One of the best arts & crafts plus harvest festivals I've ever experienced! Yes, they have all…read morethings pumpkins, gourds and apples to get you into the fall spirit. Additionally, they have two huge covered tents with dozens and dozens of talented artists and craftspeople selling their incredible and unique items. Covering a plethora of art mediums, you can find gorgeous hand blown glass, unique jewelry, wood sculptures and charcuterie boards (including utensils and serving pieces) lots of colorful and pastel ceramics and earthenware, photography of the PNW in many sizes, clothing and scarves, leather goods and accessories and much more. Lots of food vendors, too, with delicious sweet treats, cured meats, pepper jellies and jams, decadent chocolate and coffee to name a few. Live music all weekend and lots of food trucks in the area outside of the tents. And local fruit from farms along Hood River's famous fruit loop. There are so many varieties of apples and pears and you can fill a bag or basket with all types. Pumpkins, gourds and fall flowers like mums and ornamental cabbage are also for sale. Last year I spent over two hours in the craft area taking my time, walking up and down the aisles and then deciding on what gifts I would buy myself and others. I bought two water color prints that I framed and matted, both have views of Mt. Hood, my favorite Mountain! I love wood and picked up several Arcadia serving utensils and small cheese knives and spreaders and a vase. The earrings i purchased have so much movement and I wear them constantly. The treats disappeared quickly as did the large bags of apples I bought to make apple pies for the holidays. Located in the event area down by the river, make a day of it and watch the wind surfers, grab a bite to eat, visit the shops downtown and even go wine or cider tasting. It's fall, y'all, and this is the event that kicks it off! Held annually from Friday afternoon through Sunday at 5pm, I look forward to it every year and more and more friends come with me! Visit the website for dates and hours. For 2022, the Hood Eiver Harvest Valley Festival is Oct 7-9. Parking is on street and plentiful - most areas are free so look for those areas. Also a paid lot. Earlier is better (10am-noon) if you don't want to shop with crowds. See you there!

$12 admission a total rip off. Entry to buy from booths. The kids bounce houses have $ tickets.read more

Had a fantastic experience at this 5 acre + museum with lots of amazing old airplanes and cars…read more Well laid out with good signage so you can wander. They offer mobility scooters too! Wonderful gift shop as well. I'm not an aviation buff, but this museum came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. Well worth the money!

Such a fun and educational experience! The founder is regularly at this spot and there are a lot of…read morevolunteers to help answer any questions you may have. They have a ton of different events they host throughout the year. Definitely will be back again!

I went to the Portland Fresh Hops Fest last year, and to tell you the truth, it was very much a…read moresausage fest, with serious beer drinkers crammed into a soggy tent, hunched over taster mugs and making copious notes about their hoppy experience. I didn't mind because I was just there for the beer, but my significant non-beer drinking other found the event to be a total yawner. The Hood River Hops Fest proved to be a totally different affair. The weather was beautiful and the event is held outside. Sweet. There was a line around the block when we arrived, but it didn't take too long to get inside. This is a family-friendly beer fest. That seemed kind of weird and ill-conceived to me at first. Little kids hanging around with grown-ups slamming down brewskis galore? Eh. However, they had a fenced off kiddie area full of jolly jump things and the beer garden was adequately separated from the spots where kids are allowed. Once I got into some serious suds sipping, there weren't any youngsters nearby. Great family festival feel at this event. Nice, big, open area. Everybody was having a great time, including my wife, and that says a lot. Oh, yeah, the fresh hop beers were awesome! I paid $10 for a mug and four taster tokens. My wife gained entrance for $4 as my DD. Extra tokens were a buck each. Four tokens gets you a full mug of anything. I'll be back next year!

I went to this Hops Fest expecting more and was kind of disappointed. The ratio of guys to girls…read morewas the first thing that threw me off but ultimately what turned me off about this was how difficult it was to work my way through the crowd and get a beer sample. As if that wasn't enough your $10 entry fee got you 4 tokens and a small beer mug. Each token lets you get about a shots worth of beer from whatever vendor you choose or you can use all 4 tokens to have 1 beer from a specific vendor but the mug you are given is kind of small. I am not sure that I would go again or recommend this festival to anyone, I saw it as kind of a waste of time.

After moving here a few months ago we found the tamales were often a favorite when we went to…read moreMexican restaurants. As such, I made a comment one day that there should be a tamale Festival. To our great delight, we found that there had been 12 prior and that this year would be celebrating the 13th one! We mosied on down on a Saturday afternoon, with some friends in tow. We found an amazing meeting of some of the most delicious Mexican food we've had since time started. The event is held a long one of the main streets in downtown Wapato and encompassed about three blocks worth of real estate. The different stands where everything from local favorites, two food trucks, two people making tamales as part of fundraisers for different organizations. Many of the places also served street style tacos, Indian tacos and one guy was even roasting some boss looking chicken One of the stands with selling a number of different beverages including Horchata, strawberry lemonade and a number of different juices, each one of which we sampled was delicious. I'll food items range between a dollar and five dollars, with most of them being in $1.50 range. Everything we had here was good and it was really nice to be able to move around from stand to stand, sampling the different tamales. By the end of the afternoon we doll eaten roughly the Weight of one of our arms in tamales, and it was so good! The DJ that was in the center of the festival did a great job keeping things lightly, and while we didn't stay for the voting, I believe there was a best of show type event. The only thing that would make this better is if there were a king or queen of tamales crowned, and it included any and everyone from the community. Based on the offerings that were available, I would imagine that the stuff that people make at home in the area is absolutely mind blowing. Well worth checking out in something that we will be planning on going to on a yearly basis!

This is a fun event, especially on a Sunny Day. It is promoted as kid friendly and there are a lot…read moreof families, but I would suggest coming Early. It gets packed, they have great Ciders and food booths.

If you like shoulder to shoulder, sweaty bodies rubbing on you with cider splashing on you and your…read morechild, then this is the place to go. This event was not planned out well. There was room for it to be expanded and it wasn't. Will not be coming back next year!

How can you not like a old fashioned small town festival? Held in Pioneer Park it provides a fun…read morevenue to wander around the woods. Local community groups such as the Kiwanis Club, Boy Scout's, Sandy High ect. provide a variety of fair food everything from elephant ears to corn on the cob and BBQ. Artisans from all over the Northwest some out to show their wares. As well as bands, dance troupes and singers. In my opinion the big draw is the art booths and food vendors. However, they have a pageant featuring a princess or Queen in each age group, carnival rides for the kids, and other events throughout the week. However, if you aren't directly involved in the community of Sandy, the vendors are the big draw. It's exactly what it sounds like an old fashion community fair!

If you want to take your family to an old-school county fair, one that isn't over-run with…read morecommercialism, one that is FREE to enter, then here you go! Multiple-generation 4-H clubs! A parade! Carnival rides! Carnival food! Horsies! Moo Cows! Piggys! A Timber Carnival for kids and adults! A FREE fair trolley! Arts, crafts, musicians, way too much to list. And, the most beautiful, awe-inspiring views this planet of ours ever built. Usually the second or third week in August, but check the website: http://www.skamaniacountyfair.com/

So much fun! Small town fair, I have gone since I was a child! If you are looking for an…read moreinexpensive day with the family this is the place to go!

This was our first trip down to the annual treaty days powwow and I must say we had a very nice…read moretime! The event takes place over three or four days in a couple different locations. There's a large celebration in Toppenish as well as another (this one) in White Swan. For those who have never been to white swan, it's a very small and very rural community, the one that has a lot of neat history as it relates to the native peoples in the area. The location of the pow wow is next to the white swan long house which is just a little ways outside town. Plug it into whatever your MapQuest of the day is and it'll get you right there! The area and building where it is held is basically a small fairground type area. There's plenty of parking and as you walk up you are first created by food vendors and vendors of many a trinket item. Some folks are selling native art while others are selling small ukuleles and wallets. It runs the gamut from "wow that's neat" to something that your two-year-old is absolutely sure they need. It's always exciting to have a conversation about the merits of learning to play a musical instrument and why that instrument should probably not be a miniature guitar purchased at a powwow... The two or three food vendors that were there had some solid options. Fry bread and Indian tacos tend to be the items du jour at many of the events in the lower Valley and this was no exception. We got ourselves a delicious NDN (that's how a lot of places advertise it) taco as well as some fry bread with huckleberry butter. We learned very quickly that we really like huckleberry butter! The main event for the powwow involves different dances and songs or chanting from the different tribes. The native dress the many of the men, women and kids are in is visually stunning at times and incredibly intricate. There are lots of people walking around in the different outfits and it gives you a really neat feel for how many different types of native cultures are represented in the area. The dances and chanting that went on was unique and pretty powerful- it was at time very primal, simple to complex and throughout was very beautiful. As someone who has no prior pow wow experience I couldn't appreciate the intricacies of many of the dances but found quickly that you didn't need to know anything about them to appreciate them. All in all, this was an event that give us a better appreciation for many of the different customs that have been present in the area for much longer than any of us have been. We're excited to go back in future years to see the dancing, experience the food and learn more about the cultures that made up this area long before we did. Worth your time every time!