Along The Road

Hop, Skip, and Jump

Hop down from the Rockies, skip across central Washington's lava plains, and jump up into the eastern Cascades, and there you are in Omak, on the banks of the Okanagan River, not far from its confluence with the Columbia.

The Omak library has an early photograph of Omak, when the river had not yet been "controlled" by the Grand Coulee Dam, and riverboats were still known to navigate this far. The river looks more like a creek now. What will it be like when global warming gets into full swing?

Global warming...GW...hmmm...is it only coincidence that these are the first two initials of our most ecologically insensitive president? Of course it is. But the man is decidedly iconic, isn't he?

Iconic of our nation's "takes a baseball bat to get his attention" mentality. But I guess mom nature is polishing up the ol' Louisville Slugger right now. Our nation's waterways are being colonized at a furious pace: Oceanfront, Lakefront, Riverfront, Creekside...of course all these folks at the sea side will be backing uphill...if they are not blocked by those above them whose "ocean view"s will soon unobstructed.

Montana, Idaho, Washington, and the rest of the Pacific Northwest are a showcase of the geology of plate boundaries...meaning it is a mess, geologically speaking...several hundred million years of one plate (on which is our beloved continent) scraping bits off another (the Pacific plate, which is being shoved under ours), at a rate of about two inches a year. In a million years, so I'm told, that is equivalent to 31 miles! In another two hundred million years, or so, the Hawaiian Islands will be plastered somewhere along the coast of California! Or something.

The thought gives one pause.

Though maybe not a million years worth.