Back in Chehalis

We arrived back in Chehalis into our leased campsite on May 2.  We were able to do wine-tasting with the family for the Spring Chehalis wine tour.  We celebrated Mother's Day early, since we were leaving on our Mediterranean cruise.

We left the motorhome and trailer in our leased spot for the cruise (highlights of cruise in a different post) and flew out of Portland.  We were gone about 14 days.

We celebrated Craig's birthday with the Craig's parents, brother and sister-in-law, with a Mexican dinner and cake.

In June we went to Skamokawa County Park - Vista Point, with friends to watch the Portland Rose Parade Fleet of Ships leave down the Columbia River on their way to Astoria, OR.  The weather was not great, but we had a great view out of our motorhome window of  all the ships if we didn't want to walk the short way to the beach.

We celebrated Craig's parents 63 anniversary after returning from our Columbia river trip one day late, and then did a barbecue for Father's Day.  We cooked all the chicken for the barbecue the day before Fathers Day on our smoker.  We had not smoked chicken yet, but it turned out great.

We also went to the Monster Truck races at South Sound Speedway to celebrate a nephew's birthday. Had a great time even though the sun was in our face (therefore we couldn't get great pictures) and it was at least 95 when the race started at 6:30.

Lots of doctor's visits and multiple visits to Craig's parents to help around their home.  I have now been cancer free for 6 years.

We are enjoying spending time at our campsite and watching all the critters that keeps Craig busy filling feeders.  We decorated the campsite for the 4th of July.

Walla Walla, WA

We arrived in Walla Walla on Monday, April 24 and stayed a week.  We had not been in the Walla Walla area since the December barrel tasting in December 2013, so we were excited to spend an entire week.  It made it even more special when our friends from Estacada decided to meet us there.  Since we use to do the Holiday Barrel Tasting events (at least 9-10 years) when we worked, we love the area and definitely have our favorite wineries.

We were going to try and limit our wine tasting to about 3-4 wineries per day, and of course the first day we started with five once we got into the west area of town.

L 'Ecole Winery

Cougar Crest

We also visited Reninger and Three Rivers.

We also visited the Whitman Mission.  The visitor center was closed but we did walk around the grounds.  The mission site was founded in 1836 by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.  It was also a station on the Oregon Trail.

Whitman Memorial

Overlooking the grounds of the mission.  

On Wednesday it was raining most of the day, so instead of sight seeing, we visited four wineries.  We went to Oregon to visit Zerba and then went to Basel, Va Piano and Saviah.

On Thursday, we did not do any wineries, but we did go to Fort Walla Walla Museum.  The museum had lots of buildings with lots of things to see as well as a small village of buildings.  The fort existed 52 years, from 1858 - 1910.  They participated in various Indian wars and WW1.  We did not do the walking tour of the original 15 buildings which remain of the fort.

38 star Garrison Flag

Water Wagon

33 mule team

Right building - Union School House of 1867

Friday:

We had an appointment for noon at Rulo, a new winery for us.  From there we went to three additional wineries for the day.

Eisenhower cellars

On Saturday we had an appointment with Craig Nelson at Ensemble.  They are in the process of selling the winery, much to our disappointment, but we enjoyed one additional visit.  From there we tried a new winery, Elegante and then went to  SYZYGY (also a winery not currently producing wine, but one of our favorites), Tamarack and Gramercy.  We've followed Gramercy from the very beginning of their start-up and this was the first time we visited their new facility on 13th street.

On Sunday we started our day by attending service at Amazing Grace Nazarene Church.  This was one of the friendlest churches we have been to.  Look forward to another visit in the area.  We then tried a new winery Cavu and then went onto Dunham and Adamant.  We ended the day at a brewery to give our dedicated driver some beer.  Of course the beer was wonderful and we all enjoyed as well as the Mexican food truck outside of the brewery.  Wonderful!

Almost home, on Monday we left Walla Walla, and went to Yakima for a one night stay.  We stayed at Suntides RV Park off of Hwy 12, which was a great park with great WiFi and then Tuesday, May 2, we will be back at our leased site, spending the summer in Oregon and Washington.

Caldwell, Idaho

We arrived int Caldwell, Idaho on Friday, April 21 and spent 3 nights at a great RV park Ambassador RV Resort in Caldwell.  They were a full service RV park with excellent WiFi and a great location with very long spots.

One previous visit to the area we had stopped at one of the SouthWestern Idaho wineries, Ste. Chapelle, and when checking out the wineries in the area, they have definitely grown.  So on Saturday we visited 3 wineries:

Ste. Chapelle

Koenig Vineyards

On Sunday we found a great church in Middleton, ID called Canyon Springs Christian Church.

After the service, we drove into Garden City and visited Cinder winery and then went across the street to Split Rail Winery.  The winemaker at Split Rail was doing different things such as having a white and red wine available in the can, they had wine growlers you could buy with various growler refilling stations and they had the first cement egg wine storage we had seen.

Red wine in a can

Cement egg

We then drove out to Vizcaya winery by recommendation of people we had met at Bitner, and discovered they were having an event, with music and a food truck along with two wineries serving; Vizcaya Winery and Syringa who was the winemaker for both wineries and was in the process of moving to the same address.  The winemaker, Mike Crowley, also had worked in the Walla Walla area and gave us recommendations of new wineries to try there.

Motorhome is filled with wine and now we are off to Walla Walla, WA.  I'm sure we can make room since it's our second to last stop before we get back to Chehalis!