September 5

Today dawned as a perfect day-crystal clear, dry, brilliant colors. Here’s my girlfriend lounging with Shirley-note the Columbia River Gorge in the background. 

We decided to drive to Mt Hood and have lunch at the Timberline Lodge. It’s such an amazing structure and we haven’t been there for several years. We couldn’t resist another fruit market along the way, this was the Draper Girls market. Their peaches were amazing, massive. I bought one of each variety, including the world's largest peach. Check this puppy out:

We decided to do the traditional buffett instead of the bar. Fried pork chops, hulu chicken, cornbread, all the traditional stuff. Kari, fancying herself a healthy eater, went heavy on the broccoli the first time through the line. But alas, her true desires won out in the end, and the broccoli gave way to the waffles with whipped butter and syrup. The waffles were fantastic!

If you haven’t been to the lodge it’s worth a trip if you’re in the area. It’s a WPA project from the 30’s. It’s a massive structure built and furnished by local artisans during the Great Depression. I didn’t even try to capture it with any photos. The view of Mt Hood ain’t bad either: 

We stopped at another fish market on the way back and picked up some fresh albacore tuna. The proprietors gave us several big chunks of salmon right outta the smoker, apparently an end of day gift. Good stuff.

We spent a quiet evening around the fire with Shirley, capping off another successful day.

September 4

It was Sunday and we had TV reception from Portland. We watched a couple morning news shows and said our weekly prayer for our republic. 

We then struck out on the “fruit loop” https://hoodriverfruitloop.com/. It’s a 35 mile route through the Hood River Valley with stops at fruit stands, wineries, breweries, etc. It was stunningly beautiful, made even better by a day of perfect weather. We decided that as cool as the Willamette Valley was, we liked this area even more. The bounty of fresh fruit is truly remarkable. 

Pearls was our favorite fruit stand:

The Hood River Winery was our favorite winery. Kari did the tasting and I had spring rolls from their food truck. It has spectacular views of Mt Hood:

Kari loved the lavender farm:

We worked in a little ice cream from the Mt Hood Creamery-huckleberry/lemonade-yummy!

We also worked in a little shopping. I managed to refrain from buying the blow molds (all visitors to our cabin at holiday time know why this was so hard), but I couldn’t resist a couple albums. One was an old Lee Ritenour/Dave Grusin album. We saw them a few months ago at Ronnie Scott’s in London, one of the worlds most famous jazz clubs. Ritenour is a guitarist I’ve listened to since high school and I still have my original albums of his from the 70’s-confirming me as a world class dork. Well, I guess the blow molds do that too... I also picked up Wes Montgomery and Freddie Hubbard albums that I’ve not run across before. I try and collect those since they’re probably Indy’s greatest all time musicians.

We got back to the park just in time for an evening ride along the gorge. It was sublime, and a great way to end another successful day…

September 3

 Today was a travel day, we got Shirley on the road early and headed to the Columbia River Gorge. It’s been a long time since we’ve been here, and we were blown away by how beautiful the gorge is. Our destination was Memaloose SP, which is perched right on the river. We had a great site with a river view.

We stopped in the town of Hood River for their farmers market, and had lunch at Everybody’s Brewing https://everybodysbrewing.com/ in White Salmon. I had the Italian sandwich, Kari the sweet potato burrito. 

We even did a little laundry…

Here’s my girlfriend doing a little stretching as evening fell on another successful day…

September 2

We were up early, relatively. I did a long ride on a cool park trail along the Willamette River, then swabbed Shirley down (she was a little buggy up front), and did a few financial chores. 

Kari did her best with her yoga mat to get some exercise in. She’s been a really good sport so far in dealing with her foot. It’s been pretty limiting. Although the situations are obviously dissimilar, seeing Kari hobble around in public spaces reminds me of my Dad and all that he confronted over his 60+ years in a wheelchair after contracting polio. Unless you’ve watched it up close, it’s hard to appreciate the incessant nature of overcoming a physical disability-it’s with you every minute of every day. Every minute. Every day. Simple things often become very complicated. It’s always good for me to remember the obstacles Dad overcame beginning at the age of 21, in small town Ohio, in the 1950’s. Those were not exactly the salad days for accessibility and societal acceptance. His courage and stamina to henceforth go to college (business school at the University of Illinois), get married to a widowed woman with a young daughter, have 3 more kids (I was the youngest and almost surely a mistake), start multiple businesses, and live a life as normal as anyone I know, still inspires me. 

We had one of our best meals for lunch today, at Rosmarino https://www.osteriarosmarino.com/menu in Newport. It was outstanding. I gorged on shrimp in arrabbiata sauce, Kari on bucatini in amatriciana sauce. The sauce was so good I asked our waiter if he’d ever bathed in it. This led to a discussion with restaurant staff on soaking your dog in tomato juice/sauce if they are sprayed by a skunk. This meaningless conversation is further proof of the amount of time retirees have to fill…

This was our porchetta appetizer:

We wandered through a few more wineries, marveling at the gorgeous farmland as we wound our way back to McMinnville for some live tunes. Hotel Oregon was sponsoring a music festival, and though it was a small time affair, it was a perfect way to finish another successful day.

September 1

Sometimes Kari’s quest for culinary perfection pushes me out of my comfort zone. Today was such a day as we ventured to Flaneur Winery, set in a renovated grain elevator in Carlton, OR. https://www.flaneurwines.com/carlton-grain-elevator/  It was a cool place, the structure was really interesting. My trepidation mounted when I realized we had our own menu (and I thought I obsessed over concert ticket locations):

It was obviously a pairing, but did they really have to set ALL the food in front of us and make us wait to eat it, wine by wine? In any event, it was yet another tasty lunch and I persevered. 

Next we headed to the McMinnville Farmers Market. I caught Kari trying to secretly buy me flowers…

We worked in one more tasting, I worked in a bike ride, and we closed the books on another successful day.

August 31

Today was a day to sample the ample agricultural bounty of the area so we set out to visit some farms, wineries, and markets. One of our first discoveries was that the trees we’d yet to identify were hazelnut trees, who knew? We didn’t. Apparently virtually all commercial hazelnuts are grown in the Willamette Valley. There were unending groves that were meticulously maintained. The nuts are harvested with a sweeper that sweeps them into rows, allowing a harvester to pick them up. This means the ground under the trees must be kept smooth and free of any growth.

Lunch was at the Red Hills Market in Dundee, another fantastic joint that serves local & seasonal fare, wood fired items etc. Albacore tuna melt for me, Thai sesame salad for Kari. https://www.redhillsmarket.com/

Here are a few places we went, one of our faves was the hazelnut farm. It made us feel a lil squirrelly. 

That night we cruised into McMinnville. Seeing Hotel Oregon reminded us of a trip with our good friends Dave and Mary Ann, Sam B, Sam A, and Hank A. The young gents somehow found a couple on their honeymoon that were holed up in their room, so to speak, and spent the evening harassing them as best they could. This was not particularly surprising.

Dinner that night was at Thistle: https://thistlemcminnville.com/ We may not accomplish much day to day for the good of mankind, but we’re pretty effective at picking restaurants. Gnocchi for me, rockfish for Kari.

Finally, I’ve spent 42 years with the amazing lady below, 40 of them married. Anyone want to argue with my view that I’m the luckiest SOB that y’all know?

August 30

Here's an item from the category of random events. While searching for radio stations in Astoria, I stumbled across a station broadcasting Bob & Tom. A real blast from the past. They're still ridiculous, funny, irreverent, and it was fun to hear them again. They've been around so long that Tom's son, Willie, is now on the air. Bob of course has retired and spends his time traveling, having become a fellow Airstream aficionado. It doesn't look active anymore but here is the blog he was doing for a while: http://junebugjourneys.com

We've loved our time in Astoria, it's a beautiful, bustling city on a hill. But it was time to move on so I whipped up some eggs, packed Shirley up, and we hit the road. As always, Tom Petty got us started: https://youtu.be/pDPq1QbGAAk

Before leaving town we hit a tire shop to get a new spare tire for Shirley, our flat from a few days ago proved unrepairable. A little later we stopped in Seaside at this seafood joint to pick up some supplies. The proprietor happened to be a Hoosier by birth, and a Purdue grad. It's always a little embarrassing to pull up in front of these small town joints with Shirley in tow, we tend to block traffic, driveways, escape routes, scenic views, just about everything...

We listened to some classic albums from 1972 on our drive, a suggestion from Qobuz, a streaming service I subscribe to. A bunch of amazing stuff from Aretha, Stevie Wonder, Stones, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Neil Young, etc. Our podcast today was a Kate McKinnon interview on the comedy podcast Good One. It was fantastic, she's such a brilliant lady and it was cool to listen to her talk about her craft. The podcast highlights one of her classic sketches (I won’t spoil it) so even if you don’t listen to the podcast, do yourself a favor and enjoy the sketch: https://youtu.be/PfPdYYsEfAE

We traveled through the beautiful Yamhill County wine country on our way to Champoeg SP. It’s just south of Portland along the banks of the Willamette River, very cool. We set up and hung with Shirley for the evening. 

Another successful day…