Southeast Washington

After the last post we went back to the Tacoma area for another month of family time. After granddaughter birthday parties completed it was time to start meandering back toward Arizona. Our first stop was in the Washington tri-cities for some RV repairs and to see some sites.

We visited Sacajawea State Park at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. This park has a small, but very good, interpretive center with information on the history of the area with the most famous historical event being the Lewis & Clark Expedition camping on the site.

We next went to the small Manhattan Project National Historical Park visitor center and learned that you can only go to the park sites via tours and they were booked for days. We missed out on that. If you want to do one of the free tours, call well ahead of time to reserve. We next learned that the Hanford Reach National Monument doesn't have a visitor center or anything so that didn't turn into a real visit either.

We did have a good day trip to the Whitman Mission National Historical Site near Walla Walla. They have a small visitor center with an excellent 20 minute film and a nice walk outside around the mission site and along a short restored section of the Oregon Trail. We also drove into Walla Walla and walked around the old downtown which is clean and vibrant. We then drove around a section of town with nice old homes and stopped at Pioneer Park with has a really nice aviary with a lot of exotic birds. Very nice city.