June 25, 2015, Pullman-  It’s hard to not crisscross between Idaho and Washington, when in this part of the Palouse.  Pullman, a scant eight miles from the University of Idaho, at Moscow, has the equally estimable Washington State University.  I parked in a two-hour spot, downtown, and used these steps to visit the University.

The school was begun about the time that Washington became  a state, in 1889.  The Palouse was already drawing farmers from the Great Plains, and the small Midwestern colleges were models for the initial Normal School.

With many of the settlers being of Germanic or Scandinavian ancestry, the turreted structures found in universities in northern Europe found emulation here.

The Clock Tower, a nearly-universal feature of institutions of higher learning, was also one of WSU’s early structures.

The university library was quite busy, as summer session was still in full swing.  I noted that was true at UI, and, a year ago, at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

This touching memorial met me, along the South Fork Palouse Riverwalk, as I returned downtown from the hilltop University.

Cities worldwide are embracing outdoor murals, and Pullman’s celebrates its railroad past.

The town has a smaller art scene than Moscow, but young people here are every bit as proud of their joyful noises, as their counterparts to the east

South Fork Palouse Riverwalk is heavily used by locals, though in the lunch hour, I had the path virtually to myself.

The Nez Perce influence is still felt here, at the western edge of that great nation’s rangelands.

I enjoyed a hearty lunch at Heroes and Sports, in the building on whose exterior the railroad mural is shown, above.  Two WSU ladies cheerfully welcomed about twelve of us in from the increasing heat, and I relished a Philly steak, before heading off, towards Lewiston, and points further south.