Tieton, Washington

July 4-5, 2014

For the first leg of our 4th of July weekend trip, we drove to tiny Tieton, Washington to visit friends who had recently moved there.

After a quick and restless overnight at a noisy county campground on the Columbia River, we drove east along the river, then north for a quick tour of cute Ellensburg before arriving at Janice and Ginger's house around 1:00.

Janice and Ginger whisked us off to a party at their friend Leo's house. Leo Adams is a renowned artist and lives in an amazing house on the Yakama Reservation. We really enjoyed meeting Leo and several of his local artist friends (and his three labrador retrievers). Bailey was welcomed not only to the party but into the pool. It was so inviting, I just in with my clothes on. For photos of Leo's house and party, click here.

 

 

Tieton is a tiny crumbling town that has been struggling economically for decades. But the last several years have seen an influx of artists and artisan businesses, thanks to an infusion of money, energy, and vision by Ed Marquand, a Seattle artist, and his project Mighty Tieton. Several old buildings have been converted into studio space, shops, and artist apartments. New enterprises include a classic Letterpress typographic shop, paper binding business, and mosaics shop. Things are looking up for tiny Tieton!

 

We slept in Janice and Ginger's new teardrop in their driveway. (It saved us unloading all the stuff out of ours.) And after breakfast and a town tour, we hit the road for Mount Rainier National Park, where we would spend the next two nights.

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