Live your best Tri-Cities summer: Roadside curiosities in our own backyard

Wendy Culverwell
·6 min read

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

The Uptown Shopping Center features art by local artists in its alleyways, part of an effort to create and arts district and encourage visitors to the iconic Richland retail hub. This mural is behind Thunderhand Tattoo.
The Uptown Shopping Center features art by local artists in its alleyways, part of an effort to create and arts district and encourage visitors to the iconic Richland retail hub. This mural is behind Thunderhand Tattoo.

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.

Photograph yourself with wings at Uptown Shopping Center, which features art by local artists in its alleyways, part of an effort to create and arts district and encourage visitors to the iconic Richland retail hub. The angel wings are by Cameron Milton, a Tri-City artist.
Photograph yourself with wings at Uptown Shopping Center, which features art by local artists in its alleyways, part of an effort to create and arts district and encourage visitors to the iconic Richland retail hub. The angel wings are by Cameron Milton, a Tri-City artist.

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

Trevor Macduff, a Richland school teacher, is turning the Mid-Columbia into an 80-mile scale replica of the solar system, with planets orbiting around the “sun” at the REACH Museum in south Richland. Above, the planet Jupiter’s orbit is noted at the north end of Richland’s Howard Amon Park, near a gazebo.
Trevor Macduff, a Richland school teacher, is turning the Mid-Columbia into an 80-mile scale replica of the solar system, with planets orbiting around the “sun” at the REACH Museum in south Richland. Above, the planet Jupiter’s orbit is noted at the north end of Richland’s Howard Amon Park, near a gazebo.

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.

The Hanford Reach Solar System revolves around a 40-foot sculpture representing the sun at the REACH Museum in South Richland. Find the other planets in our system while living your best Tri-Cities summer.
The Hanford Reach Solar System revolves around a 40-foot sculpture representing the sun at the REACH Museum in South Richland. Find the other planets in our system while living your best Tri-Cities summer.

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 LIGO Hanford Exploration Center celebrates the gravity wave research that netted the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics.
The LIGO Hanford Exploration Center celebrates the gravity wave research that netted the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics.

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 the globe underwater in the early 1960s. Its sail is on permanent display in north Richland.
The USS Triton submarine circumnavigated the globe underwater in the early 1960s. Its sail is on permanent display in north 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

Twin Sisters Rock at Wallula Gap consists of twin basalt pillars left by the Missoula floods that swept periodically through the Columbia Basin. More prosaically, Native American legend holds they were two of three wives of the trickster god Coyote, who turned two into rock and one into a cave when he became bored.
Twin Sisters Rock at Wallula Gap consists of twin basalt pillars left by the Missoula floods that swept periodically through the Columbia Basin. More prosaically, Native American legend holds they were two of three wives of the trickster god Coyote, who turned two into rock and one into a cave when he became bored.

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

Jack Gross of Finley enjoys watching people stop at his hysterical site sign near his home on the corner of Haney and East Game Farm roads.
Jack Gross of Finley enjoys watching people stop at his hysterical site sign near his home on the corner of Haney and East Game Farm roads.

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

Tri-Cities developer Warren Luke installed several animal statues around the Tri-Cities before his death in 2020. This sea otter sculpture is part of Marineland Village, which he once owned.
Tri-Cities developer Warren Luke installed several animal statues around the Tri-Cities before his death in 2020. This sea otter sculpture is part of Marineland Village, which he once owned.

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

Leroy Gray Horse, an NFL player, was buried in obscurity at City View Cemetery in 1956. The region’s cemeteries can offer startling glimpses at those who came before us.
Leroy Gray Horse, an NFL player, was buried in obscurity at City View Cemetery in 1956. The region’s cemeteries can offer startling glimpses at those who came before us.

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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