Joeandfrannie's travel blogs:
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Fruit Loops, Beer, and Alpacas?
Entry 9 of 12 | show all | print this entry |
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After a late night on the town of Yakima, we woke with a Joe and Frannie task at hand. We took on what the Yakima Valley Tourism board calls their "Fruit Loop" Tour.  We found this self-guided driving tour on line and chock full of wineries, orchards, and a historical landmark visitor's center in the shape of a coffee pot, we knew this was an event we could not leave off the agenda. Having explored all that the town of Toppenish had to offer the day before, the back roads of this beautiful farm country were wide open for us this early morning.  Turn by turn, Joe followed my skillful navigational directions and enjoyed the play by play I provided as we passed by orchards, vineyards, and fruit stands. Along the tour we were prompted to "look to our right" in order to view the lush hops fields. The Yakima Valley happens to be one of the world's largest growing regions of hops. Considering neither of us had ever seen a hop vine, we were excited about seeing them. The description of the hop fields said that they grow almost in a V formation towering high about the rest of the vines and trees. We saw nothing of the kind, and accepted that we were going to miss out on the hop viewing.
The "piece de resistance" for me was the historical coffee pot site. Being a sucker for anything world's largest, smallest, oldest, or most unusual, we headed off to the final stop in our foot loop tour. As we approached the spot, #16 on the tour, we saw the pot off in the distance. In the distance is where we should have stayed though. As we pulled into the parking lot cracked and uneven, we set our eyes upon the saddest thing. The coffee pot had gone, well, to pot.  I found myself double checking the loop directions like maybe we had taken a wrong turn. Maybe, I thought, there was another world's something coffee pot in the area. Facing what I already knew was the truth, I just kept looking at the picture from the internet printout and then what faced me in reality. The photo showed a beautiful groomed garden surrounding a freshly painted coffee pot. In the quaint little windows, hung white curtains. In front of the coffee pot, a functional gas pump. It turns out the pot used to be a gas station and service center. Now, it has neither, no service and no gas. The sight in front of us in reality was a spot that had been forgotten and ignored. With new wineries and fruit stands, visitors and I guess residents had completely abandoned this historic site. The windows were broken, fixed only by pieces of plywood stuck in the frames. The curtains were gone, weeds were growing up between the cracks in the concrete, and frankly the whole thing was just a mess. We quickly abandoned the site of the World's Most Abandoned Historical Site, and headed on our way out Sunnyside.
 Sunnyside, another little stop in the Yakima Valley houses the Darigold Dairy. Home to one of the largest Co-Op dairies in the country, Darigold doesn't actually have cows at their manufacturing plant. We arrived for the "Cheese Tour" and looked forward to some corny satisfaction after our disaster at the coffee pot stop. Darigold is beautiful and an impressive dairy building. The sign outside made us feel hopeful about learning about cheese and milk and everything...cow. The tour starts in the gift shop. Like a Cracker Barrel Restaurant, the place is filled with all kinds of everything that no one needs. Magnetic Butterfly Note Pads and Potpourri sachets, there was actually very little in this gift store that related to cheese, milk, or even cows. The snack counter did sample all kinds of varieties of cheddar and the cases along the back of the store sold cheese, milk, and yogurt but other than that, you wouldn't have really known that this was a dairy factory at all. We entered the self-guided tour excited to see all the curds we could handle. Unfortunately, our "tour" consisted of a glass viewing room above a single production spot of dairy. We were able to view a bunch of stainless containers, all working very hard I am sure, concocting the "World's Best Cheese." Thank goodness for the VHS movie created in 1986 with a target audience of 9 year olds. We learned all about the homogenization process thanks to some guy with a name like "Professor Whey" or something. Suffocating from the stuffiness of the room and the obnoxiousness of Professor Whey, we headed out of the dairy but not before making our purchases of cheese and chocolate milk. 
We decided to spend a little more time exploring Sunnyside. We have read a lot of great things about living in the town and wanted to see what it had to offer. I won't keep you in suspense, we aren't moving to Sunnyside and neither should anyone we care about. There is really no retail in Sunnyside and the town hasn't really seemed to figure out who it is yet but we did manage to hit a jackpot while we were there.
We came upon the Snipes Brewing Company Restaurant. Snipes is one of Washington's hidden gems of a microbrewery. Regardless of the fact that it was only 10:45 in the morning, we were ready to blow the froth off a pint of some golden nectar. (I think the coffee pot and the dairy factory put us in prime form). Waiting for the bar to open, I finished my Americana Coffee from the drive thru across the street. Coffee and beer together make a great stout so I guess I was on to something! Anyway, when we finally bellied up to the bar, we shared a sampler rack of beers and enjoyed almost all of them. Snipes sticks out like a sore thumb in Sunnyside. With brand new looking construction with a western kind of feel, this place is huge. When we asked the barmaid if Sunnyside has enough business to sustain this business she reminded us that Snipes is really more of a distribution brewery and the restaurant does not really bring in a lot of their revenue. The reason the site is so expansive is primarily because of the brewing processes that go on their. We stayed only long enough to say we had done it, and buy a growler to take with us.
Next to Snipes, on the other side of the corner, sat a pink concrete building advertising authentic Mexican food. Proudly serving Goya Mango Soda, this establishment looked about as authentic as it gets and Joe can not pass up real Mexican. Here it was, before noon. I had to rush my morning coffee to drink beer and now he was ordering 4 soft beef tacos to round off the morning. No one spoke English and it didn't appear that they get a lot of non-Hispanic business, but food is a universal language and with little effort, Joe had exactly what he wanted. Filled with cilantro, beef, tomatoes, and lettuce these corn tortilla soft tacos were amazing. Coupled with the most amazingly spicy mole, the cilantro and spice were a perfect combination.
Heading out of Sunnyside, we headed to Prosser. Prosser is a growing community that seems to hold a lot of promise. Although there is still farming in Prosser, the town doesn't wear their agriculture like a badge of courage. There seemed almost to be an internal battle in some of the farming towns we have visited. Stuck in the way things have always been, it is hard to move toward progress. Prosser seems to have found a balance between the two. Nestled away from the buzz of the Tri Cities, Prosser has become a commuter town for people who work and shop in or near the Tri Cities area. Our first stop in Prosser was yet another food stop along the marathon of noshing today. The Chukar Cherries Company is one of the nation's most popular chocolate covered cherries retailers.  Famous of course for the Washington Cherries used to produce these perfectly sized snacks, Chukar's was a great surprise for me. I don't particularly love chocolate covered cherries, or at least that is what I thought. These were fresh, dried cherries, not the gooey filled gel explosion that I expected when you bite into a chocolate covered cherry. When we walked into cherry heaven, we were met by the most enthusiastic sales associate ever. You would either think that this woman single handedly made every single confection in this place or that her life depended on selling cherries. Wonderful and enthusiastic she took us on a walking tour of the shop, pointed out that almost every item for sale was for sample. Not only does Chukar's sell covered cherries in all combinations of cherries and chocolates, but there are a ton of other products too. As the sales associate toured me around the store, Joe was busy taste testing I think every product they had available and then started asking if others were available behind the counter... talk about a steel stomach! Cherry jelly, salsa, barbeque sauce, chutney, and syrup, there were also chocolate covered nuts of all kinds and of course, chocolate covered coffee beans. Add to that every single variety and combination of chocolate and cherries available and you have a gastronomic Wonka Land. After purchasing our shared of cherry products we were off to Snoqualmie Winery.
One of the most beautiful wineries we visited, Snoqualmie is one of the many wineries outside of the Fruit Loop Area. Met by a wonderful host, we sampled wines and talked Prosser with our sampler hostess. We learned a lot about Prosser, the winery, and the area. On the way out, we gave our complements to the wine maker, a woman named Joy Andersen. Of all the wineries, we thought this was one of the best wineries we visited. With lots of variety, each glass was wonderful in its own original way.
We had spent the morning working our way across the Yakima Valley but we still had a long way to travel. Due in Uniontown, near the Idaho boarder, by nightfall, we really needed to hammer down and get some miles behind us. Driving on, we drove through town after town, field after field, and passing barn after barn. When we drove through Waitsburg our little antennae went up and we were instantly intrigued. This little town, like so many included little more than a main street and some local businesses. Differences in what makes a little town appealing are subtle so it was hard to say what we loved about this little town. The streets were clean, the flowers along the store fronts were all well kept and in bloom and there just seemed to be an overall feeling of pride in the town. We drove through the town and residential section, adoring all the homes and the feeling of community that surrounded this little place. We passed through the town and began to head out, continuing on our journey. Leaving town we saw the most curious sign. Spray painted in red on a white painted piece of wood, the sign read: "CAUTION! Brewery Ahead!" Joe looked out the side of his eyes at me and said "OK, I'll bite." At that moment we pulled into the Laht Neppur Brewery.  Operating out of a corrugated metal storage building, the Laht Neppur Brewery is owned by a married couple who decided to move to Waitsburg in order to get out of the busy life in Vancouver. Only producing enough beer to use in their facility, there are about 8 brews to select from. With a few simple tables, a full bar, and a menu of bar food and bratwurst, we ordered yet another flight of beer. Visiting with a young couple who were traveling cross country from Brooklyn, NY we shared our journeys with each other and our understandings of life off of the east coast. It continues to amaze me when we meet people along our way. Whether visiting from out of town or locals, everyone we meet has a story and learning them is part of what makes our road trips so special. I suppose Waitsburg is a perfect answer to the question "Why?" people ask when we tell them where we are traveling off to. Not the coast, not a tourist attraction, and not a spot on the map we even planned to visit, we ended up there and met people who helped shape our journey and our understanding of how small the world is. Waitsburg is in fact what differentiates a vacation from a journey.
We passed up the growler or mason jars full of beer for sale considering all the food, beer, and wine we had already accumulated (and consumed) in one day. Traveling out of Waitsburg after a well deserved break in our driving, we soldiered on. Driving through Dayton we passed yet another coffee drive thru, this one was built into one of the storage units of a public storage facility. Coffee is EVERYWHERE out here!
Continuing our drive Joe spotted a wind farm off in the distance and that started our next off road adventure. What we had seen was the Hopkins Ridge Wind Project hidden off in the now rolling terrain of the Palouse Region of Eastern Washington.  Wind Power is big business and wind farms are going up everywhere out here. At first we saw the farm towering above us from the highway. As we traveled to get a closer look the turbines became more elusive. Never to back down from hunting down a prey, Joe made a quick right hand turn off the highway and once again onto a primitive road and with every twist and turn of the road, coupled with the contours of the rolling fields, the wind giants were there and then in a second, gone. You know it becomes and adventure when the primitive gravel road turns into dirt and looks to disappear toward the horizon. After twists and turns, barking dogs, and a few farm houses, the prize was smack in front of us. What an amazing sight these wind giants are, spinning in the prairie breeze; the landscape was filled with these goliaths. Completely quiet, wind power is becoming a tremendous source of alternative energy and seems to be turning up on more of our journies. After a few pictures we headed back out and went on our way.
Arrived at the Premiere Alpacas Bed and Breakfast in Uniontown, WA after winding our way back and forth from Lewiston ID and Clarkston, WA (get it, Lewis and Clark). Uniontown seems to be a quiet town but is considered the "hub" of the "quad cities" Lewiston, Clarkston, Moscow, and Pullman. The Alpacas B&B sits high on a hill in Uniontown. Run by Dale and Leslee Miller, the Inn functions second to the real business for Dale and Leslee, breeding and selling Alpacas. With about 25 alpacas on the farm, Leslee's business not only sells the in demand Alpaca fiber but also breeds the animals. I joked with her that she is a sort of Alpaca Madame. Renting out her studs and match making in order to make in demand fiber colors, Leslee has no problem hooking these curious creatures up for a one night stand.
We dropped our things off at the Inn and laid out our tent, still soaked in the trunk from Rainier and headed out to catch a sunset. We ate dinner at Eleanor's, the only restaurant in town. Our waiter was also the bartender, cook, and dish guy, just an example of how simple things get in a small town. After a long, food-filled, beverage-filled and mega-mile travel day sleep came quickly...
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