We were hunting jeeps, as we do anytime we are traveling in the car, when I heard Ann shout, “That’s a camel . . . NO, that’ s horse . . . No, that’s a Camel.”

Those weren’t words I expected to hear as we drove into the small town of Waitsburg, Washington, just a short drive north from Walla Walla.  But, sure enough, there amongst two cows was a Camel eating some feed.  It’s just strange the things you can find when you start looking.

When we started the day we weren’t hunting for camels.  Instead, our expressed purpose was to drive east from Pasco to the VA hospital in Walla Walla for some x-rays.  While Ann has been to the fair city of Walla Walla many times, I’ve only been once, many decades ago.   Because it has been a while, I had certain expectations.  I figured we’d see Sweet Onions (as in Walla Walla Sweets), wheat fields, and a western town with a slow-paced downtown.  Well, I was in for a surprise!

On the way to Walla Walla, our thorough dissection of each country home and barn (as we drove along the highway of course) yielded  a CJ-2A with a hard top parked in a field with some other vehicles, but we missed out on a picture of it.  It had that ‘patina’, that look of a retired vehicle put to pasture to endure all kinds of weather humiliation. I’m sure it will be there on our next trip, too. Here is some of the country side:

We quickly arrived in Walla Walla and, after some xrays, stopped by the only Pho Soup shop in town, Pho Sho, which I pronounced Fer Sure to make Ann laugh.  The Pho Sho was rated pretty well and the lack of Pho Soup places in the Tri Cities area makes finding one a treat these days.  From the VA, we quickly arrived at the Pho Sho hungry and excited . . . only to find out it was closed on Mondays.  Ooops …  my research failure.

Unsure about our other eating options, we went downtown.  Instead seeing farmers lined up with trucks selling the Walla Walla Sweet Onions straight from the fields, the downtown was lined with wine shops intermixed with fine eateries and fine foods.  There was even an Octopus eating a children’s toy store!

One shop we entered sold different kinds of salts, including a black truffle salt that I would have sold my children to get, only to find out that at $77 a pound, I really would have had to sell my children to pay for it.  So, I settled for a whiff.  Thankfully, the whiffs were free, but it smelled so good I might have paid for a second one.

We eventually settled on restaurant called the Bread Company.  Or, perhaps, better put it is a bakery that serves some food.  Without boring you with the details and harvesting my entire thesaurus of all words similar to fabulous and marvelous, I’ll just say that this is as good a bakery as you will find in the west.  Even the garnish that accompanied the sandwich, a piece of orange watermelon, was fantastic.  I can’t wait to go back to Walla Walla for some more food and some wine.

Speaking of wine, we didn’t try any on this trip, but there are wine fields, tasting rooms and shops all over the county.  They could call themselves Napa Napa Valley instead of the Walla Walla Valley.

Rather than stay in Walla Walla, we headed to Waitsburg (saw the camel), then to Dayton, then up to Bluewood, a tiny ski resort that, it turns out, closes the gate during the summer.   All we could get were photos of us and the gate.  So, we hung out on the gate for a little while and then headed back down the hill.

It was 5;30pm by that time, so we thought it best to head back.  On our way, we tried to shoot a few of the other jeeps (CJ-5s, Flatfenders, and an FC that might have a tow package on it) that we saw in and around barns. I think we saw more jeeps per capita through those little towns than we had in quite some time.  Most were hidden in places that didn’t make for good pictures (not that these are good pictures):

So, all in all a fun filled day with good food, x-rays, jeep shooting and camel spotting.