Grand!

We took an unplanned trip last weekend. I thought "wow, it'll be fun to see a light show and camp". That was about it. I had no idea what a blast we would have, or how much I would learn!

Here she is...the Grand Coulee Dam. Up until a few weeks ago I didn't even know it existed, let alone the fact that it is the largest dam in North America. It powers 11 of the states in the U.S. It's the 2nd largest concrete structure in the world! You could make a standard sized sidewalk around the equator not just once, but twice using the concrete used to build this dam. You can fit 4 Hoover Dams in this 1 amazing structure! Yeah I could go on and on. Are you convinced? It really is incredible. If you live within driving distance it is a must see for sure!

We left on Saturday and drove 2 hours to the dam. First stop...the visitor's center!

It was packed full of history, hands on experiences and it even had a big movie theater on the top floor to watch films about how the land from Missula Montana to Oregon was carved out by several great ice age floods that roared across the 4 states in just 2 days. When I was learning about all of this, it really hit me. I felt like I was given a glimpse into the wonder of the creation.

Here's some more fun things in the visitors center. All the princesses from the 48 states brought a gallon of water from their state. They all dumped their water in at the same time to symbolize the America's contribution to the project. Pretty cool if you ask me :D

Then, there's my hee man of a daughter cranking the big wrench!

My turn! Oh yeah that's fierce.

The flowers outside of the visitors center were so beautiful, I just had to stick Madisyn in the middle of them and take a few shots.

That's my girl in the tent rocking out. What a good little mover she is!

Madi enjoying all that Banks Lake has to offer. I just adore this last picture...pure joy.

Here we have the most amazing light show! It was projected out of the visitors center straight over our heads onto the dam. Just breathtaking.

That's what we saw when we looked straight up! At first I thought we were being abducted by aliens, but not to worry. We were all just fine.

The next morning we woke up and had some yummy pancakes and sausage, went for a little stroll around the campsite, and headed back up the road (about 5 minutes) to the dam for the tour.

Us along with about 20 other people passed through security to prepare to enter the dam. It was Madi's first official "pat down". Oh my it was pretty funny.

the second picture is the track that our elevator was on. Yeah crazy steep! It was one of those glass elevators that faces outward so you feel like you're free falling. It was pretty neat.

Here's a view of the dam from our tour. Those windows that you see...let me tell you something that will put the size of this dam in perspective. Each of those individual windows is 16 ft wide and 60 ft tall. Wow!

Here's Madi and I inside the dam! When you're walking you can feel the everything around you shaking. At first I thought it was from all the machinery running, but the tour guide said that it was not. The only thing that was making that whole place vibrate was the sheer force of the water rushing through the dam under our feet. Yeah, I felt REALLY safe in there!

The second picture is of the plaque located at Dry Falls. It's a humongous canyon that was carved by these great floods. If the water was still flowing through it, there would be a waterfall that would dwarf Niagara Falls!

It was pretty amazing to stand there at Dry Falls and imagine that dry land as the greatest waterfall on earth.

What a wonderful experience it was. We decided Friday morning to go, invited the Greenwoods to join us, they picked us up on Saturday morning, we came home Sunday night. It was the best, most unexpected weekend we've had in a long time!