Much as I enjoy Mike Schafer’s photography and trip reports, I feel compelled to correct a couple of geographical “flubs,” Washington State having been my “stomping grounds” for about the last 50 years.
I’m pretty sure the station Southwest of Spokane where Mike and his buddies encountered a live, talkative operator was Marshall, Washington, not Maupin. The California traffic they observed joining the SP&S West of Wishram was off the Oregon Trunk, not the Spokane International. And the big dam they observed on the Lower Columbia River near there has to be the Bonneville Dam, not the Grand Coulee, which would have required a long trek North of Wenatchee to view.
Those corrections aside, the article and photos were first-rate, and of great interest to me!
Patrick Harman
Bellingham, Washington