Friends had advised us that the Columbia Crest winery was about an hour’s drive east on the Washington side of the river, so Jim made a reservation to taste at 1pm. We went to The Dalles farmers market first, getting fresh lettuce and blueberries, then we headed off. East on I-84 to the US-97 bridge across to Washington, then east on WA-14 about 68 more miles. Since we left early, we arrived 90 minutes before our reservation. However, they had no other tasters, so they accommodated our early arrival. The Columbia Crest marque is owned by Chateau Ste. Michelle, which also owns Horse Heaven Hills, Bourne of Fire and a few others. They grow and buy a lot of grapes! On the east coast, we see only their mass market wines. The cellar lets one sample their reserve expressions. We tasted four wines and bought some of the Brut champagne and Petit Verdot.
With a recommendation in hand, we proceeded to Prosser WA to find lunch. The road goes through huge wheat fields, areas as large as 10×10 miles square. The harvest is going on right now, so we saw some huge field equipment. At Prosser, we ate lunch at “Wine o’clock” at the Bunnell Family Cellar. I had a great pizza with tomatillos, Deb had a salad and shared pizza. She had a glass of their rosé, and I had a small taste of Tempranillo (I’m driving, so showed restraint). Bundaberg ginger ale was my main tipple. The food and atmosphere were great, and we walked away with a few bottles of their liquid product.
Not wanting to exactly retrace our route, we headed south (back through the huge wheat fields) and east (through even more wheat fields, plus corn), crossing the Columbia River into Oregon at Umatilla. We took I-82 south to I-84 and headed west. Where the two interstates cross, there is the old Umatilla Chemical Depot, where chemical munitions were destroyed before the base was closed. We could see from the highway a great many earthen bunkers where the munitions must have been stored.
Got home after about seven elapsed hours, mostly spent driving. Here’s the total route from our tracking website, https://share.garmin.com/cfogoose. The site is a little tough to use, but you can filter tracks by date.
