July 24 - Just Wanna Be

After breakfast with Tisha and Claire, Harriet and I are out the door again as tourists, down to Oregon again and up 204 to Tollgate in the Blue Mountains, then down to Elgin and



Indian Valley,



opening up to



La Grand Ronde then



through the old



Trail Route (which includes a Devil's Slide),



ascending



and



descending



to



Pendleton for lunch at



Great Pacific Coffee and Wine, splitting a Beast (their roast beef special), Becks, and Stoopid Ale (sucker for a ridiculous name). Hopefully none-the-less intelligente,



we proceed north, again to Washington (this has been the border -- or shall we say Gian Carlo Menottianly Consul "frontier"? -- hopping trip_ to the old



Whitman Mission and



Waterbrook Winery,



actually sharing something non-alchoholic on the patio,



given the previous libations.



Back to Tisha's for spaghetti and such, and an evening of books (including a scholarly photographic one on the Wallulu region), movies, etc.

July 23 - Bouncing Along

Awake to the gentle sounds of



water and



Claire



playing, and soon Harriet and I are off to



Stone



Soup,



a few blocks from Whitman College,



to rendezvous with



Maricar over hot pastrami, BLT's, and salads.



Next, two day trips adding Tisha and Claire,



north and south,



first up to



Dixie and



Waitsburg



for



a



mid-afternoon



snack



(mini steak soft tacos, chips, salsa -- yes, goodbye weight loss program)



at



Taqueria San Miguel, then down across the Oregon border to



Milton-Freewater (originally a union of two towns "Mill Town"-- rather than a person -- and a place with, well, H20 gratis... yet, somehow one imagines the heroic and non-existant Milton Freewater with deeds of renown, a Lt. Kije of the rolling wheat hills) and



Athena (let's not get started with this one) for a



swim



and a



linger



in



the



park.



More food,



and a re-rendezvous with Maricar, now augmented by Marek (Tisha is off to work),



for ice cream back in Walla Walla, Washington, as the moon rises and



the dogs howl.