A little visit to Walla Walla

Mid-May there were two events that collided wonderfully.  My parents were planning to come up and visit and it happened to be the same weekend as the Walla Walla Hot Air Balloon Stampede. We were all really excited to attend and chose Saturday as our day to visit since we had to get up and drive there to see the Balloons launch at 6 am. As you can imagine the day started before the sun came up, it was a bit rainy but we were hopefully as things cleared up as we neared Walla Walla. To our dismay the ground was wet from the rain overnight and prevented the Balloons from launching.  We hung around for a good portion of the day seeing other things like the historic hotel, pa rousing the farmers market, visiting an old mission, driving past the 'vintage' and historic houses and luckily seeing a couple of Balloons that stayed tethered but never took off.

Big Smiles for seeing at least one balloon.

Our weekend guests and my wonderful parents!

We learned more of the history of the area by going to the Whitman Mission. Marcus Whitman was a missionary in this area and it's believed that the sad story that surrounds his families fate spurred others into action and helped in creating the Oregon Territory. This is a monument on a hill overlooking the original location of the mission.

All of these turtles were sharing this one spot on this little pond.

Here's a view of the monument from the bottom of the hill.

And my Mom and I walking past a covered wagon.  When I read about the people that lived during these times and the pioneers that came across the country in these wagons or on foot I'm sure thankful to live in this time with our many conveniences.

Walla Walla was a beautiful area and so different from the Tri-Cities even though they're only an hour apart the Walla Walla valley is so much more green and 'plush.'

We had such a fun time over the long weekend with Mom & Dad. Of course we played a lot of games and Mom brought me those beautiful plants and flowers from my Grandma's garden so we spent some time in the yard getting those planted. It was just a great weekend!