Kennewick

A few weekends ago, J and I decided to go on a picture taking tour of Kennewick. The first place we went was up to Jump Off Joe. It's just a few minutes from our house, and you can see much of the Tri-Cities and surrounding areas. We each had a camera with us, and took all sorts of pictures.

I snapped this one of J when he wasn't paying attention to me. I LOVE this photo! It was in March, but it had snowed the day before. It didn't stick to the ground in town, but it stuck up at Jump Off Joe. The weather couldn't decide if it was going to be a beautiful day or a icky day...so it was somewhere in between. This photo is straight out of the camera...I didn't even resize it in Photoshop. Look at the clouds!

After we went to Jump Off Joe, we drove back down to Clover Island, also just a few minutes from our house. One of the only reasons I love this area is our proximity to the Columbia River. This picture is a shot of "the Blue Bridge." I honestly don't know the name of the bridge...everyone around here calls it the Blue Bridge.

I thought this picture was neat, too. These tough little flowers are making a go of it in a gravel parking lot.

After we went to Clover Island, we went to Columbia Park. It's a neat park that is very narrow and several miles long, running along the Columbia River. This particular part is at the end of the park nearest our house. This is a picture of the Playground of Dreams. It is the coolest playground I think I've ever seen. A few years ago, someone burned it to the ground. The community was outraged, and took action. They raised almost a half a million dollars and rebuilt it. It's amazing. I don't go there often because I don't have kids yet, but when Leah and her little ones visited me a few years ago, we took them there. (That was before CJ! Jared was almost walking, and Em was about 3!) J and I decided that though we both had cameras, because there were kids playing on the playground, I was the one who should take pictures. We didn't want him to be the weird old man taking pics of the playground...

This picture was also taken at Columbia Park, about a mile or two down the river from the Playground of Dreams. Every year the hydroplane races come to the Tri-Cities. It's crazy how busy this town gets over a boat race! And the people! They come from all over just to watch the races. I personally don't understand the draw to sit outside in 100+ temps with hundreds of other people to watch really loud boats drive in circles, but apparently, it's the "cool" thing to do. This hydroplane is on display year-round at one of the entrances to the park.

Here's a little trivia about this area: Have you ever heard of the Kennewick Man? Interestingly enough, the Kennewick Man was discovered by a teenager (the little brother of one of J's friends) during the boat races back in July of 1996. He had waded into the water to cool off, and was enjoying the waves from the boats, but he felt something keep hitting his foot. He reached down and discovered a skull. How freaky would that be?! At first they thought it may have been someone who died fairly recently, but carbon dating has shown the bones to be 9,300 years old! Anyway, there's been HUGE controversy over the Kennewick Man. Basically, the scientists want to study the remains (they were able to recover most of the body), but the local Indian tribes say he belongs to them and they don't want him touched. Google it if you're interested...

We took about 150 photos that day, but barely scratched the surface of this city we call home right now. Next time we go, we are going to take pictures of our favorite places in town.