Live your best Tri-Cities summer: Roadside curiosities in our own backyard
Chasing roadside oddities on summer road trips is one of the great American pastimes.
Fortunately for local curiosity-seekers, you can live your best summer without undertaking a cross country road trip.
The Mid-Columbia is packed with oddities, curiosities and just plain cool destinations to make your summer memorable.
We’ve rounded up some destinations and local offerings worth checking out.
Sorry, no giant balls of yarn.
Uptown Alley Gallery
1317 George Washington Way, Richland
Uptown Shopping Center is known for its atomic decor, but the alleys where businesses accept deliveries, park their garbage receptacles and park their cars tell a different story.
That’s where local artists are transforming the backs of stores and businesses into an interactive art exhibit.
Supporters hope will bring a taste of Boise’s popular Freak Alley Gallery to the Tri-Cities. Take selfies with angel wings, dragons, scary elephants, snakes or a flurry of hearts.
Hanford Reach Solar System
Richland, Benton City, Prosser
Richland teacher Trevor Macduff is turning the Mid-Columbia into an 80-mile scale replica of the solar system.
The sun, in the form of 40-foot arches, is at the REACH Museum. At scale, Pluto would be about 40 miles away, with an orbit that passes through the White Bluffs boat launch.
Macduff’s efforts have yielded orbital markets for Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. More planets are coming. Richland has funded four, which will be installed this summer.
The existing orbital markers are noted in Google Maps so route-planning is a snap.
Find the sun at the REACH Museum, 1943 Columbia Park Trail, Richland.
Earth is 0.6 miles west of the Wye Park boat launch. Jupiter is at the north end of Howard Amon Park, near a gazebo. Saturn is at the Triton Sail Park, 3250 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland
Uranus is off a walking trail west of 14th Street in Benton City, and Neptune is being installed at the Prosser Wine & Food Village.
Hanford LIGO Exploration Center
127124 N. Rt. 10, Richland
The Hanford LIGO Exploration Center, aka LExC, explores the science behind the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics-winning research that detected gravity waves resulting from the collision of two black holes.
The building, designed by local architect Terence Thornhill, echoes the collision of the two black holes and the waves radiating from the event.
Inside, hands-on experiments and exhibits illuminate the physics behind wave research. LIGO is supported by the National Science Foundation and operated by Caltech and MIT.
Published hours: 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday-Friday, Closed Saturday-Monday. Confirm at bit.ly/HanfordLExC
Triton Sail Park
3250 Port of Benton Way, Richland
The USS Triton submarine circumnavigated Earth in the early 1960s, replicating the 16th century voyage of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, but underwater.
The nuclear-powered submarine was decommissioned in 1969 and its reactors were retired to the central Hanford Plateau.
The “sail” was preserved and is on permanent display in north Richland. It is open to the public, with tours available.
Go to bit.ly/USSTritonSailPark
Gravity Hill
101204 N. Crosby Road, Prosser
Legend has it vehicles roll uphill on a lonely stretch of Crosby Road outside of Prosser.
Physics doesn’t work that way of course. But motorists can have a paranormal good time by parking at the base of the small incline and putting their vehicles in neutral.
Atlas Obscura debunks the myth of the uphill roll, calling it an optical illusion that’s repeated at gravity hill-esque spots around the world. Read more here: bit.ly/ProsserGravityHill.
The spooky spot is north of Prosser. Park at the line painted across the road 10 or so miles from town.
Twin Sisters Rock
2471 U.S. 730, Touchet, Wallula Gap
Science tells us the Missoula floods that rampaged through the region between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago carved pillars of basalt at Wallula Gap, the narrow spot in the Columbia River where the water backed up.
Mythology tells a more compelling story. According to Native American myth, the twin sisters were two of the three wives of the trickster Coyote, who got bored and turned them into pillars of rock. The third was made into a cave.
Drive east from Pasco to Wallula Junction and turn south. A small parking lot on left serves as the trail head for a one-mile hike that provides stunning views. There are no restrooms.
Hysterical Monument
Haney and East Game Farm Road, Finley
Finley resident Jack Gross put up a realistic “historical marker” sign steering guests to a monument just off the road.
We won’t give away the punch line, but Gross and his neighbors get a kick out of watching visitors stop by and react to their homespun roadside curiosity.
Pasco’s Vietnam Wall connection
Sacajawea State Park, 2503 Sacajawea Park Road, Pasco
Discovery Pass required or $10 day use fee
The state park at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers is a dramatic and historical spot.
An interpretive center tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the critical role played by the Shoshone woman who guided it and lent her name to the park.
The park is connected to the Vietnam Wall memorial in Washington, D.C., through artist Maya Lin. Lin, who designed the sober memorial, also created a series of story circles at the point where the two rivers join in east Pasco.
Warren Luke’s animal sculptures
Kennewick, Richland
The late Tri-Cities developer Warren Luke left a legacy of development across the community when he died in 2020. An animal lover and art enthusiast, he also left whimsical statues in Kennewick and Richland.
A Kennewick High School graduate, he donated the bronze lion that guards the Dayton Street entrance, 560 W. Sixth Ave.
He placed three playful sea otters at Marineland Plaza in 2003, when he owned the property. They’re on the North Edison side of the shopping center along West Clearwater Avenue.
A 12-foot bronze grizzly bear stands outside the Uptown Theater, 1300 Jadwin Ave., Richland, which he also owned.
Historic cemeteries
Modern and historic cemeteries dot the region. Choose one, grab loose change to leave on head stones and head out. A few of our favorites:
Pasco City View Cemetery, 1300 N. Oregon Ave., contains 10,000 burials dating to the Civil War. Among them: Leroy Gray Horse, a member of the Chippewa who died at 56 in Pasco in 1956. He was notable for playing for the legendary Jim Thorpe on the Oorang Indians, one of the NFL’s original teams.
Horse Heaven Hills Cemetery, aka the baby cemetery, Cemetery Road, west of South Travis Road, south of Benton City. The windswept but well-maintained cemetery served area farm families and is best known for the infants buried there.
Richland Resthaven Cemetery, Williams Boulevard at Goethals Drive, contains some of the oldest burials (other than Native American sites) in the community. It’s small but packs a punch.
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