We left Government Camp, Oregon, at the foot of Mount Hood, early in the morning to continue the drive through the Columbia Gorge to Walla Walla. We stopped just out of Hood River to buy some local fruit and vegetables...great peaches, pears, and tomatoes. Again, more spectacular views, but also more "edge of the cliff" driving on a smaller, more scenic road on the Washington side of the Gorge.
After a few hours of that, I decided to get down closer to sea level. We stopped at Merryhill Winery on the Washington side and tasted several of their wines...all very good. After two glasses of their great Cab and Merlot, we dropped down (figuratively speaking, of course) close to the water and took a bridge to I-84 on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. This was an excellent highway...nice and flat. We made excellent time and got to Walla Walla late in the afternoon.
We immediately stopped at the Reininger Winery to taste some of their outstanding Carmenere...a relatively obscure grape variety once favored as a blending gape in Bordeaux and now grown extensively in Chile and Argentina. This was some formidable wine...dark opaque red, scents of black fruits and tar, weighty on the tongue. After tasting this wine, I had to buy a couple of bottles. While at the winery, we were fortunate enough to meet and play with "Vino" the winery's cat...this made me more than a little homesick for Jones and Cleo, my own cats.
The terrain here in Walla Walla is not at all what I expected. Instead of lush green like, say, Napa Valley, the climate here is "high desert" with lower rolling hills covered in tan and brown grass. There is water available from wells and the Walla Walla River, and that's what they use to irrigate the vineyards. So...it's green where they water and brown everywhere else.
After the stop at Reininger, we headed off to the local campground to pitch the tent and set up camp. This was not the most scenic or well-equipped campground...and the local Animal Shelter curiously located in the middle of the camp was strange, to say the least...but it was a place to stay.
Afer setting up camp, we drove into downtown Walla Walla for dinner at 26 Brix. Brix are the unit of measurement for the quantity of sugar in grapes, and 26 Brix had a very extensive and well chosen selection of wines by the glass. Dinner was an outstanding heirloom tomato salad and wide pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlic and crispy pork belly...excellent. A few scoops of the house made ice cream capped off a great meal and signaled the end of a long, but fun day.
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