Discover Walla Walla

It was cold, but I didn't care.  That's the way it was supposed to be.  I rubbed my gloved hands together and giggled quietly at the fog escaping my lips every time I breathed.  I felt like I was five years old, going with Grandpa to pick out the very best Christmas tree. 

I wasn't with Grandpa, and I certainly wasn't five years old.  I'd been out of college a couple of years and was with my husband of only slightly longer.  We were getting our very first real Christmas tree as a couple (before we'd only had the two-feet-tall potted ones from Wal-Mart), and had decided to go the route everyone was talking about: Klickers.

Before then, I'd only ever known about Klickers strawberries.  People around the Walla Walla Valley love Klickers berries and buy them year-round.  Turns out Klickers is so much more than berries. 

In the fall they have a pumpkin patch, selling the popular orange gourds by the pound.  They also have a hay stack you can climb and then a slide so you can take the easy and fun way down. 

And in the winter, they sell freshly cut, homegrown Christmas trees.  The place is lit up with Christmas lights and kids laugh as they dart between the rows of trees, finding the largest and fullest tree, while Mom and Dad wander along behind, holding hands and smiling.  And don't forget to see if you can rub the velvety antlers of one of the several reindeer there.

My husband and I took our time, debating between blue spruce, Douglas fir, and white pine.  Should we get a five-foot tree or a six-foot?  How big around could it be?  Which one smells best?

We finally settled on a six-foot Douglas fir.  It fit just fine in the back of our little Ford Ranger pickup truck...even if they did spell our last name wrong on the tree tag.