Wine & Onions

Odometer: 66,910
Price of gas: $3.63
Lewiston, ID to Kennewick, WA

Hopefully regardless of where you live, you’re familiar with Walla Walla onions. Walla Walla onions come from – wait for it – Walla Walla, way down in the SE corner of Washington State. This was my initial destination today, just under a 2 hour drive from Lewiston through some of the driest, brownest, and hilliest areas of my state:


Driving the Palouse

Walla Walla is newly famed for its wines, probably THE premier wine region of Washington – and that’s saying something! My sister has visited a few times and has raved about Walla Walla, so I felt the need to stop. I hit the visitor’s center and managed to chat up a British couple who is heading toward spending 4 nights on the Olympic Peninsula. Ooh, I’m jealous.

I walked around downtown first of all – it’s not very big – and visited the artistic onions.


Onion art in Walla Walla, WA

Then I visited two wineries: Fort Walla Walla and Otis Kenyon. In addition to having some very nice wines, I probably had the nicest visit I’ve ever had at a winery at the Fort Walla Walla winery. I felt like I walked into a conversation with old friends and we sat and chatted and drank some wine. It was wonderful! Otis Kenyon was unique for the story of its patriarch – not related to the winery in any way – but the great-grandfather was a dentist in the area. When he finally got a competitor, he burned down the new dentist’s shop and was sent to a mental institution. The bottle’s label is a silhouette of Otis and has singes around the edges… sense of humor!

I walked over to Whitman College and picked out my afternoon stops and waited for Monica to get done with class. Once she did, we went over to Luscious by Nature, which is a farm-to-market kind of restaurant, and then visited the patisserie across the street for dessert. Yum! She's a freshman at Whitman, and it was good to connect for at least an hour or so.

I hit a couple more wineries – Adamant and Three Rivers – and then headed for Kennewick. I'm in early, so I went to the library - nice library - and caught up with the world. Kennewick & Richland have tons of academics with the Hanford nuclear plant so nearby, so I suspect the library is a reflection of that.

Met up with Paul about 5:30 and his girlfriend, Stacy, shortly thereafter. I had some back-home stuff going on this evening, so it wasn't much of a night. That's okay, I guess. It definitely gives me a sense of winding down, however. I'm only 4 hours from home at this point... not too ancy to get there, however.