Sunday, July 29, 2018

WSJ covers the Palouse; reporter enamored with Moscow, hardly gives Pullman time of day 7/27/2018


A Grain Escape to the Palouse
The swoon-worthy landscapes and small-town charms of this Northwest region
WSJ/Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2018 2:32 p.m. ET,
TRAVEL



A Getaway to the ‘Tuscany of America’
The Palouse—a scenic farm region on the Washington-Idaho border—is often compared to Tuscany, but with pie shops and ice-cream socials
The view on the drive up Steptoe Butte along the Palouse Scenic Byway.
Sunrise from Steptoe Butte, Wash.
The Latah Trail, a 13-mile path between Moscow and Troy, one of the area’s many rails-to-trails paths.
Along the Latah Trail. The Palouse encompasses some 4,000-square miles of farm country.
Strawberry rhubarb pie from the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen in Deary, Idaho.
Artisan cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares a space with the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen.
Tanner Collier at Lodgepole restaurant in Moscow, Idaho.
Lodgepole serves sophisticated takes on regional staples such as guajillo chili-dusted fried garbanzo beans.
Rebecca Ashbach at the Lodgepole restaurant.
The Hunga Dunga Brewing Co. in Moscow, Idaho.
Hunga Dunga Brewing Co. in Moscow, Idaho.
Sunrise from Steptoe Butte, Wash. BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Matthew Kornberg, Wall Street Journal,
July 27, 2018 2:33 p.m. ET
MY WIFE AND SON laughed at me when, for the third time in less than a mile, I stopped our rental car, stepped onto the gravel road and took yet another wholly inadequate cellphone picture of the rolling fields that surrounded us.
Soon they clambered out too and fell quiet. We were in the Palouse, a roughly 4,000-square-mile agricultural region that straddles the Idaho-Washington border. Intensely fertile, the region is defined by its dune like hills, formed eons ago by windblown silt.
The hills, gold and green with grains and legumes, undulate without pattern or rhythm; every bend in the road reconfigures the landscape in unpredictable ways, leaving you feeling just a bit off kilter, in a perpetual low-level swoon.
This is farm country; not anyone’s idea of a tourism hot spot. The unusual topography draws photographers and cyclists, but even if your relationship to those pastimes is casual at best, it is an easy place to fall in love with. At the heart of the Palouse are two cheek-by-jowl college towns, Pullman, Wash., and Moscow, Idaho, with populations of roughly 33,000 and 25,000, respectively. They’re about a 10-minute drive apart.
When I asked Nancy Ruth Peterson, a lifelong Muscovite and president of the Latah County Historical Society, to characterize the difference between the burgs, she said “Moscow is a town that has a university. Pullman is a university that has a town. I’m probably going to get into trouble for saying that.”
Rebecca Ashbach at Lodgepole, an urbane New American restaurant in Moscow, Idaho.
Rebecca Ashbach at Lodgepole, an urbane New American restaurant in Moscow, Idaho. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
And indeed, even during a mid-July visit, when most of Moscow’s 12,000 students were gone, the town felt alive.
We based ourselves at the modishly refitted Monarch Motel, just a block off Main Street. On an evening stroll, I stopped to watch the Palouse Peace Coalition string up tie-dyed banners saying “peace” in a dozen or so languages, as they’ve done nearly every Friday night since 2001.
I asked coalition member Bill Beck when the peacenik contingent had taken root in the region; he told me that many of its cohort had been there for decades, noting a “huge number of back-to-the-landers” who came to the area in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
“Most people come here because of the universities. It’s this incredibly quiet, beautiful town,” he said, gesturing down the block toward Book People of Moscow, the largest of three independent bookshops, “with some intelligentsia.”
For dinner that night, we went to Lodgepole, a smartly decorated New American restaurant. Delivering a dish of very snackable guajillo chili-dusted fried garbanzo beans, the waiter told us that legumes and pulses are a big deal in these parts.
The chickpeas in your store-bought hummus may well come from the Palouse, and every August, the National Lentil Festival takes place over in Pullman. Delivering the check, he suggested we visit the town’s farmers market the next day.
We woke up early the following morning to heed this advice. Parents deposited their kids at Main Street’s Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre for free Saturday morning cartoons before loading up on wiffle-bat-sized stalks of rhubarb, braided garlic and lush greens. Some browsed crafts like ivory-colored horsehair pottery, made with clay mined nearby in Deary, Idaho.
Horsehair, singed on the ceramics after firing, left jagged tangles of dark lines. The lighter lines came from the hair of Appaloosa horses—notice the middle syllables (ap-PA-LOOSE-uh)—believed to have originated in the region. The market’s prepared-food stands reflected the area’s diversity: Shanghai dumplings, Egyptian pastries and for me, tamales filled with local lentils.
The Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho.
The Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
At Paradise Creek Bicycles, just behind the tamale stand, we rented bikes and decided to take advantage of the area’s rails-to-trails paths. We rode the 7-mile Bill Chipman Palouse Trail to Pullman, a wide and flat path with frequent turnouts featuring interpretive and historical signs.
For all that Moscow and Pullman have to offer, we took the greatest pleasure in exploring the region’s smaller towns, and the byways between them. In Uniontown, Wash., we visited the soaring art space Artisans at the Dahmen Barn, easily identifiable by its fence, made from more than a thousand steel wheels. Inside, among the workspaces, we grabbed a free “Photography Hot Spots on the Palouse” map, marked with the area’s most photogenic barns, abandoned houses and lone trees. Its detailed rendering of small, usually unpaved farm roads that vein the landscape proved invaluable.
Over in Deary, at the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, which shares space with the Brush Creek Creamery, we had a lunch of grilled-cheese sandwiches and pizza, followed by a heaping wedge of berry-lemon chess pie—alone worth a trip the Palouse. And after a Sunday morning hike among the towering red cypress trees in the Idler’s Rest Nature Preserve, we went to the town of Palouse, Wash., for its annual Ice Cream Social.
As the Auf Gehts German Band played in the gazebo of the riverside Palouse City Park, we lined up for slices of home-baked pie, topped with ice cream scooped by the Palouse Royalty—teenage girls in black gowns, white gloves and tiaras.
Wheels of locally made cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares space with the bakery.
Wheels of locally made cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares space with the bakery. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sitting on the grass beneath the towering pines at the Social, we talked to brothers Don and Richard Scheuerman of Palouse Heritage, who are working to revive the landrace grains that were first farmed in the region a century and a half ago.
“All these towns have something special,” said Richard, a former professor at Seattle Pacific University and the author of several books on the region. Don cut in to say, “Our little town, Endicott, is on the edge of viability with about 300 people, but it has been that way forever. Our big thing is Fourth of July. Big fireworks. It’s really quite spectacular for a rinky-dink little town.”
For year-round spectacle, it’s hard to beat the view from Steptoe Butte, about 13 miles northwest of Palouse. It is no Devil’s Tower—pictures of it are typically underwhelming but photos from it make you see why travel writers have taken to calling the region America’s Tuscany.
When the sun hangs low in the sky, the colors and contours of the hills deepen, and photographers line the roadway that corkscrews up a thousand feet above the surrounding landscape. Diehards will come out for sunrise, about 5:30 a.m. during the summer. We were not diehard, and found sunset to be sufficiently breathtaking.
It was another sunset drive, over back roads from Pullman to Moscow, that convinced me that this might be America’s most perfect agrarian landscape. The just-risen full moon bobbed and weaved over the hilltops like a vesper sparrow chasing a dragonfly. It only stopped when I pulled over to snap another picture.
THE LOWDOWN / On the Loose in the Palouse
A Getaway to the ‘Tuscany of America’
ILLUSTRATION: JASON LEE
Getting There From Seattle, Pullman, Wash. is about a 4½-hour drive or an hour flight directly into the Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport. Spokane International Airport is about a 90-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho.
Staying There The Monarch Motel, a refitted motor lodge in Moscow, Idaho, offers simple, stylish rooms, just a block off Moscow’s Main Street. From $79 a night, moscowmonarch.com.
Eating There On Moscow’s Main Street, Lodgepole serves sophisticated takes on regional staples 106 N. Main St., lodgepolerestaurant.com.
At the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho, flaky-crusted pies are the stars, but dishes like pizza and salad that take advantage of Brush Creek Creamery’s output are terrific too. 307 Main St., piesafebakery.com.
The Mediterranean-influenced cuisine at the Black Cypress in Pullman reflects the Greek heritage of chef-owner Nick Pitsilionis, a French Laundry alum. 215 E. Main St.,theblackcypress.com.
For a taste of the Palouse, wherever you are, flour from landrace grains can be bought from Palouse Heritage. palouseheritage.com
Exploring There Bikes can be rented hourly, daily and weekly from Paradise Creek Bicycles in Moscow. 513 S Main St, paradisecreekbikes.com.
The Palouse Scenic Byway website offers a thorough guide to Washington’s side of the region. palousescenicbyway.org


Saturday, July 28, 2018

Fluoridation of drinking water in Pullman, at WSU, and in Moscow

Source: Info found on Internet on 7/28/2018

Fluoridation of drinking water in Pullman, at WSU, and in Moscow 

  • The City of Pullman Water Department does add fluoride to its water.
  • Washington State University began fluoridating its Pullman campus drinking water on April 13, 1988.
  • The City of Moscow Water Department does not add fluoride to its drinking water; however, there is naturally occurring fluoride in the water and some wells have more than others.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Comets in Bend, Oregon, 7/7/2018





2018 Junior Olympic  

Region 13 Track & Field Championships July 5-8 2018 at Summit High School in Bend, Oregon. One photo of Mahama family members and  Comets Coach Mike Hinz before July 7 competition. Another photo shows Summit High’s track. It’s a Mondotrack, the same track surface used at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Summit High was one of the first high schools in the nation - and the first in Oregon - with Mondotrack. (Photos by PULLMAN :: Cup of the Palouse blog.)