocked the Columbia River right about where the dam is today. The glacier was much taller than the dam is, and the lake that it backed up, which is today called "Glacial Lake Columbia," was much deeper than Lake Roosevelt is behind the Grand Coulee Dam, and it covered an area that included all of the Spokane Valley and right into Idaho and today's Coeur d'Alene Lake. The level of Glacial Lake Columbia rose up to the point where it flowed right over the top of the ridge to the south and down what was then a river valley. It cut a path through the valley and made its way through this alternate path all the way down to where it joined up with its old river route and continued on its way. Down this valley it came to a very large drop off where it created a huge falls, much larger than Niagara Falls is today.

Then, towards the end of the ice age, there occurred a tremendous flood (several of them actually) that was released when Glacial Lake Missoula broke through its ice dam and sent 500 cubic miles of water gushing over central Washington. The bulk of that water came right over the top of this river valley where the Columbia was flowing, and it ripped the huge channel that you can see running off to the south. It is 6 miles wide in places and still it could not contain the water in places.

Later, when the glaciers retreated, the Columbia returned to its original path. The granite foundation of the mouth of the Grand Coulee proved too tough for the water, and it did not erode down to normal river level. So, that path was left high and dry, hundreds of feet in the air.

Today the Grand Coulee Dam forms a miniature replica of the old glacial dam and it backs up a much smaller lake behind it. While the lake is not deep enough to reach the Grand Coulee directly, the dam, which has the capacity to produce over 6,480 megawatts of power, uses some of its electrical power to drive pumps. These pumps move water from Lake Roosevelt up to the Grand Coulee, and thereby have created Banks Lake. (It was not yet in existence when this picture was taken.) They have built low dams at both ends of Banks Lake to keep it from draining. The water is used for irrigating the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, creating lush farms where desert was king not so long ago.

Here is the Grand Coulee Dam today. It was originally completed in 1942, when it looked just like you saw it in the previous photo. However the dam was modified during the years of 1982 through 1988 and the north end of the dam was chopped off and replaced with a new section that runs nearly perpendicular to the original dam, extending the overall length of the dam from 4,173 feet to 5,223 feet, almost a mile. That new 1,100-foot section added a third powerhouse to the 550 feet tall dam, whose 6 generators easily out produce the other two older powerhouses, and the pumping plant combined, even with their 9 main generators, 3 Station Service Generators and 6 Pump Generators. However, when I questioned the tour guide, she said that the volume of water that they are using to power those 6 new generators is so great that they could not put any more of them online with the amount of water available from the Columbia River. They are about at the limit of what they can produce with the water available.

At the time that I took this picture I didn't realize that we would later be riding that elevator that is shown here near the bottom of its run. The parking lot for the dam tour is located above the concrete wall and to the left. You can see the fairly freshly cut granite running behind the concrete structures. That was all done during the 1980s work, to make way for the new dam section and water path behind it.

The 6 concrete tubes that you see are huge pipes or "penstocks" that direct high-pressure water into the 6 main generators of this new powerhouse. The guide said that you could drive 3 buses side by side down the middle of any one of those pipes. They are 40 feet wide right down to the bottom where they are reduced to 34 feet 8 inches.

The walls of the lower powerhouse structure have been specifically shaped to absorb the tremendous vibration caused by the generators. Later on, we would be coming out on the viewing platform that you can see right above the yellow crane, and the vibration was quite intense at that point. The "diamond" depressions were created as shock absorbers for that vibration.

This is a model in the information center that shows how the north end of the dam was modified from the original straight line design.

This was actually one of the first glimpses that I received of the Grand Coulee Dam. We are looking over Lake Roosevelt at the new section of the dam. The old section runs to the left and out of the picture. On the right of the new water way you can see the bared and blasted section of granite that was shaped to make way for the new arrangement.

Looking back over the top of the dam towards the south and into the mouth of the Grand Coulee.

This is inside the new powerhouse looking west over the largest generators. The largest could supply all the power needs of the city of Seattle, all by itself.

If you would like to find out more about the dam and its power output visit We next headed down the Grand Coulee itself, and about 20 miles down the road we came to Coulee City, right near the dry falls.

Everyone in the car was getting hungry by this time and so we stopped at the Steamboat Rock Restaurant. The town seemed deserted and made us feel a bit creepy but the food was not too bad.

Next we stopped at Dry Falls. This is an artist's conception of what the falls might have looked like when Glacial Lake Columbia existed and Grand Coulee was handling its overflow. This would have been normal run off from the lake. The falls at this point is 5 times as wide as Niagara Falls, and it is 350 feet in height. The visitor's center is located near the top of the falls on the far left of this painting. Looking from our vantage point we could only see the leftmost portion of the horseshoe clearly and some of the right section of the horse. The long curved section on the right of the painting was blocked from view. It wasn't until we actually drove down to the bottom of the falls that we caught a glimpse of the largest part of the falls.

Notice the glacial ice in the background of the picture. The road we had just driven on went through where that ice field once lay.

3 years, 88 days OP; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-

6 '3" 239.5/186.5/180±2/BMI:23.31/WK-169
GRAPHS: Weight Loss/Year 1 Maint./Year 2 Maint./Year 3 Maint./Miles Walked
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