Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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WAITSBURG/LYONS FERRY-This weekend saw medieval sports and crafts at Preston Park in Waitsburg and an open swim across the Snake River at Lyon's Ferry. Residents and visitors to Walla Walla and Columbia counties enjoy a wide range of intesests and skills. Lisa Naylor, an accomplished open water swimmer, brings her love of the sport to her community by volunteering at the annual Swim the Snake event. Swimmers and paddle boarders are given the opportunity to safely swim across the river from...
A place where doing nothing is doing something. On the Oregon Coast, it is said that doing nothing is doing something. Yet how do you find time to do nothing when there is so much to see and do? There are many miles of beach to walk, places to bicycle and places of interest such as the 164 steps up to the top of the 125 feet high Astoria Column where you get a panorama view of the valley. For the history buffs, you can visit Fort Stevens and Fort Clatsop Historical Parks or tour the Maritime...
Last week, I took a trip to British Columbia to visit friends, see some art, go to the season opening of the Symphony and eat. Seems like ages since I stayed in downtown Vancouver and was curious to see how it has fared over the pandemic. First I had to get into the country. At the time of my trip, U.S. citizens were allowed to cross the border by car or flight. I used the ArriveCAN app to make sure I had the current travel information. I chose to drive, allowing me to take too many clothes,...
Warm Springs Ranch is a family-owned u-pick 100-year-old fruit orchard in Whitman County right on the Snake River and now with delicious ripe peaches and the nicest people in the most beautiful place. Traveling from Columbia or Walla Walla counties, head north on SR 12, continue north on SR 127 to SR 26 at the town of Dusty. Then head east for a few miles on SR 26 and make a right turn onto well-marked Penawawa Road. Stay on that nicely maintained mixed paved/gravel road for 12 miles, losing...
DAYTON-Good food, great music, and all things vintage could be found at the Blue Mountain Station over the weekend, for the 2021 Foodstock and Vintage at the Station. The event highlighted the great vendors at the artisan market in Dayton, including three craft beverage producers, the Co-op and Nursery, and Mama Monacelli's Kitchen. Local vendors for the Vintage Faire, showed off sweet finds that included glassware, books, jewelry and much more. Attendees enjoyed tie-dying t-shirts, painting...
If you've been craving the sand and surf, this article may or may not be for you. On June 22, I woke my three-year-old traveling companion, Gracie, at 3:00 a.m. We said goodbye to my husband for the next eight days and began a twenty-hour journey that landed us in paradise. In Kihei, Hawaii, to be exact, just in time to beat the hottest week I have ever heard of in my more than 20 years of living in Waitsburg. After boarding the early-morning flight out of Walla Walla, Gracie and I had a...
DAYTON-Dayton Elementary fourth and fifth graders were bummed when they found out that COVID-19 had squashed plans for a winter skiing program, but their teachers weren't about to let a pandemic slow down hopes for outdoor fun. "Bluewood just wasn't comfortable with taking the risk," said Dayton Elementary teacher Wendy Davis-Richards. "Which was understandable. They wanted to keep their staff safe." Richards has helped facilitate the annual ski program and said that they immediately started bra...
A low maintenance, yet highly rewarding secret iris garden, created and maintained by local photographer Bill Rodgers, is in its third year of bloom in Waitsburg, and it is impressive. The sprawling garden has rhizomes that stretch their roots across the state to Mercer Island, where Rodgers originally began growing them in a community garden. He brought starts with him when he moved to College Place, where a friend let him start a garden in a private horse pasture. After moving to Waitsburg...
Car enthusiasts were more than excited to gather for the first show since the COVID-19 shutdowns. WAITSBURG-More than 160 car entries showed up for the 14th Annual Waitsburg Classic Auto Show on May 14th and 15th. Waitsburg's Preston Park was filled with cars of all ages, sizes, and styles on one of the hottest days of the year so far, but no one was complaining. Car shows across the nation were canceled last year, as a result of the global pandemic. Fifteen vendors provided cold beverages,...
Planty friends, this one's for you. My birthday was on Friday, and it presented my mom and me with the perfect excuse to pop over to the Tri-Cities and do some plant shopping. We joined the Tri-Cities Houseplant Lover's Facebook page, and members were constantly posting photos of their loot from C&M Nursery in West Richland. This was our first stop of the day, and we ended up falling in love with the little shop located at 2517 W Van Giesen Street. They have a huge outdoor plant spread which...
WASHINGTON-Generally, when one is told to 'take a hike,' the tone is less than friendly. Still, Washington State Parks uses the phrase literally and has effectively changed its connotation from insult to invitation. If getting to a state park isn't possible due to restrictions to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus and its newest mutations, fear not. Rangers from all over Washington State are furthering their digital reach by taking viewers on hikes via their YouTube channel. As a...
WALLA WALLA-Have you ever considered the way location affects recreational activities and sports? Clearly, it stands to reason that living on a snowy mountain would invite more skiing and snowboarding than, say, outdoor beach volleyball, but there are some regional differences that are a bit more subtle. Being born and raised in Tennessee, I grew up learning about bluegrass (turf or lawn), which is a big deal when the grass is bluer on the other side of the fence (Kentucky), as well as...
A typical 'traffic jam" in downtown Waitsburg, during Harvest. Alway a show and always fun to see as larger and larger equipment navigates the tricky turns through town....
A harvest crew from Broughton Land Company kicks off their wheat harvest on Poulson Road....
LEWISTON, Ida.-In our family, saying 'Idaho is a world of its own' is a long-running joke. My sister moved to Lewiston almost four years ago and last weekend she got married at Hell's Gate State Park. We never knew how much of its own world Idaho was in until we visited the state during a pandemic. Washington has been in a four-phase reopening plan since the end of May with many counties still heavily restricted, Walla Walla County included. Idaho implemented a four-stage reopening plan, called...
Have you ever had a song grab you by the ears? I remember the moment I first heard the North Carolina group The Avett Brothers, (TAB) on a dark Thursday night in November listening to DJ Greg Vandy's (online) radio show The Roadhouse on kexp.org. Featuring traditional bluegrass instrumentation, with an undercurrent of punk energy, the song was "Shame" from the Avett Brothers fifth independent release, Emotionalism. It had a propulsive beat and haunting lyrics and was located firmly in my...
WAITSBURG-Six Waitsburg FFA members, dressed in their official FFA dress, jumped on a 5:00 a.m. flight from Walla Walla to Chicago last Monday. The students were headed to Indianapolis for the 92nd National FFA Convention, to represent the Waitsburg Chapter. From staying at an upscale hotel in Chicago, to participating in the National Day of Service, the members were busy! The attending members wanted to share their experiences with you. "Chicago was a lot of fun," FFA Advisor Nicole Abel said....
When we moved to Waitsburg in 2017, my husband, Ray, hired on to the Blue Mountain Team of the McGregor Co. Once a year, the company invites their employees and their spouses to a weekend at the Coeur d’Alene Resort for their annual Company Dinner, and this past weekend, I got a brief look at the ins and outs of a company that keeps the agriculture world growing; quite literally. Founded in 1882, the McGregor Co. has its roots deep in the little town of Hooper, Wash. What was once a sheep r...
Way back in the last century, my father, a teacher at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA, let me know that I could go to any college I wanted to: as long as it was located in Washington state and was a public institution. With an older brother and sister already attending the University of Washington, we simply didn't have the funds for any other type of choice. I remember briefly considering The Evergreen State College, but having visited my siblings in Seattle, I was pretty excited...
I am going to go to my 50th class reunion in Miles City, Montana. True story—part of my job is to type up the Pioneer Portraits, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years, etc and I thought to myself, they sure have kept some old books, until I saw that 50 years was 1969, the year I graduated! When I was 18, the concept of still living at 68 was not anything I could have imagined. If I thought of it at all, it would be me in a flowered dress with pin curls in my hair. One of my classmates started a F...
I have long thought about fly fishing on the Wenaha River but hadn't had the opportunity until last week when my husband and I camped at Fields Spring State Park for a few days. Fields Spring State Park is an 826-acre forested camping park located in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington, 30 miles south of Clarkston on Highway 129. Named for early settlers, Ben and Mary Fields, who developed the spring and used the water for their ranch and home, the park is on one of the routes...
