Departure from Yakima to the Winery

 August 28, 2020 Friday

The hotel did not have its usual buffet breakfast, another casualty of the virus, but it handed out lots of packaged food items which we heated up in the room and ate out by the pool. A pleasant and filling breakfast.

We headed out at about 10:00 am, fully charged and gassed, south on I-82 for about 60 miles retracing the route we had followed two weeks earlier before going to a winery. Before arriving there we noticed, as we had during our inbound trip, the thousands of triangle shaped trellises that carried hops vines. The Yakima valley grows 75% of the nations hops and there are many craft breweries in the area. Additionally there were lots of fruit farms which were stacked high with hundreds of fruit boxes that provided the raw materials to the numerous food processing plants we passed.

Yakima is the northern entrance to the Washington State wine growing area. There are a few hundred wineries in the Yakima, Snake and Columbia Valleys, placed into five AVAs and I had no idea which one to visit. I selected Hamilton Cellars outside of Benton City because it had a free electric charging station and was a bit beyond our then current battery charge. It was a few miles off the interstate and the level 2 charging station was present and operating as promised. There were two unused Tesla stations.

The winery and vineyard are in the Red Mountain sub AVA. The winery was started by a husband and wife team who made a fortune in solar panels. The winery was founded in 2006, but the vineyard and tasting room was not established at the present site until 2014. The winery claims to be a net zero operation and at least one of the owners' cars is a Bolt. (We saw him drive it into his house adjacent to the wine tasting area.) The winery had a variety of red wines. No white wines grown here. There was a small indoor area that was not available for seating due to the virus and a beautiful outdoor seating area with an expansive view of the valley. The clerk brought us a flight of 4 wines. We ended up purchasing a case of Malbec 2013, 50% off.

 

After about 1.5 hours at the winery where we added 18 electric miles, we resumed our drive on I-82 until Richland. Here we turned east onto I-182 into the tri cities area.This has three cites that lie at the the confluence of the Columbia, Yakima and Snake Rivers. This point represents the end of the latter two rivers while the Columbia goes on for hundreds of more miles to the Pacific. There are a lot of bridges in the area. First we crossed the I-182 bridge.

Passing through Pasco on the east side of the Columbia River we passed over the US highway 12 Vaughn Hubbard Bridge over the Snake River. 

 

We stopped in Sacajawea state park after crossing the bridge to take in a panoramic view of the area. This was a site of a Lewis and Clark campsite in 1805. As a result of its hot summer days, cool nights and volcanic soil, it has become a perfect territory for the center of the Columbia Valley American Viticulture Area and encompasses almost 200 wineries.

We then began a 2.5 hour drive across southern Washington on state route 124. Initially we passed lots of vineyards, but that gave way to hay fields (the hay was being harvested and we passed thousands of bales of hay in the fields. There were lots of ranches and the area was sparsely populated. It was a hilly area and as we proceeded further east there was also lots of seemingly vacant land. We stopped in Waitsburg to stretch our legs and eat a snack in the Lewis and Clark Trail Park. It is a small town with a population of less than 1300 residents, which is the highest it has ever been. It is an agricultural center but also hosts an artists colony. That is demonstrated in the many sculptures throughout the town. 

                                                        Two story town hall 

After leaving the town we switched to highway route 12. This road stretches from Detroit MI to Aberdeen WA on the Pacific Ocean. We had previously driven on it on several occasions. The terrain became even more arid and undeveloped. We crossed a few summits and finally came to the twin towns on the Snake River, Clarkson (named after William Clark) in WA and Lewiston (named after Meriweather Lewis) in ID. There we crossed yet another bridge over the Snake River.

 

Filled up the gas tank there and then drove 100+ more miles through the Nez Pence Indian Reservation. We entered the Hells Canyon Recreation Area, but did not drive through the actual Hells Canyon, the bottom of which is not accessible by a conventional vehicle and is the deepest gorge in the US. 

We finally arrived in Riggins, ID. which because it is just past the time zone line (the northern panhandle of Idaho is in the Pacific time zone due to its proximity to Spokane WA.) we lost an hour and arrived at 8:30. Checked into the Salmon River Motel, a 1950s style motel at the southern end of town. The motel owner permitted me to plug in the car from an outlet in the laundromat. He also suggested several eateries in town, but warned us that they might be closing soon. So as we began walking there we came upon the River Rock Cafe.

We decided to eat dinner there as it was open late. It had a varied menu, but we had the dinner steak specials. Lots of food. No one was wearing a mask.