On the road again

Clarkston, Washington: Our adventure begins! We left our home near Portland, Oregon yesterday and headed up the Columbia River Gorge. We spent our first night at the Wild Horse Casino RV Park, just outside Pendleton, Oregon, but today we did something besides drive - we were tourists!

But first, DT went for a run, and I went for a walk in bright sunshine - it was actually warm on the Umatilla Nation this morning. Here are a few photos of the Wild Horse RV Park - a girl can sometimes find interesting things in a RV park:

An interesting situation


Wild Horse Casino RV Park


Swimming Pool at Wild Horse RV Park (hot tub seems to be closed)


Of course, they will drive you up to the casino!

I had orders to ship, so we walked up to the hotel at the casino and left the shipments at the desk mail drop. As long as we had walked over to the casino, maybe we should go inside and use the breakfast coupons they gave us when we registered our campsite last night? It sounds too good to be true... but we had a coffee, one orange juice, one "Danish", one two-"cheese" omelet with "hash browns" for $2.75. Unfortunately, the food was pretty terrible... and what is this crap about Native Americans being "one with nature"? Everything was served in styrofoam cups and plates, and the cutlery was plastic. What? They can't afford dishes and a dishwasher?

In retrospect, we were over-charged.

Awful

GREEN NOTE: I am saving my corner of the world on this trip. Disgusted at the amount of plastic bottles we were using for drinking water in the RV, I bought a Pur water pitcher and two Kleen Kanteens! No more plastic bottles used while driving around in our gigantic diesel RV sucking a gallon of fuel every nine miles. Okay???

So, we left The Nation and followed Oregon Highway 11 to Walla Walla, where we joined Highway 12. Our only stop on the route to Clarkston was in the adorable town of Dayton, Washington. Dayton has over 120 buildings on the National Historic Register. The Columbia County courthouse is the oldest courthouse still in use in the state and the train depot is the oldest train depot in Washington.

Dayton depot, 1881


The original benches from 1881

Volunteers offer tours of the Dayton Historic Depot and since we were the only customers - we had a private tour... which was quite nice and informative until the phone rang and our volunteer tour guide became the volunteer depot secretary and we were left to wander on our own. This rail station is unique in two ways - it has an apartment on the second floor for the station master (very rare) and it has fancy and huge bay windows and French doors that were quite unusual and expensive at at the time.

Original stove

The train line was built as a spur line from Walla Walla in 1881 by the Oregon Railroad Navigation Company, which connected with lines to Seattle, San Francisco and, therefore, the entire nation. Rail distribution finally made wheat and apple growing profitable for local farmers. During the mid 1900's the line was busy with loads of peas and asparagus that were canned at a huge facility operated by Green Giant in Dayton. Today the cannery property is owned by Seneca and they only use the rail line in the fall to bring in peas, which are dried for seed, and then again in the spring, when the seeds are shipped out to farmers.

We had a tour of the comfortable apartment upstairs and looked through a photo collection on display throughout the parlour. A photographer and a local historian are cataloging every barn in Columbia County. Most are extremely old and extremely interesting.

(NOTES: There is a $5 charge to tour through the depot. We found plenty of free parking on the street behind the courthouse.)

Our tour guide says goodbye.


After our visit to the depot, we had a stroll through downtown


The Weinhard Hotel (opened by Henry's nephew, Jacob, in 1889) still rents rooms.


Columbia County Courthouse, 1887

We made a purchase in the local bakery/deli... and if you can believe it, we bought an Oregon product! The deli had small packages of Rogue Creamery Rosemary Cheddar. How I missed this treat at home is beyond me. We enjoyed the rich cheese tonight after setting up camp in the Granite Lake RV Park in Clarkston, Washington. Frequent readers will recall we have stayed here many times. The campground sits where the Clearwater River joins the Snake River - across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. Lewis and Clark made camp here over two hundred years ago on their way to the Pacific.

View from our campground: the Clearwater and Snake meet here.

We met our neighbors and enjoyed a relaxing evening (yet while still watching the Presidential debate) before heading into town for dinner at the highest rated (yet not really that highly rated) Italian restaurant in Clarkston, Washington - the Sycamore Street Grill (which, ironically, is actually on 6th Street). We had decent meals, and exceptional service from our waiter, Joe.

Sycamore Street Grill - original brick walls from the 1800's


Blurry, or maybe I had too much wine???


Bottom left: veal parmesan on a bed of spaghetti. Top right: mushroom fettuccini

Until my next update, I remain, your historical correspondent.

RV Park: Granite Lake RV Park. We have stayed here many times - it just has the best location. Not only is it right on the lake/rivers, it is on a great paved bike trail system. The views are very nice and if you are lucky (and have some extra pocket change) you may get a pull-in sight overlooking the lake.