We’re on our way home!
Debbi’s assignment in Tualatin Oregon is over, and we’re on our way home. We’re going to toddle slowly, not trying to sprint home. Immediate priority is to get out of areas with snow potential, and that means we drive south to California, then east over the lower tier of states. We had great advice from the Escapees RV club on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/escapeesrvclub), and their combined experience led us to this route. Our dear friend Fred, who has road-tripped all over the county, added his experience. Then, we block the trip by daily distance and use the RV Life Trip Wizard to find campgrounds. We’re able to use the military campgrounds, which are good value and quite secure.
So, on November 1st, we departed the Sun Outdoors RV park in Wilsonville OR, where we’ve been planted since mid-June. As usual, our tracks are viewable at https://share.garmin.com/cfogoose.
We rose late and got away just before noon. Had to finish breaking down and connecting the F150 to the tow dolly in the cold rain. Jim forgot to take off the F150 parking brake, so we dragged the truck 100 feet until Jim said “something’s not right!” We stopped three times in the first 90 miles to tighten straps, get fuel and food, so this distance took us three hours. This is shakedown day, after all. That’s a term from Jim’s shipbuilding and shipyard days, when you take a new build/ repaired ship to sea to shake down (to the deck) all the things that should have been better secured! After the first three hours, things moved smoothly. We started to approach the mountains that we would cross the next day.
We stopped for the night in the Phoenix OR Holiday RV park, after driving about 260 miles. Quite nice, family owned for 35 years. Our designated site was occupied, so we moved down a few. Walked to strip mall, but the wait for food at the Thai restaurant was 45 minutes. Instead, we ate at Los Portales. I had a seafood platter a la Mazatlan, very good. Couple of Negra Modelo’s and I was set.
Oregon State Fair
A lovely Saturday was had by all … at least us two! We arose leisurely, had coffee, then lunch at the Oswego Grill. Then we drove about 30 miles south to Salem, where we attended the Oregon State Fair. Memories of childhood abounded, at least for me, since Debbi did not have the chance to attend the Great Frederick Fair. I remember being the luckiest kid in the world when I found $10 on the ground in the parking lot in about 1970. I rode every ride that day!
Pictures are below, but here are impressions.
- Great 4-H and FFA involvement from all over the state. Cows, pigs, goats, chickens and HORSES! Oregon is a very agricultural state, and it seemed every county was represented by either a FFA chapter, 4-H club, or a riding club, or some combo. Seemed like most of the horse people were twelve year old girls, but what twelve year old girl hasn’t loved Black Beauty?
- Just like in North Carolina, you could buy nearly any food deep-fried. We didn’t try any.
- Lots of usual rides. We didn’t try any. After fried Oreos, the tilt-a-pukes are the most dangerous things for us oldsters.
- Loved the textile submissions. We saw some of the same quilts here that were at the Sisters quilt show in Bend, in July.
- Not too many equipment vendors, like all the Farmall tractors at the GFF, but Kubota and Bobcat had a display.
Jim stopped at the booth for the American Cribbage Congress to play a game. Lost (but only!) because the other player had better cards.
A wandering weekend
This weekend, we stayed somewhat close to home. We ate lunch at the Ancestry Brewing Company in Tualatin, a place owned by a Navy veteran of the Vietnam era. Beer was good, food only okay. Then we drove up Parrett Mountain (raised methinks by the action of the Cascadia tectonic plate) to Avidity Winery. Nice wines, but we couldn’t sit outside due to marauding yellow jackets. You could see the smoke from Canadian fires, somewhat obscuring the nice view.
Today (Sunday), we drove to McMinnville, about a 40 minute drive. It’s a pretty neat town, with lots of small wineries north on Oregon 99W, and some with tasting rooms in town.
The town had blocked streets in the historic old town, with a theme of Dine Out(side). Restaurants had seating areas in the street. Lots of nifty shops, restaurants and a couple of good hotels. They have a summer festival it might be fun to attend.
We had lunch at Los Molcajetes Mexicans restaurant, then tasted whites and reds at the Terra Vina Winery tasting room. Found a good use for pinot noir grapes: make a white wine! Take off the skins, crush, and make Pinot Noir Blanc! I’m still not sure red pinot noir is wine … seems you have to pay an awful lot of money for a bottle to get the same quality and taste as from sangiovese or tempranillo. Oh, well, I guess I’m just an oeno snob.
We took the back roads over to Carlton, passing through Lafayette on the way. We stopped briefly at the Crowing Hen beer farm, which is pictured below. The name comes from the owners’ experience with their chickens: when one of the newly hatched chickens eventually began to crow, they thought they had a unique hen, without realizing they had hatched a rooster!
In these pictures, you can really see how bad is the smoke from Canada. Pray for the folks in Yellowknife!
Powell’s City of Books
Powell’s says it is the world’s largest independent book store, and it may well be. They claim to have a million books under roof at their flagship location, in a building occupying a city block. The store is in downtown Portland, with lots of homeless folks wandering outside. Many of the businesses have security folks outside their doors.
We explored for an hour or so, with lots of used books on the shelves alongside new. Jim found a couple of useful genealogy books (never available in a new book shop) and Deb found some light reading.
Neighborhood food tour
Today we took a walking tour of the Kerns neighborhood in northeast Portland. We started kale and avocado with salads at a Cuban restaurant (Pambiche), accompanied by cafecito and Jamaica hibiscus tea, both very yummy. We tasted pistachio schmear at Montelupo, which also has its own market. We ate sushi crab roll and a pina colada at Tropicale. We went through Providore, another foodie market, where we bought some lovely low salt blue cheese. We had a buckwheat savory crepe with ham and arugula at one of the many food pods (parking lots now rented to food trucks) in the city. We finished with sorbet and gelato at Gelato Staccato.
Clearly, Portland excels in great food, walkability and diversity of food. Our tour guide was Sherri of https://portlandbymouth.com/. along the way, she pointed out neighborhood architecture, gave the history of the restaurants and generally celebrated her adopted city. Quite fun!
Back to familiar wineries
Over the past couple of weekends, we have visited wineries that we first met last summer from The Dalles. Each is quite a drive, but the wine is fantastic and we get a case price break as members of their wine club.
In July, we drove to Maryhill Winery in Goldendale, WA. Situated on the bluffs above the Columbia River, it has a commanding view. Deb tasted their whites and Jim snifeed each one (he was driving). Came home with rosé of sangiovese, chardonnay, petit verdot and sangiovese.
Earlier this month, we visited Hood Crest winery in the Mt Hood fruit loop. Deb tasted white and rose, with Jim again driving/ sniffing, and a little bit of sangiovese. Left with sangiovese, chardonnay and rosé, with a tummy full of pizza and a cheese plate.
Before coming back, we had to find fruit. After all, we’re in the fruit loop, right? We went to Pearl’s market and bought cherries and peaches. Lots of fruit still on the trees.
Learn to kayak
Lots left to learn in life, and we decided to take a basic kayak course. The store Portland Kayak Company has a basic course, so we signed up and went there for a three hour group lesson. Part of the reason to do this was to learn what one needs if you have a kayak, which we might use to explore rivers and lakes back in NC.
We were each equipped with a 14 ft kayak, personal flotation device, double-ended paddle (it floats!) and traveling wheel set for the kayak. We walked our kayaks down to the Willamette River through Willamette Park. There were about a dozen of us, plus two instructors. We launched ourselves and instruction began. Learned strokes, bow and stern ruddering, how to move the kayaks sideway and that we must push against the foot peg on the side of the kayak where we’re making our stroke. Push with your left foot if you are stroking forward with the paddle in the water on the left side. Seemed strange to Jim, but it worked better that not pushing or pushing on the other side.
We crossed the Willamette River safely, despite tourist boats, a ferry and jet skis. Practiced some more and observed how to remount the kayak if you fall out (one of our party did so). After three hours on the water, we were glad to have brought water bottles, sun screen, long sleeves and a hat. Back to the Company to turn in the kayak.
Surprisingly, we didn’t learn any safety or rescue skills, like how to get back into the kayak by yourself. That was one of the first things Jim learned when sailing small boats like Finns and Lasers. Besides those skills, we’d also like to learn how to traverse rivers like the Haw and Deep, which have many rocks and mini rapids. We’re negotiating with the Company for a more advanced class. We’ve been looking at all the kayaks on all the vehicle roofs around here to get a feel for what’s available. If we do buy a kayak, we’ll probably do that here where many are available used on Craig’s List.
The Oregon wheat harvest has begun!
These photos are a bit west of Wilsonville, where we’re staying. The field is flat, and there were three combines working it. In The Dalles, where we were last year, the fields slanted as much as 30 degrees. The combines in The Dalles had tilting platforms, so the wheels followed the contours of the fields while the operator’s station remained relatively upright.
Some farmers in Oregon harvest as much as 18,000 acres.
Bangor to Bar Harbor and Back
The gas furnace heating the apartment failed on Friday. We spent Friday night in another unit, amid a couple of attempts to repair the furnace. Parts were on order, but the other unit was not as comfortable as the one we’ve been inhabiting. So, we decided to drive to Bangor for brunch.
We arrive about 10am at the Nest Café. We enjoyed avocado toast with local college students. Clearly, we were the oldest in the room. Afterwards, knowing the furnace was still inop, Deb suggested we drive to either Calais (pronounced “callous”) or Bar Harbor. Calais involved a couple hours longer driving, so we went to Bar Harbor for the first time since the mid 1980s when we camped our way around Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Entering Bar Harbor, the car made an unexpected stop at Fab-ri-Cate, a quilting shop. Deb found some Maine-themed fabric and a pattern or two. We enjoyed chatting with the staff about how central Maine has changed for the worse with the loss of paper mills. Lower employment and prosperity, but lower stink, too!
We moved the car over to the village green and walked around town for a while. Bar Harbor is clearly a tourist town, and hordes of folks from “away” descend on it during th summer. The wind off Frenchman Bay was quite chilly. After a while, we drove the car to a recommended lunch spot.
The green pyramid on the village green seems to be a weather cover over a fountain. We saw a few of them in the two parks/ green spaces.
The Side Street Café had a distinct advantage over the Indian and Thai restaurants: it was open! The season in Bar Harbor starts in mid-April, so we were a couple of weeks early. Deb had the beet salad and a brown ale (American Brewing Company). I had the chicken caprese salad and a Coastal Haze IPS from Baxter Brewery.
Back to Lincoln after lunch. The Master’s golf tourney is on, so it’s on the telly. Furnace is fixed and we’re warm again.
First World cooking
It’s a sleety day in Maine, unlike the 85 degrees at Raleigh today. Temp got all the way to 30 today! You’ll have seen our previous re-visit to the Katahdin view. We got home and are making chili verde. What you see in these pix is why we travel in a motorhome when the clime is friendly. We’ve had to buy a blender, another chef knife, cutting mats, a dutch oven and numerous spices to kinda sorta not replicate our gourmand arrangements at home. We have a better arrangement in the Goose! Note the electric stove … poor pitiful us with our Third First World problems!
