We are geeking out on wine! I won’t bore you with all the details, rather I’ll just show the pretty pictures 😁 Plus mention that today we scheduled a hike through the vineyards in the heat 🔥. Yikes! Luckily it was at 11:00. It cools off a lot once the sun goes down. It’s one of the reasons this area makes great wine. When we went for our early morning walk it was in the low 60’s. Sadly it wasn’t quite that cool on our vineyard hike but they provided water and wine along the 1 mile, 500ft elevation gain hike.
Our hike at Knudsen VineyardPaige Knudsen, our guide, married into the family that owned the Star Tribune before it was bought by Glenn Taylor. She lives in St Paul part of the year.You can see the haze in the distance. Usually you can see mountains.
Last night, way after the sun set, we ventured out. Our AirBnB is only a few blocks from 3rd Street – old town McMinnville. They close the street to traffic on the weekends and setup tables for dining and wine tasting. By the time we went it had cooled off significantly and the place was hopping. In a few minutes we are going to venture over there. Perhaps we’ll try one of the free wine tastings our host left us, or get ice cream, or maybe go to one of the breweries…
Remember when I said we have to be flexible? Today was another perfect example. Wine Jason (the guy who we take a lot of our wine classes from) gave us a list of recommendations for both wineries and restaurants. We were planning to try one of the restaurants for breakfast only to discover they are permanently closed. A casualty of the pandemic. One of the wineries we planned to go to emailed me earlier in the week to cancel our reservation due to excessive heat. The forecast was for 104 today and all of their tastings are done outside. Hard to blame them!
So here’s a recap of our need for flexibility:
The restaurant is suddenly closed because of staffing issues.
The restaurant is closed because someone has Covid and they have to quarantine.
The excessive heat closed restaurants/wineries/full service gas pumps.
The Governor is instituting a state-wide indoor mask mandate starting tomorrow.
One place that wasn’t closed was Nikki Jane’s boutique in Dundee. A sweater in the window caught my eye. I know… who thinks about a sweater when it’s 103 degrees! Luckily the store had awesome a/c and was full of adorable clothes. The sweater wasn’t the only thing I bought. Now I just have to figure out how to fit three sweaters, a top and jeans in my already full carry-on!
We were able to enjoy two wineries today – both with indoor tasting rooms. Sadly it was just too hot to take many photos. We did not linger outside!
ROCO Winery.
At Le Cadeau’s tasting room we got our dog fix by saying hi to a Sheepadoodle. Oregon is very dog-friendly. Not only do many places allow dogs on the patio they also allow dogs inside! He looked a lot like Rosie. 🐾
While we were petting him a guy across the room had too much heat. He fell out of his chair and onto the floor. Not sure if he passed out or what happened. He and his wife had just arrived and had not been to another winery so we know it wasn’t that. They were staying upstairs so she helped him up and they left. We never got to find out if he was ok.
Le Cadeau Winery. The owners live in Minnetonka. They spend the summers at the winery and go back home to Minnesota in the winter. That’s backwards!
So far we haven’t joined any more wine clubs 🤣
Figuring restaurants would be either a long wait (since so many aren’t open) or too hot, we went to the grocery store and shopped for dinner. Just as I’m about to wrap this up I noticed a beautiful sunset out the window. Good night everyone!
The winds have shifted. This morning there was a strong smoke smell in the air. Hopefully it will stay south while we are in wine country. People say this area is like Napa Valley used to be 25-30 years ago – more down to earth, less pretentious, a more relaxed vibe. We were about to find out if all that was true. St Innocent Winery was our 1st stop. It’s a small winery on the edge of Williamette Valley. Since it was early and the temperature was only 80 we elected to sit out on the patio. There was a nice breeze for most of the tasting but we were glad to head inside when we signed up for their wine club. Yup! One winery, one wine club. We both agreed this can’t continue!
We got into McMinnville before our AirBnB was ready. We didn’t really have anything else planned for the day. Back when the weather was supposed to be reasonable we thought we’d walk around the cute little town. At 102° that idea no longer sounded fun! So again we had to be flexible 🙂
The host of our AirBnB mentioned a new tasting room about 15 minutes away. It was an old grain elevator that had been converted into a tasting room. With time to kill and intrigued by the idea, we went to check it out. It was busy about 25-30 people were there as part of a bus tour. It really wasn’t that big so we had to sit upstairs. I loved the decor. It was very well done. But we soon felt sorry for Mindy, our wine concierge, who had to keep climbing up and down the stairs to bring each wine. As soon as the group left we went downstairs to enjoy the rest of our wine and appreciate the decor.
Since it was almost closing time Mindy’s dad stopped in to pick up some Chardonnay. He seemed like a nice guy so we started talking with him. He seemed to know a lot about wine! I thought maybe he was the wine maker so I asked – nope. We talked some more and Jon asked what his top Oregon winery was. We were surprised he didn’t say Eyrie. David Lett is one of the pioneers of Oregon wine, credited with planting the first pinot noir grapes in the late 60’s. Bethel Heights is also right up there with Eyrie for being one of the first to grow pinot noir grapes. We talked some more and I asked why he thought Bethel Heights was better than Eyrie. He very casually and humbly said, “I founded it.” Say what?!
Turns out he has quite a few stories to tell for a 73 year old. He started in Napa Valley. Worked with some big names out there – Charles Krug, Robert Mondavi (or Mr Mondavi – told us he often called him crazy but never called him Robert!) and Andre Tchelischeff. He came to Oregon, after looking at all the data, to find a place where pinot noir grapes would flourish. We talked some more until finally Mindy was all cleaned up and ready to go home. We asked for a few of their favorite wineries to visit in the area. We’re planning to go to them. After all who better to take recommendations from than the guy who planted some of the very first vines of pinot noir?
Today was our longest day of driving. It would have been a bit longer had we gone to Crater Lake. Looks like we made the right call! Crater Lake has webcams. Unfortunately the one that shows an actual view of Crater Lake was struck by lightening over the weekend and is offline 🤨 But the other two were working.
This is the webcam from the visitor center today. That’s smoke. It was NOT night when we captured this.
The drive up the coast before cutting east to Eugene was clear and cool. We tried to soak up as much cool air as we could before the heat wave. We also stopped at the one lighthouse we missed on our drive down.
It was so windy today. Gale force winds💨For real… they issued a gale force wind advisory!
We’re staying in a fun area of Eugene and a swanky hotel that just opened in September. (Why Eugene you ask… No good reason other than it made the drive reasonable so wine country is only about 1 1/2 hours away.) Everything is not quite open yet (like the rooftop restaurant) I think that’s why we got a good deal. The restaurants, wine tasting rooms and cute boutique shops right outside our door are open. I know this because 1) I can see them from the balcony and 2) the room came with it’s own iPad/Lenovo highlighting the neighborhood and hotel.
Signs like this are common all over Oregon. We first noticed them along the coast. The brewery we enjoyed in Yachats had a sign for the weekend “Closed Saturday and Sunday” because they didn’t have enough workers. Imagine having to close on what are your busiest days. Many of the restaurants’ new post-COVID hours are Thursday through Sunday. Had we wanted breakfast this morning we would’ve had a difficult time. The barista said three breakfast restaurants have already closed permanently in a Brookings and the other two weren’t open. Mondays are a common day to be closed. The coast is full of small family restaurants. They don’t have the resources to survive like the bigger fast food or chain restaurants. We rarely saw the McDonald’s, Starbucks, Applebee’s or Pizza Hut along the coast. It was one of the reasons we loved it!
We woke up to sea smoke so today we decided to zip into California to see the redwoods, hoping that would be long enough for it to burn off. We’re less than 10 miles from the border and 30 miles from Jedediah Redwood Forest. Plus I didn’t think my eyes could take more coastal beauty – they needed a break!
Wow! That’s all I could say as we hiked through the groves in the Simpson Reed and Peterson Trail. A “must do” according to the park ranger. It did not disappoint! I took a ton of photos but not one of them captures the beauty of these giants. They are so big! The tallest trees in the world. As tall as a 35-story building. Taller than the Statue of Liberty. We then drove to another trail – Stout Grove. Equally as stunning and a bit different. This one had a section of trees that had fallen down. It gave us another perspective on just how massive they are.
Time got away from us again. Not a bad thing to be so immersed in the beauty of nature that you lose track of time! We made the “long drive” back to Oregon. Apparently our timing was impeccable. The sea smoke was just beginning to lift at ~3:00. It gave us plenty of time to hike around Samuel Boardman State Park.
Our eyes were growing weary from all the beauty. We skipped a few pullouts because we didn’t think they were pretty enough to stop and see. Imagine that! The reality was we were getting tired. Plus the balcony back at our condo was waiting to be enjoyed. The view from there is incredible. So we ordered Thai food to go and went back to relax for the rest of the evening.
This is sitting on my chair on the balcony!
Until I had the brilliant idea (I had to drag Jon away from the balcony!) to go back out and watch sunset ~ 5 miles up the road. Turns out it was a pretty good idea. The colors lasted forever. Now it was time to go back and relax.
Tomorrow starts the second half of our trip. We leave the ocean behind. Way back when, when we planned this vacation last summer but had to cancel it because of the pandemic, we planned to go to Crater Lake, take the boat out to Wizard Island and hike around. Even though you can’t do the boat ride and wizard island this year (still because of the pandemic) we still planned to go. It’s kinda in the middle of nowhere but we were as close as you could get. And who doesn’t want to see the blue, blue color of Crater Lake?!
Two things changed our mind…
The smoke report. We were listening to the weather a few nights ago and the wind is supposed to change tomorrow and bring in smoke from the California fires. WE may not even be able to see Crater Lake, at the very least it will be hazy.
This pandemic! Masks are required indoors once again. That’s not a big deal for us but apparently because of the Delta variant the visitor centers at Crater Lake will be closed.
In short we didn’t want to risk the 4 hour drive if we weren’t going to be able to see much 🙁. Instead we are headed to the middle of the state where it’s going to be between 100-106 degrees for the next few days. 🔥
It was another beautiful day! We had a lot of ground to cover to make it to Brookings so we got some coffee and started out. Our 1st stop was Strawberry Hill – just a pull off on the side of the road that promised extraordinary views. I couldn’t help but sing “I found my thrill on Strawberry Hill (I know the song is really Blueberry Hill but play along with me) as we drove into the parking lot. Find my thrill I did! Laying on top of the picnic table, just a few feet from the road, was a dude sunbathing in the nude. Here’s the picture to prove it!
I really thought the coast was beautiful by Cannon Beach, then I thought it got better along the central coast. Well today tops them all. The southern coast of Oregon is the most stunning. I look at the pictures I took and they look ordinary. I wish I knew how to capture the breath-taking beauty of what we saw today. Look at these and just imagine they are 10x more beautiful when you are actually here.
Lighthouses along the coast.
Most of them still function
These signs are everywhere!
We stopped to watch this guy wind surf. I think that’s what they call it 🤷♀️
Have I mentioned our rental car yet? We rented an ordinary full-size sedan. They let us choose between a gray one and a white one. I choose the gray one because I liked the color better than the white and it had a fun scoop in the front. Turns out it was a Dodge Charger Hellcat. It’s a sports car. It goes fast – really fast! And it keeps track of things like top speed, how many seconds it takes you to get there, G-forces…It hugs the road through the crazy curves along the coast and it feels like it’s barely moving when you’re going 90 mph. Jon even gained on a corvette going up hill! He topped it out at 102 mph today! He wants to get it to 110 because the person who had it before us got it to 109. I keep telling him this isn’t the autobahn! I’d be more scared but it honestly never feels like we are going that fast.
The Airbnb we are staying at in Brookings has a drop-dead gorgeous view of the ocean. Rather than waste out time at a restaurant without a view, we went to Fred Meyers, the grocery store, and bought everything to make steak dinner. It’s hard to beat sipping wine, staring at the ocean while Jon makes dinner.
The view from our balcony!
Tomorrow we are going to explore the 9 miles of Samuel Boardman corridor. It’s a beautiful area along the coast. We caught glimpses of it today and it looks spectacular. If that doesn’t take up the whole day we’re getting our chairs and walking right outside our condo to the beach below. It’s going to be hard to leave this place.
We woke up to more sea smoke 🤨. Not as thick as yesterday but also not sunny blue skies. What to do… do we get up and start driving the central coast or do we wait so the sea smoke has a chance to burn off. Turns out we did a little of both. The coffee shop our server told us about didn’t open until 9:00 so we headed to Yachats Beach. At least we could see the ocean and the waves which was more than we could see at times yesterday. We walked the shore a bit, watched the waves and lost track of time. It was past time for the Beach Street Cafe to open! We ordered some lattes and breakfast burritos and hit the road.
Yachats Beach
Our first stop was Cape Perpetua. Since the skies were starting to clear we headed up to the second highest point along the Oregon coast. A short hike to the summit and we found our perfect breakfast spot. The view, coffee and burritos were perfect- but what isn’t with a little ocean air!?
Breakfast with a view
Jon really wanted to see and photograph Thor’s well. It’s a formation along the rocky coast that creates a waterfall at high tide. It’s a little dangerous – you can only see it at high tide and you have to be close to it to take pictures – yikes! We hiked down to the rocky shore and guess what… the tide was coming in. All the photos are again just the ones from my iPhone. The photos Jon took are spectacular. He took some time exposure shots with a neutral density filter = stunning.
Thor’s Well
Besides the many pullouts for the scenic vistas, our next stop was Heceta Head Lighthouse. Lighthouses generally aren’t easy to get to – there’s a reason they build them where they do. This one required an uphill hike. Normally not bad, but we misjudged the weather and were dressed in jeans and long sleeves shirts. It was warm enough for the people at the beach to be “swimming” in the ocean or laying in the sun without the sweatshirts we’ve grown used to seeing. Nonetheless we made it to the top and the views were spectacular. No more sea smoke, instead bright blues skies.
The white on the rock is all bird poop. Yuck!
We continued on down the coast to Florence. We needed gas and Florence was big enough to have some. And since they had B&J’s ice cream we had some of that too. No, it wasn’t Ben and Jerry’s but my coconut toffee crunch was better than any flavor I’ve had from Ben and Jerry’s.
Since the day turned out to be beautiful we decided to head back to Yachats to enjoy the coast right outside our hotel. To spend a little time relaxing and staring out to sea. I’m not sure I understand the weather patterns here… as we were driving back, in the middle of the afternoon, the sea smoke started rolling in. What had been beautiful blue skies at the lighthouse not even 2 hours before was now so foggy we could barely see the lighthouse. And it got thicker the close we got to Yachats.
We are nothing if not flexible… so we decided to go back to Yachats Brewing to enjoy the beer and food. It’s a farm to table type of menu – my favorite kind so I was not disappointed!
Why don’t people flock to Oregon like they do to California? So far the Oregon coast is every bit as stunning as California’s coast. The drive to get there was also beautiful – through the tallest evergreen trees you’ve ever seen. We spent our first two nights in Cannon Beach. The beach goes on forever! We could walk miles in either direction. During low tide we could walk right out to Haystack Rock.
View from our balcony
We’ve explored tide pools in Florida before – even went out with flashlights during low tide in Florida – eek! Here you see tons of starfish, bright green anemones, jelly fish and crabs in the tide pools and on the beach. I’m really not sure why you’d ever swim in the ocean with all those things!
The pictures don’t capture just how big it is. Our hotel room had a beautiful view of Haystack Rock and a balcony to feel the ocean breeze. If we weren’t exploring Ecola State Park and the beautiful vista’s along Highway 101 we were sitting on our balcony enjoying the view. One night we even ordered pizza and ate it on our balcony. Plus it’s sweatshirt weather along the coast – low 60’s.
We are exploring the central coast next. Our drive to Yachats was very foggy – so much sea smoke that it was difficult to see the ocean. We are hoping it clears today. Our hotel is again right on the ocean but this time the coast is rocky. We walked along the coast and stopped to watch the tide crash against the rocks last night. The tide was coming in and the waves were huge – way over our heads.
Cape Meares Lighthouse Yaquina Lighthouse
Oregon is known for it’s craft beer so tonight we ate at a craft brewery called Yachats Brewing (original, I know!). They also smoke their own meats. It was the best meal we’ve had so far. Our server recommend a great coffee shop (coffee out here is also a big deal!) I can’t wait to try it!
Two interesting things about Oregon. No sales tax. So if anybody wants something let us know – a new phone, iPad, electronics… The 2nd thing, it’s illegal to pump your own gas! All gas stations are full service. I might move here just for that! Knowing this we wanted to get gas last night just in case there was a beautiful sunrise. We weren’t sure a gas station would be open that early so Jon asked at the front desk for the nearest gas station – 7 miles up the shore or 23 mile down.
“You don’t have any here in town?” Jon asks.
“Oh we aren’t that big!” says the guy behind the counter.
Funny because they have a brewery, at least 10 restaurants and 3 coffee shops, but apparently not big enough for a gas station 🙂
*We are sending our positive vibes Amber and Ellie’s way! Hoping they get stronger every day. And Erin’s dad – who was admitted to the hospital last night with an infection. Get well everyone!
It was our final full day in Alaska. We walked to the coffee shop right next door. Have I mentioned that Alaska seems to have more coffee and espresso places than Seattle? They are everywhere! Lots of drive-up little huts along the road and at least 4-5 cafes in every small town. The friendly barista asked us where we were heading – Anchorage and then to Eagle River we told her. “Oh! You should stop and see my mom in Town Square Park, she has her hot dog cart parked there and she makes the best reindeer dogs.” We were going to need lunch at some point and we wanted to try reindeer so off we went!
It wasn’t the clearest day – the clouds were really low but at least it wasn’t raining. We had a little time to kill before going to see Jeanne and Larry so we stopped at the Eagle River Nature Center to hike. It didn’t take as long as we thought. Now what?! Jeanne and Larry weren’t expecting us until 4:00. A quick google search and we discovered a brewery close to her house so off we went.
Odd Man Rush was a brewery that belongs in Minnesota! It even had a Golden Gopher hockey jersey hanging on the wall – the only hockey jersey in the whole place. Since we were there on a Tuesday afternoon it wasn’t busy so we talked to one of the owners/brewmasters. Turns out his father-in-law played for the Gophers. Almost everyone we’ve met up here has some connection to Minnesota. (Oops forgot to mention the reindeer cart lady lived in Farmington as a little girl.)
Jeanne and Larry live halfway up Mount Baldy in a beautiful house with views of the mountains and Anchorage.
Her daughter, husband and 2 kids joined us for dinner. We had a wonderful time. Jeanne and Larry have traveled all over the world so we spent the evening talking and telling stores about our travels. Since it never gets dark it’s easy to lose track of time. That’s why I’m writing this blog after midnight!
An unexpected gift: They have a fishing boat slip in Homer. The whole family loves to fish and has a freezer full of halibut and salmon. Larry packed up a cooler full of ~25# of halibut for us to bring home.
You can only get to Whittier by driving through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. The interesting thing about the tunnel is it is only one lane – for inbound and outbound traffic and the train. It’s open for 15 minutes on the half hour going to Whittier and 15 minutes at the top of the hour coming to Girdwood. We needed to pay attention to the schedule so we’d arrive by 10:00 for our trip to Prince William Sound. We left Girdwood with beautiful blue skies. Instead of driving up and over the mountain the tunnel takes you through the mountain. On the other side of the mountain, in Whittier, it was misty and foggy. Not ideal conditions for our boat trip.
Before the boat we “toured” the small quirky town of Whittier. We watched a National Geographic Special before we left about Whittier – most of the town lives in one apartment complex. The complex contains everything the 400 residents need so they never have to leave – post office, school, medical clinic, grocery store, movie theater… Can you imagine?
This town was a strategic army post during WWII since it was so close to Russia – you can practically see it! There’s a huge abandoned housing complex that could hold 10,000 troops. Again very friendly Alaskans stopped Jon while we was taking photos. Both asked if we were visitors, just their way of being friendly because I’m sure they know all 400 people who live in those apartments! The woman told us about her favorite places along the shore – Smitty Cove and Salmon Run. A few minutes later a guy stopped Jon to tell him about a break in the fence so he could get into the abandoned army complex and walk around…”park your car over here and no one will even know you’re there!”
We chose this boat tour because it was a smaller boat. Only 4 other people joined us. It highlighted glaciers over wildlife. Captain Mike looked at the forecast and thought the fog was lifting in College Fjord so that was our destination – about 85 miles away. We stopped along the way at a bird rookery on the side of a cliff. These black footed kittiwakes only come on land to lay their eggs, otherwise the stay strictly on the open water. We watched a bald eagle feast on their newly hatched babies or tarrocks.
Since the boat was small we were able to get off on Hobo Cove and walk around. It reminded us of the North Shore since the fog was still hanging on and we couldn’t see the mountains beyond the shore. We found some ruins that were part of an abandon gold mine about 3 miles inland but sadly we didn’t find any gold.
The fog was beginning to lift as we entered College Fjord. We were headed to the end to see Harvard Glacier, which was next to Yale Glacier as we passed Vassar… Harvard Glacier is the second largest tidal glacier in Alaska. It’s 1 1/2 miles across and we could see it 12 miles away. It took us awhile to get there because we had to navigate through the ice. Captain Mike knew the names for the small and medium size ice. I knew the big chunks – icebergs! Some of the icebergs would’ve been trip-enders if we ran into them. I couldn’t help but think of Titanic as we made our way through. We were only able to get as close as 2 miles but we could still hear and see it calve. The chunks of ice are all from the calving glaciers in the fjord – some as big as school buses.
The glaciers were very cool to see but I can only imagine how jaw-dropping the scenery would’ve been had the skies been sunny and blue!
To end the day we went to the Swiftwater Cafe right on the dock. We had their fresh, locally caught halibut fish and chips. The cook broke the rules and fried Jon’s halibut in the French fry oil instead of the oil used for the shrimp. It was the best fish and chips of the trip!
Halfway Round the Planet, Part 2 