Walla Walla
Jun. 5th, 2024 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
We took a five day trip over to Walla Walla, in wine country in the southeast corner of Washington state. It was our thirtieth anniversary (of hooking up, not of being married, since we didn't bother to do that for a decade). Unfortunately the best weather was the day we arrived and the day we left, but in late May, you get what you get. The food and the wine were good and totally unaffected by rain showers :-)
The first morning of our stay, we took a three mile walk around Bennington Lake. Once in the trees out of the wind, it was a perfectly pleasant temperature, good for T-shirts, and the place was alive with birds and song. But there was a high, thin overcast that gave everything a flat grey light, hideous for photos, and this was the only shot that looked even remotely passable, showing the Blue Mountains in the background.
In the afternoon, we went wine tasting. This will become a theme :-)
Morning two started out pleasant enough in town and we headed up into the Blue Mountains for a scenic drive along Biscuit Ridge. The foothills were also pleasant enough.
And then as we reached the top of Biscuit Ridge, there was change approaching...
After five minutes up there, it was hailstoning on us, hard.
In the way of such things, it hailed for ten minutes, then paused for a few, then hailed again. In between the hail, there were lovely atmospheric views of the ridgetop meadows.
With beautiful seasonal wildflowers.
Flowers among the melting hail...
Given the weather conditions, and that it was clearly still looking so much better down in the valley, we cut short our scenic drive after a few last photos.
We took a tour of the Walla Walla Fort museum (nothing remains of the original fort, but it tells the history and has a bunch of artefacts) then headed off to Pursued By Bear, Kyle MacLachlan's winery. By then it was raining in town again too, and the storm drains were getting fuller, with beautiful colourful trees alongside them.
The third full day started overcast but brightened rapidly. We went out to the Whitman Mission National Historic site. This was where the earliest settlers in the region parked themselves and set up a mission which acted as a stopping point on the Oregon trail. Nothing remains of the buildings but some foundations, but the site tells the story of how relations between the missionaries and the indigenous people started out friendly and then broke down with the pressures of an influx of white people and the smallpox that came with them.
How desperate must people have been to sign up for a five month trip in one of these?
There's a hill at the memorial site which gives views over the countryside all around.
The hilltop also lets you see what the natural prairie should look like, with beautiful tall grasses of various species and wildflowers, as opposed to the rest of the area which is largely agricultural.
That afternoon, we did a wine-tasting tour at Tranche winery. They drive you around in little open-sided Yamaha vehicles, kind of like an old Mini-Moke, then stop periodically for you to admire the views and the vines, while pouring you wine made from the vines you're looking at. A very civilised way to go wine-tasting!
View from the vineyard boundary over corn fields to the Blue Mountains.
Bridge over Mill Creek in Walla Walla.
That evening we went for dinner at Abeja vineyards just outside town (that was our special, expensive anniversary dinner). Five courses with one of their own wines alongside each one, and damn that food was SO good. Really lived up to the reputation and the cost. And what do you know, at over fifty years old, it turns out I actually like rhubarb!
Growing up in England, my only exposure to rhubarb was as rhubarb crumble or rhubarb and custard, both of which are a vile soggy mess. It turns out that if you don't boil rhubarb to death, it can be amazing. They served a braised lamb with rhubarb coleslaw. The rhubarb was crispy and crunchy and it tasted fantastic!
Which only makes sense, actually, because I love raw cabbage but not cooked, much prefer raw onions to cooked, prefer raw carrots to cooked... Generally I'm a fan of crunchy over cooked and soggy. But still, food revelations come less often after half a century.
Trees as abstract art. Looking down into the river valley at Abeja.
The pond at Abeja after dinner.
Sunset waiting for our taxi.
A good trip, and we returned with good wine :-) And on Friday we're off again on another tour with the Sevens, since the one last year was so successful. I'm hoping the rain showers hold off for that one...
The first morning of our stay, we took a three mile walk around Bennington Lake. Once in the trees out of the wind, it was a perfectly pleasant temperature, good for T-shirts, and the place was alive with birds and song. But there was a high, thin overcast that gave everything a flat grey light, hideous for photos, and this was the only shot that looked even remotely passable, showing the Blue Mountains in the background.
In the afternoon, we went wine tasting. This will become a theme :-)
Morning two started out pleasant enough in town and we headed up into the Blue Mountains for a scenic drive along Biscuit Ridge. The foothills were also pleasant enough.
And then as we reached the top of Biscuit Ridge, there was change approaching...
After five minutes up there, it was hailstoning on us, hard.
In the way of such things, it hailed for ten minutes, then paused for a few, then hailed again. In between the hail, there were lovely atmospheric views of the ridgetop meadows.
With beautiful seasonal wildflowers.
Flowers among the melting hail...
Given the weather conditions, and that it was clearly still looking so much better down in the valley, we cut short our scenic drive after a few last photos.
We took a tour of the Walla Walla Fort museum (nothing remains of the original fort, but it tells the history and has a bunch of artefacts) then headed off to Pursued By Bear, Kyle MacLachlan's winery. By then it was raining in town again too, and the storm drains were getting fuller, with beautiful colourful trees alongside them.
The third full day started overcast but brightened rapidly. We went out to the Whitman Mission National Historic site. This was where the earliest settlers in the region parked themselves and set up a mission which acted as a stopping point on the Oregon trail. Nothing remains of the buildings but some foundations, but the site tells the story of how relations between the missionaries and the indigenous people started out friendly and then broke down with the pressures of an influx of white people and the smallpox that came with them.
How desperate must people have been to sign up for a five month trip in one of these?
There's a hill at the memorial site which gives views over the countryside all around.
The hilltop also lets you see what the natural prairie should look like, with beautiful tall grasses of various species and wildflowers, as opposed to the rest of the area which is largely agricultural.
That afternoon, we did a wine-tasting tour at Tranche winery. They drive you around in little open-sided Yamaha vehicles, kind of like an old Mini-Moke, then stop periodically for you to admire the views and the vines, while pouring you wine made from the vines you're looking at. A very civilised way to go wine-tasting!
View from the vineyard boundary over corn fields to the Blue Mountains.
Bridge over Mill Creek in Walla Walla.
That evening we went for dinner at Abeja vineyards just outside town (that was our special, expensive anniversary dinner). Five courses with one of their own wines alongside each one, and damn that food was SO good. Really lived up to the reputation and the cost. And what do you know, at over fifty years old, it turns out I actually like rhubarb!
Growing up in England, my only exposure to rhubarb was as rhubarb crumble or rhubarb and custard, both of which are a vile soggy mess. It turns out that if you don't boil rhubarb to death, it can be amazing. They served a braised lamb with rhubarb coleslaw. The rhubarb was crispy and crunchy and it tasted fantastic!
Which only makes sense, actually, because I love raw cabbage but not cooked, much prefer raw onions to cooked, prefer raw carrots to cooked... Generally I'm a fan of crunchy over cooked and soggy. But still, food revelations come less often after half a century.
Trees as abstract art. Looking down into the river valley at Abeja.
The pond at Abeja after dinner.
Sunset waiting for our taxi.
A good trip, and we returned with good wine :-) And on Friday we're off again on another tour with the Sevens, since the one last year was so successful. I'm hoping the rain showers hold off for that one...
