I shot over to Ellensburg for a quick conference and snapped this shot as I left my hotel in the morning. It is lovely light though what looks like fog or mist is instead smoke from Washington wildfires.
On my way back from visiting dear daughter, I stopped at Olmstead Place State Park outside of Ellensburg (921 Ferguson Road, Ellensburg, WA 98926). I was pretty excited to be able to use my Discover Pass, but I didn’t spend too much time since I was worried (rightfully so) about snow on the Pass. The park has 217 acres and plenty of pioneer artifacts. Perhaps my favorite part was the red winged blackbirds. There was an entire flock of them on the overhead wires. More information can be found here.
Drive to visit dear daughter, I stopped for lunch in Ellensburg and used Yelp to discover the Yellow Church Cafe at 111 South Pearl. Prior to being a cafe, the building was actually the Good Hope Lutheran Church for 40 years (sold in 1967) and there were several other uses. The Yellow House Cafe began in 1997 and the current owner took over in 2014. Beside the welcoming setting, the main star of the meal was the homemade bread of my BLT sandwich.
The Tav at 117 West 4th Avenue, Ellensburg, looks like an ordinary bar from the outside, but on the inside there is a delightful outdoors courtyard area. The food was typical pub fare, but they did a really good job of it. And the company was even better 🙂
We stopped at the Red Horse Diner because of it is a 50s style diner, but we loved it for its food! Dear daughter and I stopped for a meal here on the way to dropping her off at college and I stopped on my way back alone. It had been a service station and maintains the original pumps, as well as a bunch of fun 50s signs and paraphernalia. The Pegasus, the red horse, has been the symbol of Mobil Oil since the 1930s. The website for the diner is here.
The evening view was lovely from their parking lot!
Once in a while I go to two wonderful, new places in one day and I usually decide which one to blog about. But Saturday’s two places are just so wonderful that I’m doing a double entry — Wiener Dogs and Windmills!
We went to Ellensburg for a quick get away and where delighted to find out that it was the 9th anniversary celebration of Dachshunds on Parade. We got there late for the parade (next year!), but made it in time for the pet tricks and races. Apparently Dachshunds have their own thoughts about if they should be racing. There were races in which all of the dogs flew from one end of the track to the other. There were races where the dogs got away from their owners before the ready-set-go and races where none of the dogs went anywhere (except maybe rolling over on their backs!). One race, a dog ran right into the stands! It was really a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours! And I’ve never seen so many Dachshunds at once!
http://www.dachshundsonparade.com/
Afterward, we traveled about 15 miles outside of Ellensburg to the Wild Horse Wind Farm. I’ve always wanted to see the wind turbines up close and they were glorious! It was pretty windy when we got to the information center and the employees explained that they don’t give tours when the wind is over 25 miles per hour. But still we looked all over the information center and got to touch one of the blades that they have at ground level and see the solar panels and hear the wonderful whomp, whomp, whomp of the blades as they turned. The view was wonderful also.
http://www.pse.com/inyourcommunity/kittitas/Pages/Wild-Horse.aspx
All in all, it was a very successful day!
We go through Ellensburg, WA a couple of times a year and often stop to admire Dick and Jane’s Spot at 101 North Pearl Street. I’ve not seen a better collection of joyful folk art! Dick and Jane purchased the house in 1978 and began to add folk art (theirs and other artists). Dick passed away in 2008, but Jane continues to live in the house.
Their tag line is “Art for the heart, from the heart, in the heart of Washington”.
Their story can be found here:
http://www.reflectorart.com/spot/index.html
