I’m doing The Dalles Sunsational Charm Trail; here’s what I’ve learned

If you’re not familiar with the charm trail, it’s essentially a program where you buy a charm bracelet and can fill it out with little charms from various businesses and historical locations throughout The Dalles. If you are familiar with the charm trail, you might be thinking “Isn’t that for tourists?” And the answer is, yeah, kind of. But the thing is, having spent a day doing the trail myself and planning on continuing to do it, I would actually argue that it’s probably more fun if you live here. There’s no rush to complete it, so you can just do it as you go about life in The Dalles, and it may even get you to leave your comfort zone and visit somewhere new.

I originally learned about the trail at a Port of The Dalles meeting where the Chamber of Commerce had given them little goodie bags to hand out. In those bags was a map of the charm trail, the charm bracelet, and one charm to get started: A little peace sign.

A few weeks ago, Columbia Gorge News officially joined the trail (come see us at 1800 W. 10th St. and get yourself a little newspaper charm!) and I added a newspaper to my collection. That was when I decided I was going to take a day to do a portion of the trail myself … and write about it, of course.

That day was Wednesday, Aug. 17. My boyfriend was on taxi duty and helped me plan out a little route that we would do that day. Each charm is $1.50, which can add up if you’re doing a lot at once, so I had a $20 bill I was going to spend that day.

Now, having gotten my bracelet and first charm at the PoTD meeting, I had a head start and the advantage of being able to start anywhere. If you don’t already have your bracelet, you’re going to want to start at one of the five trailheads, where you can buy the bracelet and get the map of all of the stops on the trail.

The five trailheads are The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, Cousins’ Country Inn, The Dalles Inn and West Second Street Market. From a tourist standpoint, I think these make perfect sense, seeing as they may be the first place you would go when you first get here. You can choose whichever one you’ll be closest to, which may even be the place you’re staying, between Cousins’ and The Dalles Inn.

If you live here, though, I would highly suggest starting with the chamber. Actually, I would highly suggest that either way, to be completely honest. And if you don’t start with it, I would recommend making sure it’s on your to-visit list.

I have a couple of reasons for this, the first being very reasonable: This project is led by the chamber and everyone there knows a lot about it and can give you advice on where to go. My second reason is a bit more driven by the gold-hoarding dragon in my head: They have so many charms there.

The thing about the chamber is, as the head of this project, they have a ton of the old, discontinued charms, on top of the two that are currently listed as their official ones. There’s a whole little display of all the ones you can get.

Of course, I had only allotted $1.50 for each stop, wanting to visit as many as possible, so I spent a good five minutes trying to choose which one I would buy. I was very tempted by the squirrel, as my college campus had been full of them, but as the type of person who starts celebrating Halloween in July, I decided to choose a little ghost.

Though I advise starting at the chamber, I didn’t know that going in. I knew that, in theory, you were supposed to start at a trailhead and in my mind, that meant those were the most important ones, so I put all five of them on my must-visit list. Because of this, ironically, even though I didn’t need to start at a trailhead, I ended up doing it anyway.

I started at the Discovery Center, where I got a cute little feather charm. You don’t have to pay the entry fee to get the charms if you don’t want to; if you tell the person at the front desk they will lead you to the gift shop where you can purchase the charm and the bracelets if you want.

For my second charm I went to Cousins’ Country Inn, which is a trailhead (not to be confused with Cousins’ Restaurant, which is on the trail but isn’t a trailhead). I got a tractor charm from them, though the person at the desk seemed a bit confused — I imagine it isn’t as popular a stop as some of the others.

That was actually a trend I noticed a lot. A lot of people working hadn’t been told where the charms were kept or weren’t sure how much they cost. I think when businesses sign up, they may not necessarily think about training their employees on what to do, since it’s such a small thing. It really wasn’t a big deal, though, and I always got my charm in the end.

My third stop was the chamber, which, as I’ve already mentioned, was incredibly helpful. The lady working the desk, Charla Kozelisky, was super great to talk to because not only did she have the professional knowledge of the charm trail, but she also had personal knowledge. She took out her own bracelet and it was crazy how many charms she had, literal years worth! You couldn’t even see the chain under there anymore. It made my bracelet (which only had three puny charms at this point) feel insignificant in comparison.

We talked for a while about the trail (Charla is trying to get her young nieces involved as a fun family activity, which I thought was so cute) and she said something that really stood out to me.

“It’s not really something that you can do in just a single day and really see the places and shop and really do them justice.”

And that’s something I noticed. I was doing a lot of places one after another, which was effective in getting as many charms as I could in one day, but not really what the experience is about. Going forward I hope to spend more time with each place when I’m not in such a hurry.

A good example of this is the Fort Dalles Museum. We showed up, paid for the charm and left. We didn’t really go through the museum or spend time there, and, looking back, I kind of wish we had. If you do this yourself, I’d really suggest just doing a few at a time so you can really enjoy them to the fullest.

Even going quickly, though, I did get to go to a bunch of places I hadn’t before. For example, I’d never been to Freebridge Brewing, and I thought it was really neat that you get to see the brewers on the way to the bar space. I also got to pop into Scooper McQuade’s, which had basically just opened, so it was neat to see that space and get my little ice cream scoop.

In the end, I ended up going to 15 different stops and I got charms from 14 of them. The only one I wasn’t able to get one from was the fire museum. It was open and I did wander in and poke around, but I couldn’t find the charms or anyone working … I’ll come back for you someday, Sparky the Fire Dog charm.

Though my experience was a bit rushed, it was a lot of fun. It even gave my boyfriend and I an excuse to get lunch at Big Jim’s while I was there to get their burger charm. You can just add it onto the order too, which is nice. I’ll take a burger, some fries, and a tiny piece of metal please! Mmm, delicious.

I honestly would recommend trying the trail though. Whether you end up with a full bracelet like Charla or just a smattering of charms like me, I do think it’s worth the ride. And hey, if you get a good collection going, feel free to stop by and show me while you pick up your little newspaper charm! I’d love to see you.

For more information on The Dalles charm trail and the full, up-to-date list of stops, visit explorethedalles.com/sunsational-charm-trail.