Labor Day Weekend, 2018
Destination: Walla Walla, Washington

NOTE: I originally drafted this post in September 2018, not long after the trip, but I hadn’t quite finished it when things went a bit crazy. Since it was pretty much ready to go, I decided to finish it up and post it now. Cheers!

The smoky mountains

We flew up to Walla Walla, in the southeastern corner of Washington State, last year for Labor Day weekend.

ASIDE: Walla Walla shares its name with a local indigenous tribe. It means “many waters,” and the repetition is a diminutive form. (You know you were wondering!)

The flights up and back were high, well above the still-thick layer of smoke that blanketed the West at the end of the summer fire season. Mount Shasta, near the site of the immense Carr fire, could not be seen until we were only a few miles away, so thick was the brown fug that surrounded it. And all the way up and down the Cascades, the dominant peaks poked up through the enveloping haze. Craig spent his childhood in Portland, and he knows and loves the Cascades. I’m a recent initiate, trying to memorize the peaks as he named them: the Three Sisters, Jefferson, Hood, Adams; in the near distance, St. Helens, and in the far distance, Rainier.

On the way back, we climbed to 15,500 feet and skirted Crater Lake.

Mutton bustin’ and other mysteries

We were lucky to have arrived in Walla Walla a little before noon, and luckier still to have gotten Cody, the young man at the airport Budget Car Rental counter, on the telephone just minutes before the agency closed for the long weekend. He obligingly drove out and picked us up on the field, staying a few minutes beyond his closing time to accommodate us. He asked, in the genial manner of those who work in the tourist industry, where we were from and whether we were in town for the fair. He was only the first: several other locals wondered whether we had come for the fair. Of course, we hadn’t — we didn’t know anything about it until Cody mentioned it. But when he told us about the rodeo, we decided to go.

The fair is actually Walla Walla’s annual county fair, known as “Frontier Days and Fair.” It began in 1866 — or so said the sign. The fair boasted the usual elements of county fairs everywhere: a carnival midway with rides and games, food stands selling all the scarily tempting fried and grilled foods you could imagine, and a lot more. I saw people carrying off shoebox-sized mounds of french-fried potatoes topped with pulled pork or cheese or chili or sauerkraut or onions — or some unspeakable combination thereof. Limiting myself to a tri-tip sandwich, I felt comparatively virtuous!

We saw displays of prize animals — chickens, rabbits, and ferrets — as well as displays of creative work in the form of quilts and other sewing projects, canned and baked goods, photography and painting. Craig checked out the tractors, while I learned about the mechanics of viruses and the genetics of rabbit coloration from school science projects.

And then there was the rodeo. We were sitting too far away for good iPhone photos — mine are all grainy and distorted — but there was a lot of drama that I would have liked to capture. We saw bronco busting — bareback and saddle — along with barrel racing, calf roping, breakaway roping, team roping (horns and hoof), steer wrestling / bulldogging, and bull riding. At too-frequent intervals, rodeo princesses and queens galloped around the ring bearing banners advertising the rodeo sponsors. It was a long night.

We the uninitiated found it impossible to understand how most of the events were scored or why penalties were given. For example, we heard the announcer say that in bronco busting the horse earned half the points and the rider the other half — but the finer points were definitely lost on us. Do the riders always ride the same horses? It seems not, because some horses were said to have unseated all their past riders before the 8-second marker — so why would anyone choose to ride those? But if there’s a random pairing of horse and rider, why does the horse earn points? It’s a mystery.

Barrel racing, on the other hand, was fairly straightforward: fastest time to ride a cloverleaf around three barrels and back to the start, without touching or tipping over the featherweight barrels. Got it.

Wine a little

There are now more than 100 wineries in the Walla Walla area, and the industry has exploded over the past decade. Our first impressions were formed as we drove out of the airport, where we spotted perhaps a dozen wineries (and a few breweries, as well). Downtown, tasting rooms were several to the block. We were more interested in seeing the countryside and getting a feel for the region, so after a little research we picked a couple of tasting rooms to visit — one to the west and one to the south — and between stops we meandered over back roads through farmland.

One of the pioneer wineries was our first stop: Woodward Canyon, where we were impressed by the friendly and knowledgeable host and even more by the wonderful wines. Each was more delicious than the last, which is something I rarely experience when wine-tasting. We splurged on a delicious red blend to bring home. At our second stop we picked up another red — not as remarkable but still delicious. We coddled the bottles all the way back to California.

We love taking home a fancy bottle of wine as a souvenir. The wine is a treat in itself, and opening it gives us a chance to reminisce about the trip when we bought it — and encourages us to imagine future adventures. We drank the Woodward Canyon on my 60th birthday last October, and the second bottle (I can’t remember which winery it was came from) in December for Craig’s 65th birthday. A great way to celebrate!

POSTSCRIPT: Craig and I just got back from celebrating our sixth anniversary (since we’re not married, we celebrate the anniversary of our first date) at Lalime’s. It’s a lovely, old-school restaurant that’s been a fixture in Berkeley for more than 30 years. We opened the bottle of Syrah that we’d brought back from South Africa and enjoyed it with our dinner — along with reminiscences of our trip.

CONFESSION: We don’t know much about South African wines, except that they are much cheaper in restaurants than what we’re used to here. That’s how we developed the habit of ordering one of the more expensive wines on the menu when we went out, which proved a fairly reliable way of getting something drinkable. So we did the same at the duty-free shop at the airport, and that’s how we ended up with this particular bottle! It wasn’t bad — I liked it more than Craig did — but we agreed that we probably wouldn’t buy it again. Note to self: Read up on South African wines before the next trip!

Here’s to fine wine and its gifts of anticipation, savor, celebration, and memory. 

Connections

• Visit Walla Walla
• Wikipedia: Walla Walla People
• Woodward Canyon Winery
• When we arrived in downtown Walla Walla, we were lucky enough to find our way to Graze —a local sandwich shop serving the best BLT I’ve ever tasted (it’s all about the tomatoes!) — and smart enough to go back there again the next day. Seriously: best BLT ever. And the salad of fresh greens topped with blue cheese, candied cashews, and pears roasted to a dense, sweet chewiness was also divine. I’ve got to figure out how those pears were roasted!
• Walla Walla Fair & Frontier Days
• Lalime’s in Berkeley, Caifornia

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