September 9, 2008

e had a lovely vacation. I have been trying to get down to Oregon to see my family once a year now. I have only been down 4 times in the last 7 years and that was only for a few days at a time. This trip, I took my companion as he had never been to Oregon before and on the way back we were going to stop by his mother's home in BC and pick up an antique table. 

I had to finish my job Thursday before I could go, so while everyone else slept, I worked until a bit after midnight, then sent my work in via email and dropped off a hardcopy. At 5am Friday, we were on our way south. 

We got to mom's house and the next night had a wonderful sushi meal at my brother's home. For the next few days we stayed at the beach house in Lincoln City. My brother and his wife came down for a couple days as well. One night we walked in the tide pools when the tide was out. A couple members of our party had never been clamming before and with the minus tides, we took advantage of it.  We got our shellfish licenses and harvested many gaper clams (mostly blues) and muscles. That night we had a feast on handpicked seafoods.

After we got back to the Willamette Valley, we took off for a day of going through antique stores and winery tours.

We started off the day in the Aurora Historic District. My companion wanted to see antique stores, I gave him the best! He was in awe of how many there were. Our favorite was probably the architectural one, which is in an old grain mill. I think we could have stayed in there a few more hours if not days. 

Soon we went to a few wineries. Although I grew up on a vineyard, I have never acquired the taste for alcohol, so I make the perfect designated driver. We started off with Duck Pond, then off to Torii Mor, Lange, Sokol Blosser and a few others before stopping off at the Dundee Bistro for a meal. My father actually had an established vineyard and went to viticulture school before all these 'big boys' did. 

It was nice to see many of the wineries (and dairies for that matter) have gone organic. Many also have gone to solar power due to a grant allowed them. 

I showed him the home where I grew up and one of my favorite little cabins at a local 'park' which is open to the public. I used to walk here a few times a week and my dog and I would climb the ladder to the loft and read a book some afternoons in my favorite cabin in the 1980's.

We did alot of clothes shopping and he found the Mecca of stores of hot sauces. I think he brought home about 40 bottles with imaginative names. 

Our last night in Oregon, we stayed with my brother and sister-in-law. We went out to my favorite restraunt,  The Red Hills Provincial Dining, which is owned by some lovely people I have known for many years. Dick even remembered my favorite meal there and cooked it up for me!! I went up into their home and saw all their animals again. Dick and Nancy are delightful people and have one of the best places to eat in all of the world, so check them out if you are ever in the upper Willamette Valley area. Even when I was very poor, I used to save up for 6 months at a time to eat here!

"Red Hills Provincial dining is from the freshest local ingredients in a charming Craftsman setting. “An exceptional restaurant – Small, friendly, its’ owners earnestly dedicated to good food,” Bon Appetite. “Best of Award of Excellence,” Wine spectator. “The best of European country cooking.”

276 Highway 99w
Dundee Oregon 97115
(503) 538-8224

Heading back north, we went to go see Mt. St. Helens. It was so very foggy on the way up to the mountain. I was thinking we were going to be very disappointed and not get to see the volcano. After thousands of feet of climbing in elevation, we popped out of the cloud cover and made it to the Johnston Observatory. If you ever get the chance to go see what Mother Nature can do, please do yourself a favor and come here. It is well worth the $8 pass. This picture does not do the volcano justice. Both he and I had watched the volcano blow up in 1980 (he in Canada and me in the US), but neither of us had ever been this close to it. 

As we consulted the roadmap to get from St Helens to his mom's home, he saw someplace else he would like to go. We had never been on a true road trip which was not just point A to B. We now were starting to connect the dots from interesting place to interesting place. The first stop was the Grand Coulee Dam. It is massive! Where you see the little flow of water out the pipes in the dam, you could actually drive a truck though them and there is enough concrete in it to make a 4 foot sidewalk to go around the world twice!

We also stopped at the Dry Falls. These, if water was still running over the cliffs, would be the largest waterfall in the world. 

In eastern Washington State, we found many wind farms. The massive wind turbines were all across the hills. There must have been a couple hundred of them by the time you counted up all the hills of them. 

We made it to his mom's home about 11 pm, to find out, that he had an emergency for one of his jobs in Vancouver that he had to deal with Monday. We were no longer heading north, in the morning we were now heading West.

On the way to Vancouver, we saw the Rhododendron Forest, the infamous Hope Slide, where many people have been killed, the Okanogan Valley where I found alot of organic growers. We stopped at a couple of his favorite places along a river or two and saw alot of white water rafters. 

Monday morning we went out to the jobsite. To save him time, I learned how to screen windows, take glass out of and re-glaze windows. The picture shows the kind of windows my companion builds and whenever there is a huge problem, he gets sent to the site to fix it. Whomever was the installer for this job (not his company), messed up and so he had to fix the mess-up and the owners decided to change this window from clear glass to opaque. 

On the road again, got him dropped off at his home at midnight Tuesday morning. All told we had a 2,200 mile road trip and we determined that my little truck does wonderful on fuel mileage. 

We did and saw so many things too numerous to mention, but trust me, it was an excellent trip!