Day 94

MILES AND MILES OF VINEYARDS

We live in the most beautiful state!

We left Friday morning and drove up to see the Tulip fields in the Skagit valley. Check. They were pretty but don't need to ever to that again. After driving to Lake Chelan and seeing so many vineyards, the tulip fields were puny! Pretty....but puny.

We did a couple of wine tastings in Chelan and Wapato Point. We really liked the Pino Grigio from the Lake Chelan winery so we bought a bottle to take home. After staying at an OK motel for $64 per night, we drove to Grand Coulee Dam and over to the east side and down toward the Yakima Valley. We decided to spend the night at Sunnyside and passed up the $60 motel because it looked a bit scruffy. We found another motel that looked perfect! Only thing it was $100 per night, which was OK with us but then we discovered that the air conditioner wouldn't cool the room to a sleepable temperature, the smoke detector was missing and the electric hairdryer had been removed. What a ripoff!! We slept terribly. To top it off the people above us must have had kids that liked to jump off the bed. We kept hearing loud thumps and finally called the desk to ask if they could politely talk to the people above us. It didn't help but they finally quieted down at about 11 pm and were up at it again at 6:15 am. We would have been better off with that less than steller LOOKING motel. Lesson learned, I hope!

We did get a complimentary breakfast and I enjoyed a waffle, which I haven't had in YEARS! It was good. Off we went to explore the valley. Stopped at a couple of wineries and shared a glass to sample their wines. $5 per person and Dave didn't want to be drinking wine since he was driving. He had a few sips but I must say that even though the total amount of wine I sampled was minuscule, I was now sleepy.

We loved the site of so many grape vines and interesting orchards.  Lots of trees had been cut down to about 10" from the ground and new cuttings had been spliced into that hardwood. Bee hives, structures to hold netting, smudge pots to create heat through the winter and various fruit trees/berries growing here and there within the vineyards to add hints of fruits to the wine. Lots of work and expense to produce the wine that many love to drink. It is just amazing to see that many of the apple orchards in the Chelan/Wenatchee area have been replaced by grapes. Washington state has become a major player in the wine industry. If you haven't been over to these areas recently it may be time for you to go!

Silver Lake Winery

This is a HUGE dairy operation in the Zillah area, with Mt. Adams hovering over head.