Washington - Day 27 - down to Walla Walla, then back to Moses Lake

Grant County Fairgrounds RV Park, Moses Lake

Monday, 27 June 2022

today's route

What I'm trying to do in these last few days of my month in Washington is to get to as many places as possible - at least, those on my must-visit list.  Walla Walla and its reputation for producing wonderful sweet onions, was on that list and, because I couldn't figure out any more elegant way to add it to my itinerary, I'm taking a special trip over there today. 

But first I started with the Tri-cities area, which I hadn't visited before.  There are 3 cities right on top of each other: Pasco, Richland and Kennewick.  I'm sure they each have their own unique flavor, but I wasn't able to take the time to find out what that might be.  I did go to a little trouble, though, to get to Columbia Park, which is a very large park that straddles both Richland and Kennewick along the Columbia River.  I was mostly aiming for it as a place where I could give Dexter something new to sniff.

We started with a historical marker.

With 1853 clearly being a year when this area was undeveloped,
this should show both the difference between the histories of the eastern and western US 
as well as the difficulties early white settlers encountered.

We did find the park and I did walk Dexter, who was so adept at finding the fast-food wrappers left by people over the weekend that I finally gave up and stuck him back in the RV.  Oddly, many of the trees I saw in the park seemed to be lime trees.  They were much bigger than I thought lime trees grew, but they had fruit growing on them that looked exactly like limes.  I first noticed limes lying around here and there under the trees and was surprised that so many people would have been making gin-and-tonics in a public park.  Then I realized none of them had been cut open, and after that I started to look up and that's when I saw the fruit growing on the trees.  I guess they could be a lookalike but what would that be?

I noticed a strong Hispanic presence when I was driving around Pasco.  I was curious and looked it up and as near as I can tell, Pasco residents are more than 55% of Hispanic background.  Kennewick is 25% Hispanic, while Richland has only 11%.  If these figures are true, they make me even more curious, without any easy way of finding out why the extreme disparity.

One thing I did learn is that part of the Manhattan Project during WWII was established here in Richland - the Hanford Nuclear Site.  As I saw in New Mexico, the activities at such sites were closely guarded secrets and relied on specifically chosen personnel.  So maybe that has something to do with today's racial makeup in the town.  What I do know is that Hanford has been shut down, and all the work currently at the site is cleanup of nuclear waste and so forth.  

Leaving town, I crossed a bridge over the Columbia River, then another one over the Snake River which flows into the Columbia here.

I saw a variety of crops all along my drive east.

I passed the turn going to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site.  The Whitmans are fairly well-known in Washington, but likely not at all out of the state.  They were Methodist missionaries who traveled west in 1836 and established a Methodist mission here in Cayuse territory.  The Cayuse were a warring tribe and were (reasonably) suspicious of these newcomers.  It's possible the Whitmans lasted as long as they did because Dr. Whitman tried to learn the Cayuse language.  But settlers traveling the Oregon Trail stopped here to rest, making the Cayuse suspicious (also reasonably) that they planned to displace the Natives.  Finally, in 1847, there was a measles outbreak (probably passed on by those Oregon Trail folks).  Half the Cayuse tribe died, while far fewer of the white folks died.  The Cayuse blamed the Whitmans and massacred some in the mission, taking others hostage.  The result of the shock waves across the country was that Oregon became an official US territory and the US government waged war on the Cayuse.  I didn't bother to visit the site because I never felt any sympathy for or interest in the Whitmans and their mission.

As I was coming into Walla Walla, I passed another sign telling me to turn for the Frenchtown Historic Site.  I didn't but I looked it up and learned its history is closely intertwined with that of the Whitman Mission and the establishment of Walla Walla itself.  It offers a great example of folks who get it right in moving into the territory of others.  In this link, if you bypass the list of folks you've never heard of in the beginning, you come to an unacknowledged but vital part of the history of our country.   http://www.frenchtownwa.org/frenchtown

In Walla Walla, I passed Whitman College (not to be confused with Whitworth University I saw in Spokane) and an area marked "Entering Golf Cart Zone."  And I did see an elderly man driving a golf cart near the grocery store.

I was aiming for Pioneer Park, which I'd found on the map, and thought I could walk Dext there.  And we did.  Lots of other dogs, but he was pretty well behaved.  It was a lovely park with a winding paved walking path running through it.  The path was bordered by enormous old trees, which made me think this park wasn't some haphazard designation of unused land as a park but instead carefully planned out long ago.  I asked a couple about my age I saw walking there, who said they were visiting in town but had been here often and yes, the park had been here for at least a century.  They told me not to miss seeing the tree that had a false limb made for it by a local foundry after the original limb was lost in a storm.  So I went looking for it.

This is the tree - see close-up below.

I'm sure I wouldn't have known this was a fake branch
if I hadn't been told.

There was a plaque nearby saying this "London Plane Branch" of cast bronze was made in 2021 by the Walla Walla Foundry.

Every town has its oddball stories, and it was just a piece of luck that I learned about this one.

The park was in a residential area, and I saw 2 houses with something that caught my interest.

It was the screen on the side of the porch that I noticed.
I think it was an elaborately carved metal screen, and it served
the multiple purposes of blocking the sun, providing privacy from the neighbors,
and looking better than such screens usually do.

I've looked through enough Better Homes and Gardens to recognize
that this house is about to have its front yard transformed.
I hope the owners took "before" photos.  I'm curious enough to want to
come back in 5 years and see what it looks like.

The most recent census put Walla Walla at 34,060 residents, which is a decent-sized town, but still a town.  People told me they like it here because it's quiet, and that it's "a rural town."  The downtown looked very pleasant, very walkable.  Overall I'd say this looked like a nice place for a visit.

I saw lots of wineries in and around town so wine tasting would likely be an enjoyable thing to do here.

All day as I drove I was plagued by worry over both the "check engine" light and what may be a problem with the brakes.  Neither seems to interfere with the running of the RV and the gauges on the dash are all normal, but I know there's something wrong and I'm trying to figure out when I can get somebody to look at it.

One of the crop fields I passed had workers in it and I didn't see water or shade or any provision at all for their safety nearby.  The forecast is for 101° high today, which is nothing to fool around with.

I drove back over exactly the road I'd covered earlier because I needed to pick up this month's prescriptions at the CVS in Kennewick.  I learned that there are only 3 CVS stores in all of eastern WA - one in Spokane and one each in Kennewick and Richland.  That didn't give me a lot of choice, but I have to have these meds.

The good part of that was that this CVS was inside a Target, and I bought a second fan to use in the RV.  I've hated having to take away the fan at night that I'd put on the floor for Dext because I needed it for me during the night.  So now we can both have fans.  One fewer worry.

From there I headed almost due north to Moses Lake.

At Othello, pop. 7,695, I passed a plant labeled CHS Bean Plant.  A sign told me chickpeas are one of the products they process.  This facility just tripled its capacity last year and processes a variety of dry edible beans.  Turns out the pandemic increased demand for such products.

All afternoon I passed fields of corn, potatoes, onions and other crops.

A sign over the entrance to a ranch said, "Meanwhile back at the ranch."  Really.

And then back to Moses Lake, pop. 25,760.  It certainly wasn't on a direct route to anywhere I was going, but I'd been comfortable here and knew they had a reliable wifi signal and ok bathrooms, so I decided to come back.