Mike & Kris - Enjoying The Ride

We departed Central Oregon and headed east to Walla Walla, Washington.  Time for a little wine, baseball, good company, and awesome food.  It had been about seven years since we were last here and were impressed with even more wineries and food options than before.  There are now over 160 wineries in just Walla Walla.

We were last here when Matthew was playing summer baseball for the Walla Walla Sweets after his freshman year of college.

The Dumonts, Matt’s host family from seven years ago, were definitely on our list of people to see.  Surprisingly, one of our first stops was to unexpectedly find Jim Dumont sipping a glass of wine in the downtown area. It sure was fun to catch up with them and all the changes seven years had brought.

Next on the agenda was to try and choose from the many restaurants and wineries to be able to visit in just a couple days.  There is an amazing array of restaurants to choose from and so our schedule on the first day was a late breakfast, stop by the Walla Walla Baking Company for a fresh loaf of sourdough bread, and then out and about to 3-4 wineries.

We chose one in the afternoon, met up with Jim again, and unpacked our fruit, cheese, and bread to enjoy with the wine of our choice.  We followed this up with dinner in a gas station!  Yes, it is true:  it’s called Andrae’s Kitchen and it is worth a stop.  Of course, we ended the evening with a little baseball.  We watched the Sweets win and visited a bit more with Deb Dumont.

The next day brought more of the same.

We were both super impressed with all the great options for things to do in this fairly small (30,000 people) farming community in Eastern Washington.

We look forward to our next opportunity to return to Walla Walla, the town so nice, they named it twice 🙂