We are bound upriver on the Sea Lion. Heavy black clouds are left behind as we pass through the rain-shadowed desert of the Columbia basin. Warm spring sunshine provides a backdrop to the basalt cliffs, revealing the bright yellow flowers of the balsamroot and the splashes of blue lupine.
Cheerful guests watch from the bow as we find our way through the Blalock Islands, a unit of the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. White pelicans, Caspian terns, western grebes, and many other birds show themselves. A female osprey on her nest keeps a close eye on us as we pass. The male is hovering, then dropping to the water, to bring a fish back to the brooding female
This is the delightful experience of travel up the Columbia River: wildlife seen in their own space, trees, shrubs, and wildflowers readily identified, geological wonders unfolding before us, and the history of the land and its people shared by knowledgeable people.
