It was time for the long drive back to the Puget Sound. I wanted to see more of the Palouse so we decided to loop through the Palouse Scenic Byway . And it would give us a chance to go to Clarkston on the Idaho border to get gas at Costco (anything to save a couple of cents).

It took about an hour to drive back to Pomeroy and then head east on Highway 12. We stopped at a scenic pull out where it had a display on Lewis and Clark. The foot trail used by them was visible on the hillside. We then dropped into Lewiston/Clarkston on the Snake. They are definitely in a ‘hole’. I think we dropped about 1500 ft down into the river basin.

The river was pretty but we didn’t see much else. We crossed over into Idaho and then started the steep climb back up to the Palouse plateau. Boy was it a climb. Our loaded down little Honda Hybrid struggled up the hill. I had to drop it down into 3rd to climb up at about 45mph while everyone else zipped by.

We headed for Uniontown. The town had caught my eye when I was looking for places to visit. It has an interesting history originally being settled in the 1860’s and still an active community today.

Our first stop was St Boniface Church. We could see the spires on the horizon when we drove into town and it was easy to locate by turning up “Church Street”. It was built in 1904 and was the first consecrated Catholic Church in Washington State. The interior is ornate with beautiful stainglass windows which cast a lovely golden glow across the pews. It is a beautiful church and so unexpected at this far side of the state.

Next was to find Dehman barn and its unique iron wheel fence. I had seen several pictures on the web since it is a popular stop of the Palouse Photography tours but didn’t know exactly where it was. Just leaving town, I spotted it and we made a quick turn off the road to take some pictures.

It was lunchtime and Pullman was our next stop. We decided to have a couple of burgers and drove around a couple of times trying to find a local burger place. No luck so we stopped at the Washington State University Visitor’s Center and they pointed us to Cougar Country Drive In. It was perfect – if we could just find a place to park. We had arrived right after noon and it was packed. We finally found a empty lot just down the street and walked over. Yummmy huge burgers, good fries and an awesome huckleberry shake. Sorry… no photos. We gobbled it down before I remembered.

We headed back on Highway 26 soon to retrace our drive. It is a long haul across the flat wheat lands. We finally rolled back into the driveway about 9 hours after leaving camp. Hot, tired but curiosity satisfied by our visit to SE Washington.