It ‘s not natural to wake up before the sunrise. I don’t care what anyone says. When we got up this morning, it was well before the sun even thought about making an appearance.
We knew that, in order to make all of our destinations for the day, we had to leave early, early. We were loaded and on the road by 5:30am.
Heading 277 miles straight up Highway 97. There is a curve ever now and then, but for the most part, it pretty much a straight shot. I absolutely love the northern part of this highway.
It was really smoky today. We were pretty much surrounded by wildland fires. Mt. Adams was almost hidden behind all of the smoke.
After eight hours on the road, with few stops, we reach our first scheduled destination. The Whitman Mission National Heritage Site, located just outside of Walla Walla, Washington. I have read several books on the Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and plan to include information on them in a later blog.
To summarize, Marcus and Narcissa, along with three other people, were the first five white people to come west, after Lewis and Clark, in 1836. They were sent here to convert the Indians into Christians. They lived here peacefully for eleven years, until the measles broke out. Marcus Whitman, a doctor, was able to treat the white children, but the Indian children had no immunity to the disease and half of the tribe was wiped out. The Indians felt that Whitman did this on purpose and waged a war on his mission. They killed him, his wife, and several others in the mission before kidnapping the others and exchanging them for ransom with the Hudson Bay Trading Company. The Indians would eventually all be put to death. Things would never be the same between the white settlers and the Indians.
This park employee was reenacting the part of David Douglas and his part in the white settlers coming to the Oregon Territory.
It took 50 years for colleagues of the Whitman's to create the monument that now marks the spot of the massacre. It was finally erected in 1897.
One amazing part of this historical site is the remains of the original Oregon Trail. It’s impossible to walk these wagon trails and not wonder about what these people thought as they were reaching the end of their destination. What they must have gone through in the months it took them to get here.
We left the site sooner than we thought we would. It was well over 100 degrees outside. Way too hot for me. Most of the sites were outside, in the clear open. I was melting halfway through the walking path.
From this spot, we continued on about an hour and a half to Lewiston, Idaho. Again, you can see that it wasn’t getting any cooler.
This is really just a layover for us. We researched earlier in the week for places to stay here and discovered that there were several things going on this weekend. When we check into our motel, we asked the girl at the front desk for recommendations for places to eat. She suggested that we walk two blocks down Main Street to a place called Macullen’s. She also told us that, if we had time, we should walk up to the park and see the car show, as well as see the “Who” who were playing in concert.
As we walked to dinner, Scott and I talked about whether or not we thought the actual “Who” were playing. We highly doubted this. As we reached the restaurant a limousine pulled up and out popped “The Guess Who”. Not quite the “Who”, but still a band from the 70’s. They entered the restaurant right behind us and were escorted to a table not far from us.
So, no, we didn’t walk down to the car show, but we did have dinner with (or close to) The Guess Who!
Tomorrow is another early morning, but it will be so worth it when we reach our destination tomorrow night. I can’t wait to get to sleep so that we can get on the road!
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