Nice pic Sluggo!  Very hmmmm.. picturesque.  Where is this Coolee Dam?  

B.T.W. ... The mechanic at the dealership that I use for service tells me that I don't own the only Savage in town.  He likes them because they are so easy to work on.  He changed out my bent shift rod while I waited AND they put it down as warranty repair, I didn't even have to ask!!! Although I did have to pester them to order the part.

Well I was with Sluggo and took the picture. Grand Coulee Dam is in Eastern WA and holds back the mighty Columbia River at Lake Rooselvelt which generates lots of hydro power and is the start of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. the CBIP provides irrigation water for thousands of acres of what used to be dessert in Central Eastern WA. State.  End of answer to question.  Rest of the story! We grow wheat (white and red, winter and summer) alfalfa hay, corn, sugar beets, potatoes, mint, carrots, onions, beans of all kinds, peas, fruit, wine grapes and lots of other crops and raise lots of cattle here. There are also more and more dairies moving over here as the wet West side of the state as it gets more crowded and smell and runoff in the rain becomes more of an issue. When you fly from Seattle to Spokane or from points East on that route most the green circles you see are the central pivot sprinkers that are considered the best way to irrigate now. Most started with rill irrigation, a head ditch and syphon tubes going to the rill or valley between the rows of crops, very labor intensive and good for families with lots of kids usually but not always male.  IMHO a great place to live and retire, but my wifes family farms here so it was easy to move to. Lots of nice days, they claim 300 flying days a year, used to be Larson AFB -now an International Airport with Customs and Immigration Agent, Community College, Job Corps, big data storage in the old SAGE building, and lots of smaller commerical operations. If you see a blue Genie S-60 manlift it was built in an old B-52 Hanger here.  JAL has a pilot training program here and flys 747's here daily. McChord AFB near Tacoma has C-17As in here 1-3 at a time teaching pilots how to fly them, including field lights out practice at night with NVG. Old AFB housing is mostly individually owned with some rentals and county housing.  Good bird hunting and year round fishing in some of the lakes. Sand dunes for summer ATV, cycle, and dunde buggy recreation, a natural ampitheatre on the Columbia river (The Gorge at George), and lots of warm or hot summer recreation on the lakes before and after the dams. I'll bet this is more than you ever wanted to know about Eastern Wa.

The Pacific NW is heaven as far as I am concerned.