We survived the Oregon VORTEX

The duck and turkeys woke us up but we slept in late until 7am anyway. We breakfasted on amazing pastries from the local cafe. Departing Elkton in slight drizzle, we arrived at Abacela for their opening. It's  a winery situated on a fault line so that it had different geology on different hills on which to grow a variety of grapes.  We were the only ones at the tasting room and got a private tasting and plenty of snacks which I'm sure were set out for the after church crowds. They had a mileage post of how many miles to France or Portugal or Spain where original grapes were grown. 

It was a short hour drive to the OReGon VoRTeX, just a half hour from our house in Jacksonville. It is advertised as a paranormal phenomena.  We were amazed for over an hour.  Really! balls appeared to roll uphill. People (including Judd and myself) appeared to shrink just by trading places.  Check the youtubes....we weren't allowed to take videos and the still photos don't do it justice. 

The House of Mystery has been mentioned on X-Files in the episode "Rush" and on Supernatural in the episode "Mystery Spot."

In the gift shop, the tour guide showed us pictures of other anomalies: photos where strange lights and colors appeared in people's photos. When asked, whom in the crowd knew the speed of light, only two respondents shouted out "186,000 miles per second."  Me, and one other science geek.  We earned ourselves  Smarties. I shared mine with Judd but was self-conscious that the little kid on her dad's shoulders saw me eating candy that she wasn't.  We did not feel the need to purchase souvenirs, but considered ourselves lucky to escape without shrinking. We were home on our Jacksonville porch in the sun for dinner.

You won't believe it.  Just come and see for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPHR2FAiVos

http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/2012/06/fact_or_faked_paranormal_files.html

Touring the Umpqua Valley

FRI
Judd dropped me at work so we could leave right from White City. He picked me up at the VA with the car packed for any eventuality of the weekend: wineries, hot springs, mountains, coast.  We ate home made chicken (and green bean) tamales, á la Judd, in the car as someone missed the rest stop and was getting hangry. (I was. I'm so glad that's now a real word in the dictionary.)We arrived in Elkton in the still-daylight about 7pm. (We had done the windy road drive (rhymes with wine-  not win) in the fall (in the dark) and did not realize the windy road parallels the Umpqua River: beautiful vistas and rolling green hills dotted with sheep and cows.
We found the River Inn  (a B &B) across the street from the Umpqua River on  a websearch of places to stay in Elkton. The website was wildly colorful and font-filled but not obvious how to make a reservation.  Judd ended up calling Margaret who was very accommodating and helpful. She wasn't going to be around so she just told us the key code for the door. We got in without a hitch--thank goodness for headlamps. It's hard to key in your code in the dark.  A BIG DUCK greets you outside and a very loud whine-meow greets you indoors (I never actually saw the cat.) 

We finished our tamale dinner  and Judd-made salsa on the deck at sunset. The B&B is tight:  8 rooms but obviously newly renovated.  Spacious bathroom (separate from toilet rooms) with lights  that go on when you enter and time out after you leave; toilet extra high (so you barely need to genuflect to lower yourself -- ideal for the arthritically challenged).  We've camped in places with constant traffic sounds--this place had lovely constant running-water sound from the river across the street.

We walked the 1.5 blocks to "town": a bar, a deli, a pizza oven, a pastry cafe, a winery and a post office. It took us about 10 min to walk back from "town" and 20 min to figure out the wi-fi had no password and was free to all. We watched a movie from the VHS library once Judd rewired the VHS machine to the hang-off-the-wall TV.  Zorro 2 was pretty good but the boot-legged copy still had all the 2005-06 commercials, over and over, and that meant the VHS couldn't hold the last 8 minutes of epic movie climax/ending.   We went to bed wondering if Antonio Banderas' son ever learns that his daddy is Zorro.    He would have been so 
proud.  : ( 

Saturday

Breakfast at Tomaselli's "in town" and a 40 min drive to the coast. We googled nearby hikes and it was between the Gold and Silver Falls or the Tahkenitch Loop.  We chose the loop.  It was billed as a 2 mile hike from forest to dunes to beach "more difficult"  OR a 3 mile hike from forest to dunes to beach "more difficult"  OR, a 6 mile loop with a 1 mile beach walk connecting the previous two. We chose the loop wondering if they were both "more difficult" then what was "easy" or "most difficult."   Pretty randomly, we chose the 2 mile hike in, a beach walk and the 3 mile hike out.  HOWEVER, once over (i.e. up AND down) walking in fine white sand, and through the beach grass, we found the beach walk is not labeled.  It was a sunny, bright beach with next to not a soul in sight.  (We passed a family of 4 in knee high rubber boots going toward the creek trail and over took 3 people and a dog, THEN not a soul in sight.)  On the beach, the wind had done creative sculpting so that every broken sand dollar or pebble or piece of wood had a sand-shadow behind it.  Judd took some artistic, lie-on-your-belly shots. Judd freed a still live crab back to the ocean but we continued walking swiftly away so we wouldn't see a seagull come eviscerate it while still kicking. 

 We feel quite smug that we've chosen to walk the beach mile toward the south as the wind is behind our backs, nudging us along.  We lunch on our carrot and celery sticks and 90% dark chocolate while sitting on a big dry drift log.  We start to estimate how long a mile could take to walk. I start looking for our egress in what I think is a mile of beach walking. Judd says, 'it's always farther than you think,' so we keep walking and then we see a pretty-in-the-distance sign We think we'll go  find guidance.  I periodically check my phone for "locate my phone" and I state I think my phone has walked well past where the lake should be over the dunes. Finally, we decide we must have overshot the trail and we head back north on the beach INTO the wind (for, what I again think is, over a mile.) We scan the beach grass for footprints which might signal someone has come or gone inland and, yes, Judd spys it.  We figure we only went 2-3 miles out of our way.  And now, the 3 mile hike out, back up and over the dunes, through the primordial forest of huge ferns and tall, straight Douglas firs. When we have cell service, we get pics of Malindi and Kelcy, et al. skiing at Sugarloaf.

We decide turning a 6 miles loop into a nine mile loop gets us a free trip to seafood dinner on the ocean.  We drive around the peninsula from Reedsport and find Griff's on the Bay. Judd has the best scallops he's ever eaten (and he's from Maine!) and I have the Crab Louie. Somehow this feast at 4 pm post-hike counts as lunch, so we still manage to go for brick oven pizza "in town" for a late 7pm dinner.  We're the only ones in the place but Joshua fires up the oven, throws the pie in the sky for us and pours a bottle of Oregonian wine we can carry home.  Elkton, albeit tiny, has big hospitality.  

VHS for the night: French Kiss (both our favorites: Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, 1995)

And I don't even have time to tell you about Sunday's festivities yet.......

PCT*(the opposite of AT**) is right HERE (in the snow this week.)

*PCT=Pacific Coast Trail

**AT=Appalachian Trail

Well, Sunday morning we drove 30 minutes to Mt Ashland. It's about the size of Lost Valley in Maine. We checked the snow report as the snow has been down to 1000 feet at night the last few days and we've already removed my studded snow tires for the season.  If it had not been well plowed/"sanded," we might not have been able to get all the way up. By "sanded" I mean graveled.  They use crushed volcanic rocks on the road--much coarser and much redder than sand.  In fact in some spots it's heavy enough to obscure the S in STOP at some intersections.  We were just wondering if they sweep it up at the end of the season or if it just gets smaller or displaced throughout the year.  Anyway, we did NOT need to pull over and put chains on the tires--thank goodness, because neither of us know how to do that.  We drove right up to a very full parking lot where everyone on Spring break here was enjoying the  4 feet of snow.  At the far end of the parking lot you can use the groomed cross country trail.  We walked but some people pulled children or redirected dogs along the trail. It spitted snow but by noon when we walked out the sun was high and warm.  This prompted a winery stop.

Saturday we had stopped at Ashland Wine Cellar after our hot springs. They posted this on their chalkboard. We live in the Rogue Valley.  On Sunday we visited TROON vineyard since we'd acquired coupons for free flights from last weekend's Cheese Festival. They had a friendly tasting room, lovely lawns with bocce ball and  knee high garden chess set. We sat with a extra glass in the warm spring sun. 
Snow to daffodils in 30 minutes-- WoW!

Spring ahead

Spring awakening:

Saturday we finished our protest posters and arrived a little early to the Old Courthouse in Medford,  having parked at the finish line and walked back to the start of the walk.  I'm not sure why we were so photogenic, but Channel 5 interviewed me and Channel 10 interviewed Judd. We don't get local news so not sure if either of us aired. Medford had a good turn out and it took over an hour to walk us all 1 mile to the Medford High School Spielberg Stadium. Judd and I took one lap around the stadium but to see all the students in the stands holding their posters made me so sad, we decided to leave before any speeches.  When students looked down at us, appreciating our signs, I would look up at their signs and say 'thank you,' but what  I was thinking was, "Sorry."   Sorry you have to take a Saturday to worry about this. Sorry you might be scared to go to school. Sorry you have "active shooter" drills instead of just fire or earthquake drills.Sorry our government can't get their act together. I cried myself home.

Judd's and my posters appear on the Channel 10 Medford news site-- don't know if our interviews ever aired.

Oregon Cheese Festival 2018

 I asked the Cheese Lady what she was doing when she wasn't at the Oregon Cheese Festival.  She said, carving cheese.  It IS her day job.  She goes to festivals all over the country/world:  Superbowls, Indy 500s, fairs, festivals. She's been carving cheese sculptures for over a decade.   The Rogue Creamery is about 12 minutes from us and once a year they have a massive tent event.  Our "over 21" bracelets got us unlimited wine, beer and spirits tasting, in addition to all the cheeses, honeys, hot sauces, and breads to taste. Many artisans dotted the aisles with local crafts. We came cashless, having bought our discounted tickets on line in advance.  Unfortunately, every vendor in the universe now has an instant way to take your credit card with some magical device that attaches to their phone or ipad.  So we DID have to shop a little and left with more booty than just our commemorative wine tasting glass.  I admired a peppery vodka billed as "great in bloody Marys" and we got 4 hot sauces at a discount. I got a free button from Effie's cookies (which have been gifted to us in Maine before) and come to find out their central office is in Massachusetts but there's a western distributor in Humboldt, CA. Good to know lest I get homesick.

For St. Patrick's day, we planned to go to a local winery, Paschal, for their swing dance lessons and live music.  About 3:00 in the afternoon, I thought I was having a wardrobe malfunction and said, "we're walking down town."  By accident we stumbled upon Jacksonville's Shamrock event: many stores on all 3 blocks of the main street were having snacks, wine samples, give aways, and sign up cards for a chance to win a prize gift basket valued at $350. I was just looking for not-black stockings, so started by only going into the women's clothing stores.  But SO many stores were giving away treats or prizes that we ended up going into almost all, just for a chance to sign up for the gift basket.  We were still walking home within an hour, ready for fish tacos on the deck before the dance.

The winery, Paschal, is in Talent, 23 minutes from Jacksonville. Band Du Pays brings along a dance instructor for the first 30min and then the live music starts. A wide range of ages and competencies graced the dance floor. We were certainly not the dorkiest but we were among those having the best time.  An adorable octogenarian couple got up with their canes and orthopedic shoes to cut up the rug at one point. One couple was particularly good at swinging and gave the rest of us something to aspire to.  Judd and  I had a really fun time. We may even go back for lesson  #2.  We did not master "the pretzel" at this lesson.

National Eat Crab Day

It's a thing:  National Eat Crab Day:  March 9th.  We were deciding what theme to use to cook for each other this weekend so I looked it up.  We were going to have a chef off--Judd cooks for me one day and I cook for him another day, but we got sidetracked.  We decided to have a backyard BBQ with a VA friend, but made Dungenuss crab the pre-quel. A local market, Cartwright's, has a massive meat/seafood counter and we asked for the three biggest crabs they had, and two strips of bacon.  After they laugh at us for buying so little bacon, they package our crabs. They are  already cooked, so we only needed to Youtube a tutorial on how to get into them.  And then we shopped for claw crackers, picks and newspaper to use as a table cloth. 

 


Zack was a good sport and got up to his elbows in crab goo. But lots of good hunks of meat, much like a satisfying lobsterfest, followed by Judd's ribs, twice baked potatoes )with bacon garnish), Rebecca's Mexican rainbow slaw and Linda from bookclub's dark tofu chocolate pie. Crab seem harder to dig into and get rewarding hunks of meat, but maybe we just have a lobster bias. We were too sated to imagine popcorn and a movie (rent an Oscar nominee on Netflix.) Zach went back to Medford and Judd and I didn't wait up for daylight saving day to start to set the clocks ahead.



This morning we got up "early" and took our tea and granola bars for a hike up Upper Table Rock.  We had taken Kelcy to Lower Table Rock in the Fall but never done Upper.  We left in thick fog and the mesa was shrouded in a cloud, just barely poking out at the top.  By the time we found the trail head, the cloud was moving off through the valley.  And when we summited, the panoramic views were almost clear:  Mt. McCloughlin to the east, Mt. Ashland to the south and Lower Table Rock to the west and the Rogue River below.  Many spring flowers were just beginning to bloom, many more to getting ready to pop in April.  

 

After the hike and a quick lunch at Mazatlan Grill in Central Point, we went to the Jackson Wellspring for a soak in the natural hot springs again.  This day was warm enough (62degrees) for kids (and Judd) to be back and forth between the 102 degree hot tub and the cold swimming pool, noodles, goggles and all. On our way home, we spontaneously stopped at a new winery:  Paschal, overlooking the hills of Ashland and Phoenix.  A little dog greeted us who had clearly been stomping grapes with his paws. 

Walla the what?

Tranche Vineyard, Walla Walla, WA

Multnomah Falls, OR

Thursday morning, we departed for Walla Walla, Washington. It was 8 hours either up to Portland and due east or to go diagonally across Oregon over mountains more apt to be snow-impassable.  Many passes stated a need for chains in order to traverse in a storm, but with our snow studded tires on the AWD CRV, we figured we were good to go. We went through Portland and took the northern-most road in Oregon headed east along the Columbia River Gorge. Just across the river is the southern-most road in Washington—also a scenic byway. We passed many waterfalls including the Multnomah Falls, ranked as fifth highest in the US, at 611 feet, and most iconic in Oregon.  Fires last summer destroyed some trees and undergrowth that keeps rocks from falling, so some parts of the trails were off limits. It was already a bit rainy and cold when we arrived but we got out for a stretch break and checked out the gift shop, free fudge samples and hot coffee. The roadside along the route is dotted with signs about the Lewis and Clark trail or historic sites of the Oregon Trail crossings. Along the massive river, we also passed three big dams which we had seen from the air last summer when we flew into Portland.

seen in downtown Walla Walla windowshop

Periodic table and "studying vessels" in the classroom

Dr. Whitman of the Oregon Trail

We arrived in WW in the rainy-, almost snowy-, dark. Although multiple restaurants abounded, it was too inclement to walk to them so we dined in the hotel restaurant. The Marcus Whitman hotel is named after one of the pioneer fathers in the area. Judd has been reading in The Oregon Trail, about Dr. Marcus Whitman who led the first large party of wagon trains to the west.  On the second floor of the hotel, a series of paintings depict Whitman’s life, and how he impacted the lives of the Native Americans. He and his wife set up medical care and a school for the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. However, when a measles outbreak killed more Cayuse children and adults than settlers, the Cayuse because suspicious and massacred the white settlers. The painting gallery gets a little gruesome.

On Friday, Judd dropped me at the VA for a day long visit. They did keep me busy every hour and I departed with a job offer to be Chief of Staff. Judd spent the day driving around the neighborhood and went to meet a principal at a nearby school in Oregon. We have some serious thinking to do about a second relocation in one year.

Walla Walla is known for growing wheat and wine. Also, sweet onions. On Saturday, we explored the area and explored possibilities.  Although there are about 36 wineries downtown within walking distance of the hotel, we looked for some out on the hillsides where the grapes are growing.  Tranche was in a bucolic setting, with sheep punctuating the hillside and a view of the snow covered Blue Mountains behind the already-greening grape vines. But the most fun had at a winery was at College Cellars, just 5 minutes out of town.

Walla Walla Community College has a two-year enology program.  The wine is made by students and the tasting room is staffed by students. Besides the MUCH more reasonable prices and MUCH friendlier reception, we also got a tour “downstairs.”  How funny to go into a classroom, with whiteboards and desks in rows, and see cases of wine glasses in the back instead of Erlenmeyer flasks or beakers. Could not have had a nicer tour guide than first year student Vann Rudolph who explained the difference between fermenting wine in concrete versus stainless steel versus oak, why you can make some wines in 17 days and some aren’t really palatable until they’re years old.  Out back, Judd was fascinated by the specialized machinery.  I was charmed by the wine “library” where they store bottles from favorite years/places. We stopped afterwards at The Green Lantern for a light lunch but really couldn’t hit any of the other tasting rooms recommended to us.  We did write them down for future reference. The hotel was the site of Walla Walla High School prom and it was fun to see everyone in their ball gowns and tuxes.  We saw a crowd snacking at the Sweet Basil Pizzeria where we had a late dinner, and this morning, we saw glitter and sequins all over the carpet. But our room was far enough removed that we did not hear any ruckus to disturb our slumber.

Sunday was the 8 hour commute back to Jacksonville to prepare to face work colleagues on Monday who knew I was traveling to look at a new job.  They’re not too happy with me.

Home without grocery shopping or laundry done but with some classy wines

and the prospect of a new adventure…..