Goose Creek RV and Campground
September 26, 2024, 9 AM
Yesterday started with some pedestrian plans of finding Nemo and visiting the Grand Coulee dam. As seems to happen 80 plus percent of the time, my expectations were far exceeded by what I saw and experienced.
Google Maps reported that Nemo is 42 miles and 48 minutes south of Wilbur — the opposite direction from Grand Coulee. But, hey, it’s Nemo and I’ve got to find it! State Route 21 would take me from Wilbur to Odessa and then Nemo would be about four miles outside of Odessa. That leg of my day turned out to be much more about the journey than the destination. Route 21 — a two-lane road with narrow sloping shoulders — took me through rolling wheat fields and incredible nearly infinite views. You’ll see from the slideshow that I had way too much fun with a dead end sign on one of the side roads. I kept thinking that the dead end sign must be what flat earthers see at the edge of flat earth. I also, as is apparent, enjoyed my traditional “road shots” which were made more dramatic by the juxtaposition of the blacktop and the golden fields. That drive was an easy Top 10 of my trip.
Near Odessa I was struck by the geology of the land. You can easily tell that this is an area of historic volcanic activity by the color of the rocks and the jagged nature of some of the land.
Turns out Nemo was a goldmine and all that remains is an abandoned building. I could have been disappointed, but I found Nemo! I think this was my second Nemo; the other one being in South Dakota. But that Nemo was a populated place. Barely.
Note: I chose “Beyond the Sea” as one of the songs for my slideshow because that song is on the soundtrack of “Finding Nemo.”
Odessa is a town of 896 people (with a nine-hole golf course). A post office called Odessa has been in operation since 1898. The area was originally built up chiefly by Volga Germans, and was named after Odesa, Ukraine. Odessa was officially incorporated on September 25, 1902. I like that it had a free “tourist camping” site in town which is free. I think it is awesome when towns encourage camping near their downtowns. They embrace that campers are good. I think many towns that don’t have such campgrounds view campers as transients (negative connotation) and RVs and tents as unsightly. I understand that perspective but don’t agree with it.
Odessa seemed to be town that exists due to the wheat farms (grain elevators and railroad tracks).
From Odessa i had a 75 minute drive according to Google Maps.
I passed through a town — maybe place is a better word — named Marlin. I got some fun photos there. Wikipedia filled me in on the intersting history of Marlin.
Marlin—officially the Town of Krupp—is a town in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 49 at the 2020 census, the lowest of any incorporated municipality in Washington. Although legally incorporated as Krupp, the town is more commonly known as Marlin, which is the name of its post office. Elections are held there under the name of Marlin, Washington, and they are the same locale.
First settled in 1871 by Henry Marlin, the townsite was originally a cattle ranch that was later surrounded by wheat farms. The Great Northern Railway was built through the area in 1892 and placed a station, which was named Krupp—allegedly for a local German family. Its plat was filed in 1902 by George Urquhart, a Scottish immigrant who bought land rights and cattle from Marlin. The area was then settled by families who emigrated from Iowa and incorporated as the town of Krupp on January 7, 1911, despite not meeting the population threshold of 300 residents needed for incorporation.
A post office was established in 1918 under the name of "Marlin", following a request from local residents to avoid using Krupp amid anti-German sentiment during World War I. The name was associated with Krupp, a well-known munitions plant in Germany. From then on, the town was primarily known by the name of its post office, but officially remains Krupp; both names are also used on some signs.
In the summer of 1971 a three-day rock festival, "Sunrise '71," was scheduled to take place immediately south of town, but was shut down by county authorities. It was to be on the scale of Woodstock, with an estimated attendance of 50,000 people.
Krupp/Marlin lost its lone school in 1970 and would eventually lack a filling station, grocery store, or restaurant. By 1983, it had 27 total homes and no formal municipal services. It is the smallest incorporated place in Washington, with only 60 residents in 2000. The community was noted for its Hutterites, who resided in colonies in the surrounding farmland.
Next, I stumbled across Almira which I will always remember as having very nice public restrooms — for some unknown reason. Almira struck me as a town that has long been in decline yet had a very nice park in town. Civic pride is not a function of population.
Almira (/ælˈmaɪrə/) is a town in Lincoln County, Washington, United States. The population was 318 at the 2020 census. The area that would become Almira was first settled in the 1880s by Charles C. Davis who purchased land and erected a small store to serve the few settlers living in the area. With the imminent construction of the Central Washington Railroad (later acquired by the Northern Pacific) through the area in 1889, Davis was approached by land developers Odgers and Reed who were looking to start a town on the site. Upon seeing Davis' wife's given name on the deed, the developers suggested christening the town under her name.[5][6] Davis' farm and post office had previously been called "Davisine".[7]
That place may make a town in the future. There is considerable vacant land for it to grow on. If you desire to learn of the 'glorious future' in store for the town. just confer with 'Tom' Hodges. the resident town-site agent. He never tires of reciting it. – Wilbur Register, July 26, 1889
With the railroad assured, Almira was platted and lots begin to sell quickly. Contractors and businessmen began to build temporary buildings for their stores. The railroad reached Almira in the Fall of 1889, where it would serve as the line's temporary terminus before being extended to Coulee City the following summer.[8] Until the road was completed to the Grand Coulee Almira remained the terminus. All trains ran to this point, connections by stage being made to points westward. These factors made the town furiously active but a harsh winter prevented any building boom from taking place, leaving Almira as a collection of temporary shacks until the weather improved.
Despite the end of Almira as a rail terminal, it continued to thrive through 1890 with the establishment of a newspaper and the construction of many new buildings. The town's population was 156. In November 1890, Almira citizens voted for prohibition and the city temporarily became the only dry town in the Big Bend Country. After the Panic of 1893, growth in Almira like all across the country, came to a standstill. Most of the undeveloped lots in town were either in foreclosure or completely worthless. This changed in 1900 when the economy began to improve following several years of prosperous wheat harvests.
The next several years saw Almira grow from a temporary village to a more substantial city. In 1902, the city's population was 289 only counting citizens living on the platted town site.
Almira is still growing. If you don't believe it. come and see for yourself. During the past twenty months activity in building has scarcely diminished at any one time. There has been no sudden impetus, no 'mushroom growth, in a single night, a day, or even six months, but there has been a steady increase. With the exception of a short period last winter, from one to six buildings have been in progress of construction during all seasons of the year.
– Big Bend Outlook (Almira), January 17, 1902
Almira was visited by fires twice in 1903. The first on March 21 destroyed several buildings including the office of the Almira News. The second fire in October started in the Almira Hotel and was much more destructive, destroying a whole block's worth of buildings. These blocks were rebuilt with more permanent brick buildings which still stand today.
Steps were taken towards incorporation in April 1903 but were initially unsuccessful because of disagreements in the town's incorporation boundaries. The second try was successful and Almira was officially incorporated on February 1, 1904.
I wish I had kept better track of how many towns were started because of the railroad. It clearly is a phenomenon in North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and now Washington state. In many cases it seems like the heyday of those towns was over 100 years ago and it’s been a slow decline ever since. In some cases the decline has been reversed by the location becoming in demand for other reasons. Colorado mining towns turning into ski resorts is an example. The town of Wilbur that I am in is vibrant even though it has the signs of problems with some empty store fronts on Main Street. Wilbur may benefit from being well placed on US 2 and has campgrounds and motels to accommodate tourists. It also may just be that even Uber rural areas need a central point with a grocery store, a gas station and a restaurant. Oh, and these days a coffee shop. Wilbur also has a Dollar General.
I digress. I finally came to Grand Coulee. There is a town of Grand Coulee adjacent to the plant which has not held up as well as say Page, Arizona next to Glen Canyon.
Whereas Hoover and Glen Canyon dams are impressive due to their height, Grand Coulee impressed me with its girth — over a mile long. There are four separate power plants (one of the four being a pumped storage facility) with a capacity of a staggering 6809 MW. Hoover dam’s capacity is ~ 2100 MW and Glen Canyon’s is ~1400 MW. (I didn’t list Hoover and Glen Canyon because they are the second and third largest hydropower plants in the US. In fact, ranking second, Robert Moses Niagara's capacity was less than half of Grand Coulee's capacity, at roughly 2.4 gigawatts. Overall, five of the largest ten conventional hydroelectric facilities are located in Washington state. Washington is also the largest U.S. consumer of hydroelectric power.)
More about the largest hydropower plants:
1. Three Gorges Dam, Yangtze River, China
China’s Three Gorges Dam was built between 1994 and 2003 at a cost of nearly $32 billion. Straddling Asia’s longest river, the dam has an installed capacity of 22,500 MW and an average annual production of 103.1TWh. Flooding the region required the relocation of 1.3 million (yes, million) people as 13 cities and 1,600 villages were inundated. While these numbers are staggering, the Chinese government’s primary reason for damming the Yangtze was to prevent catastrophic flood events that have killed hundreds of thousands of people living along the river.
Fun fact: NASA calculated that the sheer volume of water built up behind the dam wall has slowed the rotation of the Earth by 0.06 microseconds.
2. Itaipu Dam, Paraná River, Paraguay and Brazil
At 14,000 MW, the world’s second-largest hydroelectric power station has nearly half of the Three Gorges Dam’s installed capacity, yet it generates almost the same average annual production (103TWh) as China’s biggest dam. This is because the Paraná has low seasonal variance while the Yangtze’s flow drops significantly for six months out of every 12. The Itaipu Dam was built between 1971 and 1984 for an equivalent of $48.8 billion in today’s dollars. The project is a binational undertaking between Paraguay and Brazil.
Fun fact: The Itaipu Dam was chosen as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
3. Xiluodu Dam, Jinsha River, China
Constructed in a dramatic landscape where mountains rise 6,600 feet on each side, the Xiluodu Dam is reminiscent of the giant wall from Game of Thrones. It is part of a massive network of hydroelectric projects along the Jinsha River, many of which are still under construction. Xiluodu has an installed capacity of 13,860 MW, an annual production of 55.2TWh, and was completed in 2013 for $6.2 billion. Like the Three Gorges Dam, Xiluodu has a dual purpose of power generation and flood control.
Fun fact: Flow is controlled with five enormous control gates, including a 1,600-ton gate which is currently the heaviest in the world.
4. Belo Monte Dam, Xingu River, Brazil
Belo Monte has an installed capacity of 11,233 MW and annual production of 39.5TWh. The largest dam in the Amazon Basin is located on the Xingu, one of the Amazon’s tributaries, and is actually a complex of three dams, several dykes, and canals that feed two power stations. Belo Monte was first proposed in 1975 and faced decades of opposition (including protests from Indigenous Amazon groups), court cases, and redesigns before finally being built 40 years later in 2016.
Fun fact: Hydroelectric plants provide over 65% of electrical energy in Brazil.
5. Guri Dam, Caroni River, Venezuela
Otherwise known as the Simòn Bolivar Hydroelectric Power Station, the Guri Dam opened in 1978 and was, for a time, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station. Guri has an installed capacity of 10,200 MW and annual production of 53.41 TWh. The plant has suffered three major generating failures causing blackouts to millions of homes in 2010 and 2016 (due to low water levels) and 2019 (attributed to sabotage).
Fun fact: The Guri Dam has the world’s 4th largest reservoir.
The USA’s Biggest Hydroelectric Power Stations
The three largest hydroelectric power stations by installed capacity in the U.S. are:
Grand Coulee (the 8th largest in the world at 6,809 MW)
Bath County Pumped Storage Station (3,003 MW and described as the largest battery in the world)
Robert Moses on Niagra Falls (3,840 MW combined U.S./Canadian capacity).
To close out the day, a string steady wind kicked up while I was at Grand Coulee. The air was filled with dust. I headed back to Wilbur (an audible) which while not in the right direction satisfied my need for something known.
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