Travel: Walla Walla, Washington {Wine Country}

Hi friends and happy Friday!

Today I am just going to share a little about our trip to the Washington wine country. I haven’t done a travel, iPhone-only post in a long time. We took a 3 day mini-vacation to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. I can’t even get over the fact we’ve been married for 11 years! Time flies when you’re having fun. 😉 My rockstar mom who was visiting from Texas took care of all 4 kids by herself. Not an easy job for sure!

We decided to stay local for lots of reasons. Let’s be real, when you only have a few days to work with, who wants to spend time and money on flying? So instead, we drove about 4 1/2 hours to Walla Walla, the southeastern region of Washington. The cool thing, that I didn’t even realize until we were there is that it’s only 13 miles from the Oregon border (so we yeah, we technically went to Oregon too)!

I wasn’t sure what to expect and after visiting the Napa/Sonoma area a couple times I didn’t think it would even come close, but we were so pleasantly surprised. The small town itself is lovely. It’s home to 3 colleges so has a nice community feel. The restaurants, like most near wineries, were all amazing.

They have around 170 wineries so plenty to keep us busy for a couple days!

On our drive there we had gorgeous views

and got to see the remnants of show near the mountains.

We arrived around 2:30pm on a Wednesday and spent the afternoon wine tasting, then we checked into our little rental (we always go through VRBO)

a shared beer to take a break from the wine 🙂 on our lovely patio. We really enjoyed relaxing in the amazing weather in that part of the state. Warm sunshine felt so good.

After a day of wine tasting, we’d bike (borrowing the rental) into the downtown which was just about 1 1/2 miles away and we’d walk around, shopping and wine tasting until dinner time.

This was our first trip alone with all 4 kids and actually in probably over 5 years.

 

The first night we ate dinner at Saffron, a Mediterranean restaurant. I am salivating jus thinking about it. We ordered the most scrumptious appetizer- a flatbread with ground lamb, spinach and house made smoked yogurt. So insanely good.

I can’t even explain the perfection of the crisp, yet doughy flatbread. We devoured it then wondered how we’d eat our meal.

Such a cute restaurant!

For my entrée I had a lamb and orzo stew that was outstanding and the hubby had a Morroccan style sliced leg of lamb. We practically licked our plates clean. Absolutely no room for dessert whatsoever.

  

But the second night, after a full day of wine tasting, I had my favorite most favorite meal to date at a casual French restaurant called Brasserie Four, the Boullabaisse with Pommes Frites and a beet salad. It was all divine.

the most perfect french fries in all of the world. Hand-cut, crisp yet tender, topped with the perfect amount of sea salt and fresh herbs and homemade aioli.

       

We could not stop taking about how good the food was and I seriously will go back just to eat that meal again. Drool.

Leaving on Wednesday morning and returning late Friday didn’t give us a ton of time, so there isn’t much more to share other than some wine sipping photos. If you ever visit this area, I highly recommend a trip to Walla Walla!

How cool do I look? (not very) Riding to breakfast….

for some buckwheat pancakes.

followed by some wine! Ok not immediately, but the tasting rooms do open at 10am and we weren’t too far behind!

This guy and I agreed we need to make this an annual thing (well not Walla Walla, but just a mini-vacation sans kids).

Have you been to the Washington wine country? California wine country? Do you love wine?

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