This post continues our series of favorite bike rides in the Walla Walla, Washington area. As it turns out, one of our very favorite rides is riding south to the state line and into Oregon. The small city of Milton-Freewater, which lies only a few miles south of the border, has a great city park with decent restrooms and plenty of picnic tables for our break, and even better, there is an inexpensive Mennonite bakery in town with delicious goodies. And a DQ! Add to that the fact that there are many different routes to and from town to vary the mileage and scenery. Another plus is that it's ever so slightly uphill to get there, which means a generally easier ride back. Here's one of the shorter routes to cycle from College Place to Milton-Freewater. Often, though, we go quite a ways farther west on the way there to add on mileage for our longer training rides, then we might take a shorter, more direct route back. Here are photos from some of our many rides to Milton-Freewater. We pass a small alpaca farm and a couple of produce farms along the way. And this beautiful home with the most amazing garden. And lots of apple orchards. I knew Washington State was a top apple producer but had no idea that Oregon was as well. There are also apricot, plum, and cherry orchards along the route. Yum! The very first time we rode to Milton-Freewater was the first time either of us had ever set foot in Oregon! It was exciting to visit another state for the very first time via bicycle, like we did Washington back in June. Milton-Freewater actually used to be two separate towns, Milton and Freewater. The city took its current name 1951 when the neighboring rival cities of Milton and Freewater voted to merge. The city is often called "Muddy Frogwater" (read the history of this moniker here), and there are whimsical frog sculptures and images everywhere. Remember the Mennonite bakery I mentioned? Here is our very first "haul". We didn't eat it all right then but crammed some into our pockets to bring back with us. Seriously yummy. Another time, we were more moderate in our choices. These sweet rolls are sooooo gooey, soft, and finger-licking good! Another occasional treat stop for us on a hot day is the DQ. We love the blizzards! Yantis Park is where we take our rest stop since there are restrooms and plenty of places to sit and stretch (and eat!) Our very first ride to Milton-Freewater just happened to be on the fourth of July, and there was some traditional square dancing going on at the park. This is definitely small-town Americana! Downtown Milton-Freewater is small but quaint. Here's a mural on the sides of some downtown buildings. They recently continued the theme of this mural on another building down a block. We saw the woman painting this one, and it was amazing how fast she completed it. And a former gas station, now glass shop, where I stopped for a cold drink one day. Their soda machine costs only 60 cents -- you don't see that much any more! As a bonus, they had nice roses growing out front. There are some charming houses in town. Here are a couple of my favorites. On one of our rides, Barry talked me into pedaling up the very long climb up Highway 11 south of town. It wasn't easy, but the view from the top made it worth doing. We could see the entire Walla Walla Valley. It's hard to photograph, but this will give you some idea of the breathtaking view we had. The colorfully painted city water tower is up here too. You'd think flying back down this big hill would be fun, but due to some crosswind gusts, it was a bit scary (for me anyway). Once was enough! I think Barry enjoyed it a bit more than me.
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Since arriving in the Walla Walla area of southeastern Washington State on July 1, we've done a TON of road roading. In fact, we both had our highest monthly mileage total ever last month (1010 for me, 1549 for Barry). We've found some favorite rides that we do, with variations, again and again, and we'll be highlighting these in a series of "favorite rides" posts. We're actually staying in College Place, a small town that butts up to the west side of Walla Walla like a suburb, so most of our rides end up going west or south (into Oregon) for easy access and to stay in the Walla Walla Valley. The rural roads in this area are lightly traveled and take us by gorgeous farmland, fields of wheat and corn, orchards, and all manner of farm animals. First up, is our Touchet (pronounced Too-shee) ride. As with most of the rides we do, there are many variations on this ride. The route we take most often is mostly flat with one good climb but headwinds are sometimes an issue, as the way out is mostly straight west to the small town of Touchet. Here are some of the sights we see on the way to Touchet. Little Touchet's (population 421 at 2010 census) claim to fame is the large population of Alkali bees that inhabit the area. It is actually the largest population of managed Alkali bees in the entire world! (The hives in the photo above are for honeybees, as Alkali bees are ground-dwellers.) Alkali bees pollinate the many fields of alfalfa flowers here, which are not attractive to honeybees. We saw many of the Alkali bees buzzing about on our rides in early July, but not so many now. This blog post does a great job of explaining why the Alkali bee is so vital to the ecosystem of this area and why they are considered "the alfalfa specialists". The post also has some great close-up photos of the bees. There has been a thorny issue with highway expansion here in Washington and attempts to keep this development from harming the bees. I am not sure what the current status of this project is since most of the articles online are dated 2012. If anyone has any "scoop", please leave a comment in the comments section of the blog -- thanks! There's not a whole lot to see in this tiny hamlet. A fire station, a handful of businesses, a convenience store, and a couple of schools, and that's it. Since there's no park or public restrooms, we frequently stop at the one convenience store in town, where we buy something cold to drink so we can use the restroom. On the way back, there are more of the same beautiful views of green and golden fields and distant rolling hills. And cute cows, who often seem very curious to see us. And there are plenty of birds, especially birds of prey, along the telephone wires. On one recent Touchet ride, we spied this large flock of White Pelicans overhead. They were circling and swooping, and the way the sun illuminated them was just beautiful. The photos above were all taken before the wheat harvest, but in the past couple of weeks, they have harvested most of it. On one of our many rides out to Touchet, we caught them in the act in one large field we pass. Stay tuned for some more favorite rides in this beautiful part of the country!
Downtown Walla Walla is charming and wasn't too busy on this warm weekday morning. Like many cities we've visited lately, the main streets were decorated with the colorful floral baskets that I love. Walla Walla is famous for its wineries -- and yummy sweet onions. We got a little bit of history. Looks like there have been a few changes since 1859, when the town was founded. Covered wagons and horses are no longer common on Main Street! The architecture of these old buildings and the obvious historic preservation they have undergone delights the eye. It was also nice to see how many trees had been preserved along Main Street. The public art we saw scattered around the downtown area was a fun surprise. Just look at this precious pooch! Who wouldn't want to take him home? A close up...what talent! I absolutely loved this whimsical piece. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? And I very much coveted this colorful bicycle print outside an incredibly charming shop with a colorful sidewalk display. It's not like I have a house I can put this kind of stuff in any more, and we have quite a few prints stored already. But that didn't stop me from wanting it. Note what is being carried on the bike rather than the traditional water bottle! In a slightly more low-brow vein, Barry couldn't resist snapping a few photos of this record shop. That's my guy! As we continued walking east, we came upon Whitman College, so decided to walk around a little and check it out. A luxury hotel, original mission site, Whitman Road, and this college, among other sites, bear the Whitman name to commemorate Marcus Whitman, a physician and missionary in this part of the country in the early 1800s. There's quite a history between the Whitmans and the Cayuse and Umatilla Native Americans, resulting in the Whitman Massacre in 1847. If you are interested, read more at the highlighted links. The campus was very green and restful -- looked like a good place for serious learning. Walking back to downtown, we had to take a shot of the Marcus Whitman hotel; it's a very well-known landmark in downtown Walla Walla, towering above other buildings, and apparently quite luxurious, with a fancy restaurant as well. Most if not all of the winery tasting rooms, of which there are many downtown, were closed on this visit -- they either opened in the afternoon or were only open on weekends or later in the week. One even had a "sold out" sign on the door. Good thing we didn't really plan on any wine tasting on this particular trip! It was getting close to lunchtime by now, so we did take time for a little refreshment. We'd read great reviews of this French bakery on Tripadvisor, so we went in to check 'em out. Um, yes please! I got an iced cold-brewed coffee (delicious), and, after lengthy consideration, we ordered two pastries to start. (Yes, I said to START!) These were real works of art. After finishing those off, oohing and ahhing the entire time, we decided to splurge on round two...they were THAT good. And we had walked a LOT. Right?!!? This time we split a caramel peach brioche and a lemon tart. Mmmmmm! Finally sated, when we left the patisserie with full bellies and smiles on our faces (nothing like eating dessert for lunch!), this is how hot it was. Yep, 98 degrees. With high noon upon us and temperatures promising to rise even higher, it was time to catch the 12:15 bus and be on our way. In the left of this photo, you can see the interesting local Barry dubbed "Rip van Winkle" due to his long white beard. He was on our morning and afternoon bus, and we saw him riding his bike around downtown a couple of times as we walked about. "Rip" was quite an interesting character, and we appreciate anyone who rides a bike! And yes, we did have to walk back from the bus stop at Walmart in the heat. It's nearly all uphill to the place we're staying. Shower time!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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