We took the dogs to Potholes State Park for Memorial Day Weekend this year. It’s a dry, desert area in Eastern Washington with many bodies of water popular for boating, jet skiing, and fishing. The park itself had many water access points, large grassy areas, many camping sites, and a playground for kids. It had a party atmosphere – lots of people in their twenties with giant trucks, drones, and beer. Lots of kids and dogs, too, though. It’s a good place to have fun but not for communing with nature or enjoying peace and quiet.
Our campsite was right next to the three rentable cabins (you can see our trailer there in the distance) and away from the protective cover of trees.
This was the campsite next to ours – which was vacant most of the time we were there. You can see that grove of trees in the background – there are a lot of shaded camping sites in there that would have been more comfortable (but also much closer to multiple other sites). The park is very big so there were also other camping areas that were a lot nicer – we were in the worst area.
Like most campsites ours came with a firepit and a picnic table. We brought little mats for the dogs to lay on – here they are sitting on them two seconds after I put them down. Unfortuantely that’s about as long as they sat on them for. They spent most of the time digging around in the dirt and the mats proved useless in keeping them clean.
Our campsite was NOT dog-friendly (we were in site B87 if you want to avoid it). No shade meant we had to move the puppers around to sit under the shade of this table or our camper, and the entire site was covered with the absolute worst plant for dogs: fox tails. They are really dangerous (read more about that here) and I try really hard to avoid them. That was impossible at this campsite and I spent a good amount of time picking them out of the dogs’ fur.
There was also a lovely little red ant hill in our site, just a couple feet from the picnic table. Wonderful.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Our site had its own little path to the water which was nice (except for the fact that everyone else in the campground felt it was totally appropriate to walk through our campsite to use it).
The path leads down to a little marshy beach my husband used to fish from.
He didn’t catch anything but it was his first time fishing in a long time and there were boats passing by pretty frequently.
We took a day trip out to Ancient Lakes and Potholes Coulee. It was a really beautiful, easy hike with multiple small lakes and waterfalls. The dogs drank from the running streams from the waterfalls and did not experience any stomach upset. Now there appear to be multiple trails in this area and I can tell you the one we took was nice..but not for very long. It ended at a steep drop off covered in loose rocks. If you and your dog are brave enough to clamber down it to the water (we were) you then have to scramble over large rocks for awhile before you are set back down onto a proper trail. We attempted this but gave up – it was just too dangerous for the dogs and not easy for us. This was super disappointing as we had intended on hiking all day but had to turn around at that point. If you come here, which I absolutely suggest you do, just do better research than we did and get on the right trail.
We then stopped for lunch at a Mexican food truck called Tacos Chapis in George, Washington (yes that’s an actual name of a town).
The food was super good and they had ample shaded outdoor seating for you and your dog. Highly recommend!
We explored Moses Lake and a couple other small towns and fished on the water outside of the park, but none of that was worth photographing. The park is close to all amenities so you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything.
On the way back to Seattle we stopped at Cave B winery and did a tasting (well I did a tasting, my husband had to drive) and had a really nice time there. Very dog-friendly (the wine lady had dog treats on-hand) and beautiful, relaxing atmosphere. I totally recommend stopping there or staying there (they have small cabins and yurts for rent). I didn’t get any photos of the wine tasting area but I did get a couple of the grounds:
aussiedoodleadventures.com 
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