Back in the Walla Walla valley…

Last time, I left off with the golf course in John Day, Oregon. You might recall in that article the snow on the ground I’d passed by soon after crossing the Oregon border heading there. That was fun. No danger really as it melted on the road as soon as it touched it plus the temp was above freezing. But it was memorable. Especially now that we’re in a heat wave here in the eastern part of Oregon.

Anyway, after I left John Day, the trip was uneventful and pleasant as I passed through a national forest along side a nice large creek making my way to Milton Freewater. After I arrived, the RV park had saved me a space so I got all set up and enjoyed a few days just lounging around. No big hurry to do anything. I was appreciating the drop in temp from Pahrump when I’d left as it was in the mid to high 80’s while here in the valley it was in the mid 70’s. And it stayed that way until the heat wave hit in early July.

I did head downtown and took some pictures of the older buildings in Walla Walla. And  the tourist buses. That tall building in the first picture is the famous Whitman Hotel. Been around since the 1800’s. Not trying to bring a travelogue to ya, pictures aren’t good enough for that, just trying to give a flavor of where I grew up as it is now.

One thing of note, Walla Walla used to be one of the richest cities in the country and had an extensive trolley service before Chevrolet and Firestone destroyed them here and all over the country. As I recall, they bought the trolley system here then immediately trashed it, destroyed the equipment, tore up many miles of track. When I was growing up here, there were still trolley tracks all over town because it had been an extensive system. There weren’t any trolleys operating when my family moved here in the early ’60’s unfortunately. Damn shame. Those two companies were fined $5000 (the max fine) for destroying over a hundred million dollars in public transportation back in the ’50’s. One of the reasons I avoided buying any of there products for decades. Still won’t buy a Chevy car or Firestone tire.

And then I went and visited my favorite thrift shops around the area looking for treasures…and found some! Got a 1″ high scanner more suited for the RV life than the big Cannon printer/scanner I had, found some other neat stuff I’m using but can’t remember what it is just now.

Also stopped at a yard sale and found an electric rotary buffer for waxing the vehicles for $8, and a streaming TV device by Roku for $2 which I’ve been using now for two months and it works great. Since then I’ve signed up for Hulu at $6/mo, Fubo at $65/mo, and suspended DTV which had gotten to $98/mo with no improvement in the channels they offer…and I’ll likely be dropping it soon. All because of a $2 yard sale device. Fubo is the ‘sports’ streaming service but now I’m looking at the streaming plans Sling is offering as they might be better to have a chance to catch the Seahawks when I’m down south this winter. I also switched my Visible phone service to a ‘group plan’ so now my phone is $25/mo. Including unlimited data. A switch that makes streaming TV much more desirable. Wherever I can get cell service in the US, I can get unlimited data (speed maxed at 5 Mbps…which is 2.5X the speed needed for HD 4K so quite enough). So good enough for streaming…I hope.

One of the things I found in my wanderings through thrift stores was this handy single serving waffle iron. I’m always on the lookout for miniature kitchen and home appliances suited for the RV lifestyle (or tiny home lifestyle), and this iron suits me. Even though the checker giggled a bit when I bought it. Made a nice dinner of chicken soup and grilled cheese sammich with it for dinner that night.

Just the right size and I gave away my old ‘double’ waffle iron. This one is, as you can imagine, 1/2 the size of the old one. So I’m pleased. Makes perfect waffles too.

Then one day, felt like heading up into the Blues (Blue Mountain Range) east of Walla Walla following Mill Creek. Haven’t been up there for decades. It’s changed quite a bit of course since I used to drive up there with gurls for some necking. Didn’t make it up all the way to the lookout where we’d park as I was more interested in the homes for sale I ran across. Got caught up there once when a snow storm decided to hit us while we made out in the back. Didn’t notice until I sensed that it was far too quiet. Looked around and found all the windows were covered with snow. Took a nervous and slooow ride back down into town. Aww, memories.

But anyway, on the way up there, I stopped at this local attraction The Kirkman House Museum. Unfortunately, it’s closed for window work until Sept so I could only take pictures…but here’s the Wikipedia article about it. I expect to be here in September unless the hot weather finally breaks me and I run to the cool coast, but I am going to visit it eventually. All the years I lived in Walla Walla and I’ve never been.

But after that short stop, it was off on the highway/road up the Mill Creek valley. It used to be a potholed mess but it’s in much better condition now.

This was one of the homes for sale up in the cool reaches of the Mill Creek valley. Creek was just across the street from this $97,000 home. Up this far, the creek isn’t very big. No place to park my RV though.

And not far from there was this aged and weathered sign.

The thing that’s interesting is that Mill Creek is 20 odd miles from the famous Whitman Mission, and back then they had oxen but no horses as I recall my local history. And so the visit to the mill would have likely been a multi day work trek.

But that’s all the pictures I got of the drive. Spent to much time gawking at homes. Some are pretty nice, many others have seen better days.

Well, that’s it for this time. See you later, and thanks for reading!