A Day Away

Our day away from the boat began with renting a van that would carry all six of us.  And here is the  Enterprise Rent-a-Car guy, making the delivery!

We drove north east along the Columbia River for awhile, giving us a preview of the scenery we will enjoy tomorrow.  It looks spectacular!  I hope to have worthy pictures to share with you.  Tomorrow will begin as soon after daylight as we can manage, calling the dam first to check other traffic and schedule our pass.  We will have 32 miles to travel, through the dam, and a bridge we will have to have lifted, again calling and perhaps having to wait to make it through.

But first, look what we did today!!!  We visited three wineries in the Walla Walla Valley.  The first stop was L'Ecole No. 41.

We learned our lessons:

And visited the 'library'

The forklift is dumping grapes into the hopper of a 'Europress'.  I wish this photo was 'scratch and sniff', because the scent was wonderful!

The grapes go from the hopper into the drum and juice drips into the trough at the bottom

There was a sign at the bell telling us to ring it.....so we did, on the way in, and on the way out.

The second winery was Reininger, which had two brands, Rieninger and Helix.  Of the three wineries, I think Al and I liked the wines here the best.  Here is chalk art to help you match a smell to the proper vocabulary word.

I like pictures that show texture.  These grapevines were woven onto the front of the tasting desk.

Beautiful mural in the lobby:

We had lunch at the Three Rivers Winery.  We enlisted a woman from the neighboring table to get a photo of the whole group of us.

The production room:

Also at this winery, a three-hole golf course.  Becky and Marti gave it a go.

There had been another winery on our list of possibles, but by this time most of the wines were tasting pretty similar.  We decided to forego the fourth, and a trip the the Whitman Mission, to get the van back before closing time.

I think dinner plans involve calling the burger joint for a delivery.