So my overall impression of Oregon’s wine country was underwhelming. It was beautiful for sure, but for a region that is widely renowned for its pinot noir, one of Alan’s and my favorite wines, we were somewhat disappointed by the quality (and price) of the Willamette Valley wines.

We tasted at Cristom (a bit of a ways from the McMinnville/Dundee/Dayton area where the majority of the wineries are located) and ate a fresh tasty lunch at the Blue Goat. The Turkish figs with blue cheese and bacon are divine. From there we meandered up to Eyrie and White Rose tasting rooms and we finished the day at Four Graces. All the tastings were $10-15 a person. As we would later discover, the tastings in Walla Walla, WA average on the cheaper side (most $5 a person), along with the wine prices. While the surrounding valley afforded more picturesque views, we both preferred the Washington wines (more to come on that later).

After we closed down the tasting rooms we mozied over to our B&B – the Wine Country Farm B&B, which I’d found in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book. For $200 a night we got a complimentary tasting (mediocre wines), a lovely room that was quite large and a superb breakfast (all about the bomb breakfasts on this trip so far!). There were 3 dogs on the property as well as a rather fat cat. Surprisingly though, my favorite animals on the grounds were the very friendly horses. Maybe it wa the 5 tastings, maybe it was the romantic setting, but I was really feeling the horse nuzzling. So much so that one horse gave me a little love nibble and left a bruise on my face. Horse hickey – HA!

While enjoying our last tasting of the day we met a couple who was there celebrating their wedding anniversary, having wed at the Wine Country B&B 5 years ago. We got to talking in the lobby for a while and our new Oregonian friends ended up joining us for dinner at the Joel Palmer House – a place which is known for their truffle oil. The menu boasts several choices for each of three courses, nearly all with mushrooms as the main attraction. Alan and I shared a mushroom soup and mushroom tarte to begin, the filet mignon with foie gras (an add-on – and still legal in Oregon!) and lamb for our mains, and wrapped it up with a rose water pistachio rice pudding and mushroom s’more. The verdict: good, but not incredible. I thought the filet was superb and I also really enjoyed the rice pudding. The lamb was very disappointing. And the mushroom s’more tasted like neither mushrooms nor s’mores to me. More of a dry, chocolatey layer bar if you ask me.

Since we missed the cut off for Domaine Drouhin (recommended by many) we stopped by before hitting the road the next morning, but just to see the view. It was right across the way from our B&B, which by the way had some really stunning views.

Tasting @ White Rose

Tasting @ White Rose

Wine Country Farm B&B

Food Trucks in the Pearl District

Hiking near Multnomah

Multnomah falls. Portland is gorges?!

Having tasted the wine, we went off to Portland to savor the food. I don’t have many pictures of Portland… We were too busy eating!

We tried AirBnB for the first time in Portland. A bit unnerved by the warning against leaving anything in the car and then having no lock on bedroom door, I was skeptical. But for about $50 a night we had a perfectly comfortable room in the home of two super cool, generous and friendly Portlanders (and they’re even cuter 2 year old son). The one downside – we were in a basement room and had to go up two floors to use shower and wound up waiting almost an hour when I needed it. But so far I am super impressed with AirBnB, what a genius idea. Why didn’t I think of that?!

We spent the better part of our first day in Portland exploring the downtown area and Pearl District. We ate lunch at Grassa and Lardo – both delicious and super cheap (same owners, next door from eachother, so we each got a plate from one and sat outside. Can you guess which one of us choose pasta and which one chose pig?? ;). We debated the food trucks, as Portland is big on these and an early pioneer of the bomb-food-out-of-moving-vehicles trend, but held out on those until breakfast. After lunch we worked on the blogs and a coffee shop and headed over to check out Nob Hill. Very lovely neighborhood and so many places to eat that smelled great and came highly recommended. Not enough time! We imagined that if we moved to Portland we’d live in that area.

For dinner we ate thai food at Chiang Mai  over on the east side and closer to where we stayed- very good, but our sense was that ethnic food was slightly pricier in the Portland scene compared to the very reasonable prices of many other quality restaurants.

The next morning we grabbed breakkie at the Yolk food truck. It was relatively pricey – $9 a pop for some sammies! Alan had something called the Brother Bad Ass (pork belly and other goodness) , I had Sunshine & High Clouds (goat, sautéed veggies and an egg). They were worth the hefty pricetag. Holy yum, and that bread!! We stopped quickly to check out the farmer’s market in Woodstock. It was nice, on the smaller side and surprisingly pricier that what I was used to in LA’s Brentwood farmer’s market.

From there we went up to the Columbia River gorges and did a nice, albeit rainy, hike around Multnomah Falls. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with some Little Big Burger (pretty good, but definitely not in the same ballpark as In’N’Out). Almost obligatorily, we stopped for coffee at Stumptown. I got a delicious chai (so hot on tea right now).

We wrapped our Portland eating tour up at Nostrata for late night happy hour with some friends who are now Portlanders themselves. The meal was super cheap, clocking in at $31 TOTAL for both of us! And it’s apparently one of best restaurants in the city. We stuck to the happy hour menu, foregoing some other more exciting sounding options, but it was a solid meal nonetheless.

The final verdict: Portland – come for the food, not the wine. Then go to Walla Walla! Comin up next!!!

Next stop: Corvallis. Lovely collegetown. Like so many of the spots we’re visiting I was reminded a bit of Ithaca. We drove with the top down and it was perfect weather – just the right kind of dry heat and as we drove through fields of fresh mint the enticing smell wafted through the air whipping by our faces. Bonus: I stopped in Powell’s bookstore and exchanged mine for a few new ones.

A bit later we arrived in the hippie town of Eugene, OR. We were a little wary at first as we pulled up to our $65/night motel that was right next to the bus station (Timbers Motel), but it was a solid little place. Nice quiet room, nothing fancy or special, but it had a mattress and a roof and a shower and a/c, so it was luxury for us 😉 We set out on foot to explore Eugene, walked over to U of Oregon (I kept confusing this and Oregon State, Alan thought I was going to get us shot) and wandered around the campus for a bit, then took Pearl St. down to the downtown area where we got a delicious meal at a Vietnamese place. This was the best meal of the trip so far! Alan got the banh mi and I got the spicy beef pho. Oh my oh my.. both were delicious. The bread on the banh mi was superb – not too crusty, not too soft – and we decided that Oregon does their bread right.

We stopped in at Voodoo Donuts and split a Cap’n Crunch donut for dessert. They had some mean flavors in there. While the donut was easily devoured, I’d say the desserts paled in comparison to the decor and experience. Take out boxes are pink boxes labeled “good things come in pink boxes.” Ha.. Ha.. Naughty, clever Oregonians.

We were beat and headed back to Timbers for some more trip planning and a good night’s rest.

poetry in the streets in Corvallis

all the fire hydrants in Eugene are painted with different colorful designs

Observations on Oregon so far:

• Treat names for coffee shops and TONS of these tiny little coffee shops that are the size of a room just standing alone. Best name: Brewed Awakenings. Close runner up: the Human Bean. Also lots of Dairy Queens and Dutch Brothers coffee chains.
• You can’t pump your own gas. Pretty sure Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states left. Curious what the rationale is behind that…
• Oregonian men have beards. So. much. facial hair. I’m pretty sure they won’t let you get your OR driver’s license if your photo is facial hair free. I was so tempted to snap photos of some of the more stellar bearded men of Orgon, but alas, I left without many shots of the not-so-elusive bearded Oregonian.
• Oregonians bear their bodies with pride. I noticed a number of guts that were worn proudly, even some women with little tellitubbies wearing middrift tops. The contrast strikes me more coming from LA where the people are so beautiful and put so much effort into their appearances. I’d been saying for a while that every time I went home to the Northeast I’d walk around the grocery store for the first time and think, “Why did all the ugly people come into the store at the exact same time?” I imagine that sounds pretty vain. But live in LA for a few years, then leave and trust me.. you will notice the scale of attractiveness of the folks around you has skewed dramatically towards HOT. This is not to say there aren’t beautiful people in Oregon or New England or elsewhere – I’ve got some beauties from all these spots! But outside LA, and especially in Oregon there is way less emphasis put into clothing, shoes, makeup, even bodies. No silicone here folks. No frozen faces either.

On our quest to find the campsite worthy of two nights, we first stopped to check out Cape Blanco. Remote as can be, we saw the cutest little doe on the drive in, who was truly a deer in headlights. I almost said literally, and then I remembered reading somewhere that the non-literal definition of literally has now beed added to the definition. Literally. So how would you know? 😉 To get to the Cape Blanco campground you have to drive a ways off the highway, past the westernmost lighthouse in the US, and into this neat homey feeling circle. Each site had electricity and water. There were also showers, a fair bit of privacy between sites, and it was near the water! We decided to continue North to make a bit more progress up the winding roads and get to an area where there was more to do for a few days (basically, cover more ground, and get up to the sand dunes). Also it was crazy windy which didn’t sound super relaxing.

We made it to Eel Creek campground, but there was no ranger or anyone to talk to, no showers, and no place nearby to pick up groceries so we kept on going.

Finally we arrived at Honeyman State Park, and while far far less remote and special feeling than Cape Blanco or Eel Creek (think 400 camp sites, kids EVERYWHERE, campsites more or less on top of eachother), it had access to a lake we could swim in, was close to the sand dunes, and only 3 miles from the town of Florence which boasted a Safeway and a Starbucks (wifi!! We can blog! Except the Starbucks is in the Safeway and it doesn’t have wifi. BOO [hence all these posts coming to you from the great coffee shop of Calypsos in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho!]). We pitched our tent, having arrived too late for a spot with electric hookup, drove to Safeway for food and more firewood, came back and cooked some BBQ grilled chicken sammies with corn on the cob. The cutest little boy and girl at the campground next to us came over with fresh s’mores and offered them up. So, OK, I guess a campground crawling with kids isn’t that bad. The bathrooms there are pretty clean, flush! and have soap and paper towels! What luxury.

I finished my book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night” while at Honeyman. Very interesting read, it’s written from the point of view of a young boy with autism.  Highly recommend as it’s a fascinating insight to the way the mind works.

We spent the better part of our full day in Florence at the Siuslaw River Coffee Roasters enjoying the free wifi (along with coffee and a banana chocolate chip bread). To be honest, I don’t know if “enjoy” is the proper word, as we spent 6 hours planning out rest of trip through Big Sky with Internet that wasn’t working properly at first. I think we were going to tear our hair out. The internet productivity finally picked up, and ours along with it, and we booked lots of spots (Eugene, OR Wine Country, Portland, Walla Walla and Idaho). Felt so accomplished after that!

Back at our campsite we ate some salami and crackers and (local!) Tillamook smoked cheddar, then headed out to the Sand Dunes. HOW COOL! I absolutely love the sand dunes. You’re in this giant forest and then boom, you’re in the desert… so neat. Totally unlike anything I’ve seen before. We watched a bunch of motorbike and 4 wheeler type vehicles tear by, some people also rented sand boards and boarded the hills. We just went on foot, which is tough going uphill! I avoided death by sand spiders, those little buggers are creepy though. Alan went swimming in Cleawox lake, which was nice, like a little beach since its surrounded in sand dunes. Quick drop off, decent temperature.

Afterwards we headed back to camp and made BBQ chicken sammies for dinner again. I read by the fire and Alan worked on his computer. During the course of the afternoon and evening I read the Alchemist in its entirety. My former boss gave this to me as a gift when I left work, and it was so fitting. I won’t go on about it, as it seems like everyone and their mother has already read this, but I definitely recommend it to those who haven’t yet! It’s a bit fantastical which is normally out of my comfort zone, but it works in this case, and its totally inspiring, especially having read it at the exact right time in my life 🙂 Thanks Sanije!

Waking up to thunder while you’re in a tent and have to stuff everything into a convertible is a bit disconcerting. I’d stayed up late finishing the Alchemist and Alan had a bit of a cold, so we somehow slept in til 8, waking only after I finally admitted to myself that the continual rumblings I’d been hearing were not just cars passing by, but threats of an imminent rainstorm. We packed quickly as we could, deciding that since it wasn’t prudent to hang out and try to boil water for our oatmeal that we’d stop at McDonald’s in Florence and consummate this road trip with some proper fast food. Mmmm, McDonald’s breakfast. 😉 From there we continued up the coast, stopping at some vista points, and checking out the Sea Lion Caves about 11 miles north of Florence. There were no sea lions out so we got in for the discounted price of $8 a person (down from $14). Steep price, but very cool, especially given that we actually saw zero sea lions. Claims to be the largest sea cave in the world. Can also sometimes sight gray whales off the coast, but no luck for us today. Decent views of the lighthouse when the fog wore off for a bit.

Oregonian coastlines are nothing to snuff at.

I’ll leave this post with one observation about the Oregonians. They are really into regulations. Every bathroom I entered had detailed information on how to wash your hands (twice), and the beaches are rife with notes, warnings and instructions. Not too mention the hundreds of “entering tsunami zone” and “exiting tsunami zone” signs as you go up and down the hilly coastlines.