Yakima Valley exit

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I saw little on my drive into Yakima after leaving the Cascade Mountains. It was after dark. My return to Seattle was more dramatic. And more basaltic. 

Quoting from the interpretive sign, "Twenty-five million years ago, this was a land of meandering streams and lush, rolling hills. Then came the first lava flow. Long cracks and vents opened in the earth and lava flooded the land spreading like water. The lava cooled into basalt. Lakes, ponds and streams reformed on the new relatively flat surface. Then lava again flooded the area.

The time between lava flows was sometimes only months; sometimes hundreds, even thousands of years. Each eruption reset the clock in a cycle that continued for 15 to 20 million years.

The layers of basalt visible in the valley walls are part of one of the largest lava fields in the world. It covers over 200,000 square miles in Washington, Oregon and Idaho and is reported to be over 10,000 (some sources say 17,000) feet thick in places."

Then everything settled down and the Yakima River took over slowly carving out the wide valley on its way to merge into the Columbia River. 

Indeed, this Smoky Mountain hillbilly was in a strange new land. 

A stranger in strange land

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