Sleeping Dragons

The Columbia River normally flows in whirlpool frenzies streaming by. But today, the river looked serene, as the warm winter day must not have required much power from the Grand Coulee Dam just south of this spot.

When the grandkids were little, we’d walk to this spot, carrying our chairs to sit and watch the twirling and swirling river– because each swirl was the result of the push and whoosh of a dragon’s wings. “There’s one,” one child would point. “A baby dragon here,” another would wave in another direction. Everyone of us knows, of course, that dragons have reclaimed their homeland within these waters of the great Columbia river.

Further up river, looking back, the same reflective river just before sunset creates a winding path through the golden grasslands. I’ve never seen the dragons sleep like this.

Here’s what the river usually looks like in this same spot, complete with swiftly swimming dragons: