If There's Grey Skies, It Must Be the Northwest

On Tuesday, May 1, we drove from Boise, ID, to Pendleton, OR. We stopped at the Oregon Trails Interpretive Center in Baker City, OR. The Center is run by the Bureau of Land Management and was an excellent display. There were dioramas showing the makeup of a wagon train, films showing the story of the creation of the Oregon trail, and it was all very well done--despite being a government operation. Our $10 lifetime senior pass to the National Parks has now paid for itself with just two stops. (The other stop being the Gold Spike National Monument.) Our next stop was the Tamastslikt Indian Cultural Institute on an Indian reservation. The Institute was well done and financed by the casino on the reservation. It focused on the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes. We then took a side trip to Walla Walla, WA, and checked out a couple of wineries. One was the Basel (pronounced like the herb) Cellars, which was a wine RESORT perched on a hill overlooking the vineyards. The people were nice, the setting was wonderful, the wine was expensive (most bottles were in the $40's), but there was no wine to rave about. In Pendleton we visited the woolen mill where the "Pendleton" originated. After that, we were ready for a break and headed for a hotel.