Visit with the Family…

(Backtracking a little here…)

The first two hours of travel from Crooked River Ranch to Walla Walla, is through country that looks like the below picture. There are huge areas that are closer to the Columbia River that are used for wheat. Most of the land looks like this though.

Here’s some strange little town that grew up right at a 90° corner of the road for some reason. Lots of nearby farmland, many closed businesses here because these huge corporate farms have trucking companies bring in their supplies and they don’t buy locally these days so lots of small farming towns are dying all over the US. 

And here’s what wheat fields look like. I grew up with them. Lookie at all that wheat. Everything tawny colored in that picture is wheat.

Don’t have a picture but did pass through many miles of pine tree country. Kind of neat. After that it’s a steep drop down to the river valley.

And here we are, the Mighty Columbia. And hour later, Wallula gap. This two mile wide opening is the only portal for the cataclysmic waters of the Missoula floods of 14,000 to 10,000 years ago. Occurring on average every 55 years over a 2,000 year period . The water at flood would have been 600 feet higher than now at this choke point. Moving at a speed of up to 80 MPH. Wow. Would not have wanted to be anywhere near by when those floods hit. After arriving in Walla Walla (W2), I pulled up in front of my sisters very nice house and park my rig. Plug into their spare outlet on the lamp post so my batteries will stay charged, and so I can come out and get some alone time when needed. But…can’t run the AC so I won’t be doing that very often. It’s still August and very hot during the day. Yuk. But, my sisters house AC works fine. Right next door is a really grungy yard. Hmmm, wonder what’s going on there? Looks like the place has been abandoned for a while.

Turned out, the older lady that lived there, alone, for several years after her husband died, had been a victim of one or two of those reverse mortgage scams. And, when it was time for her to move over across state to be closer to her daughter, she still owed more money on her mortgage then selling the house would bring in. Twice as much. So her daughter, a lawyer, looked at all she had, determined it was all crap, and talked her into abandoning the house. (Doesn’t hurt that the daughter is sorta rich). So it’s sitting there falling to ruin as the wheels of the governmental & banking system regarding repossession slowly turn. Meanwhile, it has ‘Stay away’ notices on the door, the yard has slowly gone back to nature, etc.

Sadly, she was a cat lady too. With over a dozen cats that my sister rescued over a few weeks time. Whole house stinks of cat urine and feces too. Good luck selling it without a huge discount.

And here my sis sitting in her kitchen bs’ing with me.

Next day, we just drove around downtown W2 for fun. Stopped and visited the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel for a while. Kinda purdy.  After that, we just wandered around downtown. There’s actually a business back there.

And then we drove over to Pioneer park. One of the nicest parks you’ll ever visit.

Here’s the gazebo. Rebuilt many times over the years of course but this is the original style and position. Every year, on several occasions, there’ll be a band there for people to enjoy. Or not, no pressure.This is where Teri and Gary got married all those years ago.This fountain was a favorite of children during the summer for decades…but they were hard on it too and they’ve shut off the water. Fairly dangerous to climb on when it’s wet and all. My sister remember climbing on it when she was little. I remember bringing my little ones to play in the water here.So that’s the first couple days in W2. Now we’re just hanging out and waiting for all the other famdamnlies to show up.