Dayton

After a shower and updating our blog, we decided to walk into town.  Dayton dates back to 1860 when Jesse and Elizabeth Day settled here.  Unlike many small towns, Dayton’s downtown has not only survived but appears to be thriving.  In addition to the new Best Western, we found several nice restaurants, a brew pub, several cafes, and the usual bar and pizza places.  It had several stores, art galleries, and antique shops. We walked to the County Courthouse and the restored train station.  This train station was built in 1881 by the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company and is the oldest surviving train station in Washington.   During our walk we decided to check out each of the restaurant’s dinner menus.  We stopped first at the Fire and Irons Brewpub and sampled their beers and ate some bar nuts.  Next we wondered into the Manila Bay Asian Café that required reservations and had some very interesting but expensive items listed; a place to take your spouse, not your cycling buddy.  We stopped at 2 others places, including the bakery where we wanted a slice of pie but had to settle for a chocolate chip cookie.  What kind of bakery runs out of pie?  We settled on Weinhard Café.  Later we went back for dinner.  We started with local beers; next Joe had cream of asparagus soup and Jeff had a mixed green salad.  With this they served their own flat bread with a chickpea and radish spread.  For our main course we each had fresh halibut over a bed of rice topped with green curry sauce and a side of asparagus spears.  For dessert Joe had pecan pie and Jeff had the black berry cobbler.  The menu changes daily and the breads and desserts are all “house made.” This was a fantastic meal.  We would call it the best of the tip but that would not mean much when we had mostly choices of hamburgers or fired chicken.

Photosof Dayton