Other 'Times' Visits The Touchet Valley

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a piece in its travel section entitled “Reinvention in Walla Walla’s Wine Country.” (If you have any Google skills at all you can easily find it.)

The article was written by a writer from Seattle named Mike Seely and, funny thing is, he spent about 90 percent of his article talking about Waitsburg and Dayton.

Readers from New York (or Toledo, for that matter) might be initially disappointed by Mr. Seely’s detour to our little valley that’s actually outside the place mentioned in his title, but he had a lot of nice things to say. So hopefully many of them will keep reading.

The author begins his detour thusly:

With the Blue Mountains in the distance, my wife and I pointed our Mercury toward the northeast along a curvy 20-mile stretch of Highway 12, past grain silos, a rural schoolhouse, seemingly endless golden hills of wheat and a famous local camel named Izzy.

We soon arrived in Waitsburg, a Rockwellian town of some 1,200 citizens at the eastern edge of Walla Walla County.

Mr. Seely talked to several local business owners about their take on the Touchet Valley:

“‘The drive is like the Disney country drive,’ said the local restaurateur and mixologist Jim German. ‘You have these vistas into the mountains in between these rolling hills. It reminds me of the Sabine Hills outside of Rome.’”

Okay… But before we become too full of ourselves, I must note that Jim McGuinn, of Walla Walla’s Hot Poop record store, is quoted as describing Waitsburg’s downtown as “two weeks from everywhere, somewhere between Mayberry and ‘Happy Days.’ ”

Whoopemup Café owner Ross Stevenson discussed the longevity of his establishment: “I guess we’re pretty lucky, considering we’re in a town of 1,200 people,” he told Mr. Seely. The author added, “Living in Waitsburg, Mr. Stevenson said, ‘is definitely not for everyone.’”

Court Rupenthal, co-owner of Waitsburg’s Laht Nepur brew pub described the success of his business to Mr. Seely, who wrote:

The best $28 he ever spent, he said, was to commission a sign that read, “Caution: Brewery Ahead,” which he credits with being the primary magnet for newfound clientele (the sign recently went missing). “Just a piece of plywood affixed to a telephone pole,” he said of the sign. “It’s a farm community; it’s all like that.”

The Seelys proceeded on to Dayton, which Mr. Seely described as having “a main boulevard wide enough to host an Old West gunfight…” Now there’s an idea for the Chamber of Commerce.

They had a wonderful dinner at Patit Creek Restaurant and the author interviewed co-owner Heather Hiebert, whom he described as “bullish on the region’s evolution.”

“‘It’s gone from cowboy to really nice places to eat and wineries and breweries,’ she said. ‘I still have old farmers saying they like it like it used to be, but they’re forgetting how it was.’”

Other businesses getting mentions in the article included Chief Spring’s Fire and Irons Brewpub, Monteillet Fromagerie, Tuxedo Bar and Grill in Prescott, The Weinhard Hotel and Ski Bluewood.

Ink like this is great for tourism and we can hope that this spring will bring a fresh crop of wandering New York Times readers. Let’s also hope that we can live up to our new “Rockwellian” image.