Umatilla, Oregon to Walla Walla, Washington August 5

Tonight we are in Walla Walla, Washington, the home of the Walla Walla onion! It is amazing to be riding amongst scrub and rock and come upon a beautiful lush field of onions or fruit trees. There are wineries sitting out in the middle of no where with grapes growing. Of coarse everything is irrigated. But I am getting ahead of myself! Last night the heat really became more oppressive until it looked like we might have a rainstorm. In fact there was a severe thunderstorm alert. We always eat around the food wagon and sit on plastic white chairs to chat and have our map meeting after dinner. We were all under a big tree for shade when we heard thunder and saw some pretty serious lightning. The wind was coming up so we grabbed our Tilapia, salads, and fruit and hightailed it to a few rooms to dine while the rain briefly came. After our map meeting we looked out and saw lots of smoke and heard sirens. There was a lightning strike not to far away which probably started the dry prairie grasses on fire. This morning we saw a helicopter flying by with a huge bucket full of water to dump on a fire, the one near us appeared to be out. Today we had less miles to cover so some of us stopped at all the sites today. The sag finally gave up on us and told us to call if we needed help. We stopped at Hat Rock State Park first and hiked around. Guess why it is called Hat Rock?? Basically God created all the formations by using water. We continued our travels on Hwy 730 which was a two lane highway with truck traffic but fairly light. We turned onto Rt 12 E and stopped at the crossroads of Touchet (pronounced tooshie) and had a Popsicle at the gas station. The five of us continued on to the Whitman National Historic Site to cool off and watch the movie and see the artifacts. The Whitmans, Narcissa and Marcus), came from back east, (Narcissa was from Prattsburg, NY) as missionaries and teacher. Representatives from the tribes in the area had requested them to come. They worked with the Cayuse tribe. When a measles epidemic, brought by the white settlers in 1847, nearly wiped out the Cayuse tribe - the Indians thought that Marcus was trying to poison them and take their land. in November of 1847 the Cayuse attacked the mission and killed the Whitmans and several others at the mission and took others as prisoners. So the whole thing ended tragically for all. The last shot is at the grave site of those killed. Today's stats: 59.42 miles, 4 hours 4 min., avg. 14.6 Tomorrow we have a zero day in Walla Walla, so the bike gets a much deserved cleaning. I get a rest day! My roommate for the next two days will be Vicky from Maine.