digitalmontanablog

When Ann and I returned from our June trip to Idaho, Washington, and Oregon we drove from our last stop in Tacoma to Spokane, most of it on US Highway 2.  To get there we took a jog off Interstate 90 near Ellensburg and drove north to Leavenworth, WA, just to say we’d been there.  It was HOT, and the town was crowded with the usual tourists, despite the dire news on the state of the economy.  It was a quick stop because of the heat and the crush of bodies on the narrow steets of this quaint Bavarian-styled village.

When we left we drove east and picked up US 2 outside of Wenatchee, WA…the heart of Washington Apple country, and followed the mighty Columbia north for a short distance.  Once out of the Columbia River canyon the landscape becomes an endless ocean of wheat.  Miles upon miles of golden grain stretching to the eastern border of the state.  At that point, highway 2 is little more than a two laned road…and old one at that…dotted by small farm communities, country roads and old barns.  It was here I made myself the promise: to return and photograph the wheat country of Washington and it’s disappearing barns, farm buildings and machinery.

On August 18th we left for Spokane where Ann would catch a ride with her brother back to Oregon to visit with her mother one more time before the summer ended.  I would stay at Bob’s apartment and make it my base for my day trips into the wheat country that surrounded Highway 2.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the wheat harvest was just starting because of some late rains which had raised the moisture content above the requisite 11 percent for elevator storage.  My first day took me past the small town of Reardan, WA to the Sunset Highway west of town.  The Sunset Highway was the precursor to Highway 2 and the main east-west route from 1937 to 1964.  The Sunset Highway today easily fits my description of a ’slow road’.  A place where you can pull over, get out and take a picture without fear.  A place with the charm and serenity of a time long past from our national consciousness.

From this road you will pass by places like Mondavi which consists of three houses and a system of grain elevators located near the railroad tracks (and doesn’t even show up in a Google search).

Near Mondavi are some old buildings that I wanted to photograph for this project that I had photographed earlier when we visited in June.  This time I ‘bushwacked’ to my vantage point.

For me, there is something about carrying a camera that makes me fearless when approaching strangers.

“Even without taking pictures, carrying a camera enhances life.  It provides you with an excuse to pause, to look, to inquire, to talk, and to take notice…It allows us to take notes, scribble observations, and deepen what we know and what we will later remember.  While it seems like carrying a camera causes the whole world to transform before our eyes, something deeper is taking place.  The change isn’t occurring in the world, it’s happening inside of you.” Chris Orwig, Visual Poetry

As I bushwacked to these isolated spots I passed two combines and trucks getting started for the morning.  I stopped on the side of the dusty country road and walked over to the nearest truck and asked if I could photograph their harvesting operation.   The man in the truck was very friendly…as I’ve found most people in rural America to be.  Steve, called the boss on his two-way radio to ask for permission and stuggled to explain what I was doing, but eventually the boss told him that it was okay…but we’d need to talk about ‘royalties’ later.  He and his son were the combine drivers.  They would drive around the huge field of wheat and when their storage bins were full of grain they would radio the grain trucks.  The big trucks would amble across the dusty field ruts and rock back and forth like a pendulum, pull alongside the combine and the driver would stop, pull levers, flip switches, and press buttons and wheat would start spewing out of the long spout that reached from here to there.  Soon, thirty TONS of wheat filled the truck bed.

Steve, the driver told me that it would be a mediocre harvest…no bumper crop…this year.  Two years ago was huge, he said.

Once the truck was full we ’sped’ over to the Mondovi elevator to get weighed and then dumped our load.  Workman everywhere will always have their eyes on the lookout for cute members of the opposite sex, this was no different. Guys are like that.

When we returned to the field there was some excitement going on.  The bossman had scared a Whitetail doe out of the field he was cutting and was informing his son via two-way radio to be on the lookout for a fawn hunkered down in the field so he could avoid running over it with his blades.

The remainder of the day was not quite as melodramatic, but the pictures were just as interesting.  I wondered about the dreams people had when they started their farms, built their houses, and what they felt when they left those dreams behind.  If only the remains of those dreams could talk…what would they say?

Blessings,

D.