We had, on a previous visit, hit most the highlights of the area surrounding Moses Lake, Washington so this time we contented ourselves with kicking back and relaxing. Anticipating some extremely hot weather, we upgraded our campsite to 50 amp service so we could run both air conditioners if necessary. And there were days when it was certainly necessary. Dry heat or not, 100 degrees is not comfortable!
We hadn’t visited the city of Wenatchee on our first trip so we took this opportunity to make the 60 mile drive northwest to explore it. Wenatchee’s original claim to fame was its bountiful crops of apples and it continues to produce mega-crops of wonderful apples. 
But it also produces many other types of fruits and berries and has recently begun to produce grapes both for the table and for the winery. Being the “high desert”, nothing grows without irrigation but the volcanic ash soil is ready to produce as soon as the magic ingredient of water is added. It was a broiling hot day, destined to reach into triple digits, so we were happy to enter the cool confines of the Wenatchee Valley Museum. Although we appreciated the climate indoors, we were less than impressed with the contents of the museum. It told the story of the mighty apple in great detail but told other bits and pieces of the area’s history incoherently.
One of the more interesting items we spotted was this camera, dating back to the 1920s and manufactured in Rochester, New York where it lived in the shadow of the once-mighty Eastman Kodak Company. Sears, Roebuck purchased the rights to the camera and sold it under the Sears brand.
A far more interesting museum, perhaps because it was such a surprise, was the Grant County Museum in Ephrata, Washington. The museum tour begins in the largest building which is crammed with interesting items from the area’s past where we were left to our own devices to make sense of the collection. But once we’d explored that building to our satisfaction, a guide joined us and led us to a series of outbuildings, each housing a collection pertinent to the building which held it. For example, a collection of pianos, organs and religious articles were housed in an old Catholic church. It was when one guide was replaced with another that we realized we were about to get our money’s worth and then some. The museum consists of a lot of buildings! An entire town, in fact, and a relay team of docents is probably necessary. Kudos to the folks who put this collection together and who keep it operating.
The next stop on our westward trek was Pendleton, Oregon. The main purpose for the stop was to visit the Pendleton Underground and spend some time with one of Howie’s college chums, Charles, and his wife Ellen who recently moved to the area from California. Although we aren’t “casino people” we did opt to stay at the Wildhorse Casino east of Pendleton. As with so many casinos, they have an excellent and relatively inexpensive campground. At night we could watch the lights of vehicles as they climbed up (or down) I-84 as it winds its way over the Blue Mountains.
Charles and Ellen hadn’t yet made the tour of the Underground so they joined us on Friday morning to check it out. Tours are booked in advance and reservations are required; I suspect the tour groups are also limited in size. There were about 20 of us assembled and we were led back out onto the street to begin the tour. At one time, Pendleton had a busy and lively “parallel universe” below ground with rooms and cellars and tunnels housing all sorts of enterprises both fair and foul. Mainly inhabited by Chinese railroad workers, the underground was home to opium dens and 
laundries, speakeasies and pool rooms. This original Pendleton blanket is thought to date from the 1880s. The four black bars in the design indicate the price – four beaver pelts --which indicates Pendleton Woolen Mill’s products have always been expensive. Or as they say around here, spendy.
The “underground” tour does not remain under ground. Eventually we headed upstairs to visit the boarding house/brothel known as Cozy Rooms. It was both a legitimate boarding house and a bordello and was the last operating “sporting house” in town to close its doors. The furnishings were considerably more lavish than those at the Oasis in Wallace. We aren’t sure that’s at all significant but perhaps cowboys spend more lavishly than miners. The madam had installed a small chapel where a circuit-riding preacher delivered sermons to the working girls every Sunday.
There are not many alternative routes from one side of Oregon to the other so we followed I-84 west along the Columbia River Gorge to Troutdale, just outside Portland. Troutdale has been a frequent stop for us. The campground is especially nice and there’s plenty of shopping close at hand, both recreational and necessary. We spent two days emptying tanks that need to be empty and filling tanks that need to be full before heading to Albany for four and half days of boondocking at the Northwest Area FMCA rally at the Linn County Fairgrounds. It seems that quite a few folks we know have traveled here after the Gillette rally and so the fun continues.
There are some unique things on the agenda for the next few weeks, including a Faux Family Reunion, so be sure to tune in again soon for an update from the highways and byways of Oregon.
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