Rick and Linda

We are now in the Pacific Time Zone – 2 hours behind the Midwest

August 15th – We got a little longer walk in this morning and enjoyable lawn chair coffee and planning session. We headed to town for the Pendleton Woolen Mills tour. We arrived for the 11:00 tour only to find no tours during shutdown week. Somehow you would thing the info folks bragging up the tour should have know that!! So we watched the video instead and went through there shop and seconds sale area. Since Linda is allergic to it and I can’t get past the price – 129 dollar sale shirts – give me a break…

We found the Pendleton Round up grounds and were looking around when a lady walking a boxer struck up a conversation. She could be a travel ambassador for the area. We talked a long time and following her suggestions we found the Howard Miller Clock in front of the Courthouse. It is in a 50 foot brick tower and the weights are the size of a 5 gallon bucket.

Next home for lunch and off to the Tamasalikt Cultural Building near where we are staying. Very interesting LARGE building for the Umatilla, Walla Walla and ---- Indian tribes who formed a coalition on this reservation. It also has a Casino, golf course, campground and gas station to supplement their income. We did stop at the Casino which reportedly had a Multi story open interior but 5 feet inside the door I almost puked from the smoke smell yuck!!! You forget how bad that smell is when you are not exposed to it.

Then we headed down to the Farmers Market – lots of produce, but the fresh berries were our favorite until we found the beer samples from a Hood River, OR micro brewer – Double Mountain. They had some real good ones so we ordered a pizza to go with the samples at Pacific City. It was #6 – peanut sauce marinated shrimp, cilantro and covered with sprouts.

And who did we run into following one of her own suggestions??? Yes, the same lady from the exchange earlier at the round up grounds. We had an interesting conversation with her and her husband and when we left we followed two more of their suggestions. The chocolate shop was to die for! And the Saloon/restaurant run by the same folks with the Leather Company was gorgeous inside – especially the copper stamped ceiling. They had live music and samples of the Pendleton Liquor – which is made in Hood River. I see why the Farmer’s Market runs from 4 to 8 on Friday night.

On the way back we were treated to the pink mountain lighting from the sunset - reminds us of the Arizona evenings...

August 14^th – We had a nice walk this morning after skipped or shortened ones on travel days it felt good. We found a bike/walk path along the outside of the golf course. We turned around at a bench with a water fountain and while we got Lexi some water Linda said “my lucky day” as she picked up a five dollar bill. Should she go to the Casino to see how lucky she really is? I doubt it… While sitting in the lawn chairs having coffee an interesting looking bird joined us – a yellow headed blackbird. We haven’t seen too many of them before.

Late morning we went to Pendleton for the Underground City Tour. In the old days they were used for many things including butcher shop, ice cream shop, housing Chinese laborers in horribly crowded quarters lighted only by prism glass panels in the boardwalk or messy kerosene lanterns. A very interesting 90 minutes. They have lots of bike trails and a walking trail along the Umatilla River, interesting shops including a lot of leather and western stuff. Brew Pubs are popular so we stopped for lunch at the recommended one and we were not disappointed. A great selection of things to choose from.