We live in Western Washington, but one of my favorite environments has always been rural Eastern Washington.  On this side of the Cascades, it’s often wet and rainy, with gray cloudy skies for most of the fall and winter.  Eastern Washington is much drier, with brown, rolling hills.  Eastern Washington grows wheat, hops, and, increasingly, wine grapes.  In fact, Central Washington apple orchards are increasingly making way for vineyards, since grapes are a much more lucrative crop, if more labor-intensive.

This is the Yakima Valley, now carpeted with vineyards.

Another more-common sight in Eastern Washington is lines of wind turbines, producing what our government calls “renewable energy” or “clean energy”, both of which are misnomers.  I happen to think they are a blot on the landscape.

I spotted this picturesque barn near the town of Thorp.

And this is my most favorite shrub-steppe terrain in Eastern Washington.  That winding road as fun to drive, too.  Coming from the West side, where everything is green year-round, for some reason I don’t mind the uniform brown hills.

This is one of the more picturesque parts of Eastern Washington.  At the end of the last Ice Age, a huge flood created these lakes and escarpments.

These days, I tend to avoid cities.  But one part of cities which always attract me is old houses.  I try to find houses whose architecture I find intriguing, and they do tend to be older.

These fine old houses are found in Franklin, Tennessee.

And these are in Port Townsend, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula.

These fine, old ladies, line the main street of Cape May, New Jersey, on the fabled Jersey Shore.  They are all divided into multiple units, and are primarily summer rentals.  I thought they were just beautiful.

Here’s the Link to Tina’s Original Post for this week.  And Patti’s too!