Steamboat Rock State Park

As I drove past the motel where I was staying, I noticed the large "Motel" sign across the road and through it would make a good photo with all the dramatic clouds behind it. I think you will agree.

Driving north from Coulee City, the road takes you along the eastern shore of Banks Lake. This is, in fact, a large reservoir filled by pumps at the Grand Coulee Dam for irrigating the farms in the region. It also is filled with fish and is a great spot for the fishermen to have their contest.

this image below is taken from the high spot in the road not too fram out of Coulee City where you can see the width and depth of the coulee. The lake stretches from Coulee City to Grand Coulee and is some 25 miles long, give or take.

Toward the northern end of the lake is Steamboat Rock State Park. there is a large mesa in the middle of the coulee that survived the flood waters and it sits on a peninsula of flat land the juts out from the shore. You can just see it in the distance of the above photo.

I drove to the park and scouted about for a few composition and I found a few place with trees that were at least mildly interesting.

Some of thes made better images in B&W.

The gnarled roots of the uprooted tree against the drama of the clouds made a better B&W image.

Once I got home with this image, I realize that there was not much in to hold one's interest, so I converted it to B&W and made it the composition about textures and shapes. It was a pretty place to stand, but a weak composition. B&W is better.

Looking away from the rock, we see a stretch of the lake in the background. The tree and the boulder it grows from in the foreground make a nice counterbalance to the smooth water (long exposure), and distant hills.

As I left, I stopped and got a shot of the rock from the highway so you could see the whole thing. The manager/owner at the hotel commented that she did not understand why it is called "steamboat" rock since there are no smoke stacks.