Thursday, May 23 - Monday, May 27, 2013 (Walla Walla, WA)

Thursday

We had another easy uneventful travel day to Walla Walla, Washington.  The scenery was really pretty, everything is still so green and there was no wind.  So far we've really lucked out driving the gorge and missing out on any strong winds. 

We pulled into the RV Resort Four Seasons around noon.  This is the first time we will be parked on a grass site.  The park is pleasant enough and the gal that checked us in was a wealth of information on places to eat and wineries to check out, she sent us off with a handful of pamphlets.  The weird thing to me is that they have all these ceramic and/or metal animal statues.  We have this big elk right by our front door and slide.  Out another window behind a little white fence, is a bunch of the critters.  I guess we all like different things.  It is not the more scenic of sites, but it was one of the last ones they had available since we are coming up on the holiday weekend.  We are at the front of the park and get to see all the comings and goings.  Here are some pictures of our site.


Side view of our site





notice fake elk by hedge

After we got everything setup and had a bite to eat, we got in the truck and went out exploring the town to get our bearings.  We also had to make a stop at the local Home Depot to pick up a splitter for the faucet, we left ours behind at Maryhill when we got side tracked with chatting with the camp hosts.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Rich had been wanting to see Iron Man 3 and since they had stadium movie theaters here, we decided to take in a matinee showing.  Yikes, even with the matinee time, movies are expensive aren't they?  We decided to see it in 3D.  We liked the movie, but with all the special effects and the action, you are exhausted by the end of the movie.  At home we've been watching some old classic movies from the 1940/50/60's and wow things have changed. 

Friday

The plan today was to check out a couple of the local museums.  After a leisurely start to our morning, we were just getting ready to head out and I was giving Gracie some loves and scratching her ears when I felt a lump.  Uh oh, what's this, eeks it's a tick.  Trying not to panic, I showed Rich and we both had remembered that if you use heat, they will often times back out.  Wrong.....after trying for a few minutes, we got on the trusty internet and found out using heat is the worst thing you can do, you need to just pull them out with a tweezers.  Well out came the tweezers and Rich had to give it quite a pull to finally get it to come out.  Gracie was so good during all this, I think I was more freaked out than she was.  After we got it out, Rich checked to see if it was full of blood and it wasn't, so hopefully it wasn't on her that long.  I spent the next couple of hours on the internet trying to find out what kind of tick it was and if we needed to be concerned about Lyme disease.  We finally decided to take Gracie down to the local Petco that is just down the street and see if they might have any info.  Well come to find out, they didn't have a  vet on site, but I did talk to the groomers and they shared that it is a bad year for ticks because the winter was mild.  So we will be keeping a close eye on Gracie the next couple of weeks to see if she shows any signs of lethargy and not eating well.  For now, we've just said a prayer and pulled out the Frontline Flea/Tick drops which I had gotten from the vet before we left.  I usually don't like to use these types of products but after this episode, I will be using it. 

So because of the tick drama, the afternoon was pretty much shot, so we checked out a local grocery store I had read about online.  It's called Andy's Market and it was such a fun store, kind of a cross between a health food store and a regular grocery store.  They had tons of bulk food/grains as well as lots of nice produce.  We spent about an hour going through the store and came out with a lot of goodies. 



That night we were having dinner and could hear this loud voice over a loud speaker.  There is a park just down the street with a BMX bike track and skateboard park and it had looked like they were setting up for some sort of event.  So we decided to take a walk down there and check it out.  Sure enough, they were having races.  It was fun to watch some of the younger kids ride the track, they even had this three year old little girl who actually rode a small bike around the track, she was so cute, her safety vest had little bumble bee wings.  There was also another group of little kids, they were probably 4 or 5.  The track was quite long and it was amazing that they could make it around the track.  When I was three, I'm sure I had enough trouble just staying on my tricycle, let alone a bicycle.  We didn't get a picture of the little bumblebee girl, but we did get these pics which show what the track is like.

Saturday



Today was suppose to be the best day weather wise, so we had planned a bike ride around Bennington Lake which is on the edge of town.  There are several trails to choose from.  We were going for one that was around 4 miles.  We enjoyed the ride and took some nice pictures, but our one complaint is the trails are not well marked and intercross each other at various points and even with a map in hand, it was hard to tell which trail you were on.  Finally we gave up on the map and I think we ended up riding on a serivce road that went around the lake.  The scenery was beautiful, the pictures don't really capture how green the hills were, but they give you an idea.

West side of lake

East side of lake

Beautiful countryside

View from the top of the hill

deer grazing in field



After we got back to the fiver, it was still pretty early and we didn't want to waste the pretty sunshine, so we decided we were up for another bike ride.  When we checked in, the gal who helped us, told us that if we visited the Skylite Cellars Winery to tell them where we were staying and they would waive the tasting fee.  It was about 4 miles away, so we decided to ride out and check it out.  It was a beautiful ride through the countryside and we forgot the camera, so no pics of this adventure unfortunately.  We found the winery and went inside, the tasting area was very tastefully decorated with a beautiful old bar mirror behind the bar, wish we had that camera.  The lady working was very informative about the winery and the different types of grapes, they sure take their industry seriously, it was very interesting.  We rode off with a bottle of one of their red blends, a 2006 Big Red Hiney. 

All in all we rode around 12 miles today, it sure felt good.

Sunday

We had picked out a Foursquare Church to attend today.  There were two in town, so we just chose the one called Walla Walla Bible Center.  It has been so interesting attending these various different churches.  This church was located in a neighborhood, it was a very old church, again built in the late 1800's, and again, we forgot the camera.  It was very picturesque.  Inside the front doors, they had a rope hanging down that rang the bell in the steeple.  When we arrived and entered the church (we usually like to arrive around 15 minutes before the service starts), there was not a soul around, well this is a bit unusual, but OK.  We went back outside and noticed across the street that they had a church annex, so we figured everyone must be over there, so we just decided to hang around until 10:45.  10:45 came and went and no one showed up, hmmmm maybe they are not meeting today?  Rich decided to give them a quick call before we left and the pastor answered the phone and confirmed they were indeed across the street but were just finishing up Sunday school and would be over to the church in a minute.  OK, we're staying.  I'm glad we did, it was a very small congregation, including the pastor, there were 11 of us.  The pastor had a good message on not judging others and  we both came away with some good reminders/tools when we are tempted to judge. 

After church, we stopped by the fiver and had a quick sandwich and picked up Gracie and went for a drive.  We had decided we'd like to drive to the Milton-Freewater area and check it out.  We saw some cool older homes and lots of pretty farmland.  It sprinkled on and off, so it wasn't a real pretty day out.  We stopped for our Sunday treat - a DQ Blizzard, yummy but not so good for the waist line.  We also fueled up while in Oregon, diesel was considerably cheaper, like almost 40 cents. 

We had a relaxing evening back at the fiver, we took a walk to the park near here, did some reading and working on our blog.  The WiFi here is extremely slow, rats.

Monday

We started our morning out with a little exercise, we have decided to start doing some walking/jogging.  This was our second morning of doing a combination of walking/jogging for 20 minutes.  It's a nice way to start the morning and we have a wedding to attend in two months or so, so will need to look our best.  =)

We spent the morning watching all the weekenders packing up and leaving.  It was nice to be able to stay put.  It was kind of a dreary day with showers off and on.  We had planned to go visit at least one museum, an old Victorian house that they have turned into the Kirkland House Museum.  It was one of the museums we had originally planned on visiting Friday, but didn't make it.  Well, unfortunately it was closed today, bummer, I was really looking forward to visiting, I did get to peek in the windows though. 

Back at the fiver, we just kicked back and did a little bit of this and that.  I made some cookies and did a little laundry and got caught up on our banking, did some research on our future travel routes, etc. etc.  We hit the road tomorrow for some more adventures....stay tuned.