Some camping seasons are highlighted with long RV trips – like our 3-week trip to Michigan in 2025 or Colorado in 2024. Other years we tend to do shorter and more frequent trips around the Pacific Northwest.

The 2026 camping season is one with shorter local trips.

One of those quick trips was to spend a weekend RVing in Walla Walla, Washington at the Blue Valley RV park a mere one hour drive away.

You know the saying “Walla Walla is so nice you have to say it twice”?

We have found the saying to be true.

A typical Walla Walla trip for us is to leave mid-morning after breakfast at home – do some wine tasting in downtown – grab some dinner – and then head back to Richland. We thought it would be nice to change this up and bring the RV to have a place to stay and hang out and not have to drive back after a long day of wine tasting and eating.

We loaded up the New Aire with food for the weekend and headed out on Friday afternoon for the Blue Valley RV Park located about a mile from most of the downtown tasting rooms. After an easy drive we successfully backed into our RV spot and got everything hooked up and ready to go. Aurora discovered that she likes the step cover so that she can lookout the screen door while we are either eating or relaxing outside.

We typically do an easy arrival dinner when we come in on Friday night – and this was no exception.

After dinner we spent a relaxing evening inside the camper streaming (thanks to Starlink!) some the latest episodes of some of our favorite BritBox murder mystery shows.

After a good nights sleep (in case you were wondering – Aurora woke us up early) we stayed at the campsite for the morning and enjoyed a light lunch alfresco at the camper before our scheduled wine tasting event.

Since Walla Walla is so close to us in Richland – we have probably gone to between 10 and 15 different wine tasting rooms over the past decade. However this is a drop in the bucket considering the over 120 wineries and 40+ downtown tasting rooms in the Walla, Walla areas.

So – where did we want to do some wine tasting? Do we go with some of the old favorites like Mark Ryan and Abeja – or did we want to try something new?

We went with the new.

After a bit of internet searching – I signed us up for a tasting/blending experience called “The Alchemy of Pentad” at the Seven Hills Winery (). This tasting experience focused around tasting 6 traditional Bordeaux varietals – and then having the chance to blend these into your own unique glass of wine.

Before we got to the tasting and blending – we got a short tour of the winery including the machinery for processing grapes, the storage facilities and the barrel room for wine aging.

As a lab rat in my chemistry labs in high school and college – I loved the beakers with the different varietals and a graduated cylinder as our mixing vessel.

It was terrific fun – and I came away thankful that wineries have professionals to do the blending – it is harder than it looks!

I did what many people do – which was to enjoy the blending and to promptly purchase some of the recent blends for our home wine fridge.

After a short 5 minute drive back to the campsite – it was time for a short afternoon nap before heading out to dinner at one of our favorite dining spots in Walla Walla at the appropriately named Walla Walla Steak Company. While the steaks are always delicious – the real showstopper is the table-side preparation of cherries jubilee – including lighting up the dish as part of the cooking process.

Noel had a flight early the next morning so she drove the Bronco back to Richland and Aurora and I enjoyed another night in the New Aire. Since I got to choose the entertainment for the evening – Aurora and I enjoyed Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman in the Sci Fi classic “The Fifth Element”.

On the way home – it was time to stop and get fuel for the first time at a truck stop without holding up any of the professional truckers in the Love’s fueling lanes. I successfully saved some money on fuel with the Open Roads fueling app which made a difference when purchasing 65 gallons of diesel fuel!

Overall it was a nice weekend experience in the New Aire – and we got more comfortable with our new motorhome.

Until next time ….