"Almost Shangri-la" Dayton by etfromnc

About 70 miles east of Washington's Tri-Cities and about 120 miles south of Spokane, Dayton is one of those places where I could have just turned off the calendar. The people are beautiful, the weather was great, and this was my one chance to be somewhere exactly 200 years after Lewis & Clark were there. Dayton is a town of just under 3000 people and its major source of employment closed a couple years ago so that number may slowly decline, but I hope not. Unless you own or charter an airplane, about the only way to get there is to drive and that will not be a wildly exciting drive but for me it was definitely worth the effort. Be certain that you have plenty of gas before leaving the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Spokane, or Clarkston for Dayton because there are not very many along the way.
Since I was there exactly 200 years after the Corps of Discovery, I did get to participate in their bicentennial celebration and I loved it. At 1 PM, they had a visit from President Thomas Jefferson (or a reasonable local facsimile thereof) to remind the current Daytonites of the importance of their area. His talk was followed by a remarkably good musical/drama of the story of the Lewis & Clark expedition. The primary portion of this production was performed by the 5th and 6th graders from the local elementary school.