Saturday, May 22, 2010

The people in Walla Walla are totally Balla'

Ok.. So yesterday presented us with by far our best story yet! We biked through Walla Walla county in Washington, which has tons and tons of wineries and vineyards and stuff.. All the country we were biking through was rolling green hills (looked just like the windows xp background picture), it was beautiful..!

We were getting close to our campground when we saw a small brewery in the town of Waitsburg, so we decided to stop in for a beer.. and this is where the story begins..

While we were chilling at the brewery, a guy at the bar offered to buy us a round of beers.. He said that he wanted to live vicariously through our trip. So we asked him to join us and we all got to talking.. His name is Todd, and he does something or another with farm irrigation systems (something about using radio-waves to detect moisture).. As we kept talking with him, his wife and best friend showed up and joined us also. His wife's name is Ree and his buddie's name is Eric. So we all kept hanging out and Todd bought us all a round of beers and Eric bought us some pizzas! They were great..!

After awhile we found out that Ree is actually the county prosecuting attorney and Eric is a famous wine-maker in the area!
(here is Eric's winery website: http://www.dunhamcellars.com//index.cfm )

After awhile we realized it was dark, so Eric offered to throw our bikes in his truck and drive us the last 3 miles to our campgound. When we got to the campground though, he pulled over, and just asked, "do you guys trust me?".. He is a pretty funny guy, so we didn't know quite whether he was joking or not.. but he was not.. so when we nodded, he took off...

Soon enough we got to a sweet farmhouse, where we were immediately met by Joan, who runs a cheese fromogerie with her husband, pierre-louis..

Check out the site for this place, it is amazing:
http://www.monteilletcheese.com/

Joan, as we quickly found out, is just about the nicest lady on the planet.. She welcomed us to her home and said we could sleep in her sauna for the night. She said that she was going to have to leave real early this morning to head to the farmers market, but that she would leave her doors open so we could make breakfast and take showers and do whatever we needed!

So we spent all morning eating bacon and eggs, wandering around through the goat/chicken/duck/sheep pastures with her huge great Pyrenees dogs, and talking to the people that make the cheese there at the place. We even found out that there were some people from a magazine staying in the guest house because they were doing a big story on the place for an Wine Adventures story they were doing..

We are so thankful for the whole experience..! Todd told us that he is going to try to find a place somewhere along our route so that he can catch up with us and buy us another beer.. so that would be sweet (Todd, if you are reading this.. we're waiting).. we are all hoping to stay in contact with them for sure!

The actual bike ride today seemed pretty boring compared with our other stories.. although we did bomb down a huge mountain this afternoon! We were going downhill for 30 minutes, and got up to 50 mph (which is a new record for the trip so far)..!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey this is Jeff's brother. I loved this blog posting. This is what your trip is all about, meeting people and making adventures. Keep riding through that saddle sore and you will have more stories to come. Be safe ride hard.

Joel

Annie said...

Okay:
1. You are super brave
2. I am glad you are having fun and meeting people
3. Maybe you should take the approach "if Annie wouldn't do it, I probably shouldn't" You would probably have so much fun that way! haha! :)
4. I am pumped to see you in a few weeks!

Marcia (Eric's mom) said...

Sam, I love to read your blogs. They are always filled with excitement and energy. I also love the pictures....keep those coming!!!!

Marcia (Eric's mom)