Hops, Wine, Fish and the Gorge!

After the Evergreen Aviation Museum, the Willamette Valley lost a little of its luster.  It just wasn’t as much fun without our friends to taste wine with us.  On Tuesday we drove out to the Rogue hop farm.  Harvest and bailing was complete, so there was not much going on and we weren’t able to engage anyone in a tour.  They had made a parking lot for the brewery and dressed up the buildings with signs.  We noticed a gaggle of turkeys near the house (“gobbling” under the windows) and thought about Clay and Tracy staying there.

Back in the Willamette Valley we were not as enthusiastic about the wines as before.  Several of the wineries we wanted to revisit, Trisateum, Monk’s Gate, and Willa Kenzie, were closed.  Don at Vidon was just as friendly as before.  He had a barrel select that was really good, but since he released it on his 80^th birthday, he was charging $80 for it.  It wasn’t that good.  We bought a few other bottles at random wineries, but nothing that blew us away.  The funniest thing that happened was that Deb started talking to a guy at the Ankeny, our first winery who was there buying grapes.  It turns out he was in the band with Deb at Clemson in the 70’s.  We ended the day at Nick’s, an Italian restaurant that according to the journal from 2009 we wanted to go to, but could not get a seating.  We were successful, and it was terrific.     

Wednesday we decided to go back to the Columbia River Gorge.  We found a great RV space in Ainsworth State Park with full hook ups and settled in for a late lunch.  Then we took a drive and saw Multnomah Falls.  At the Hatchery we saw a 500 lb. sturgeon, salmon and rainbow trout.  We ended the evening by the fire talking with a lovely couple who are snowbirds between Wyoming and Scottsdale, AZ.  Thursday we toured the Bonneville dam and saw the salmon ladder, but no salmon.  Then we took a cruise on a paddleboat out of Cascade Locks.  We had 2 bald eagles fly around the boat, and really enjoyed the gorge from the water.  In Stevenson we enjoyed the heritage museum and Deb sent a picture of all the rosaries to Mary Lou.  Besides exhibits on the geology and history of the Gorge, the museum houses the largest collection of rosaries in the US.  We got wings and beer at Walking Man brewery.  The beers were good and the wings were outstanding!!  They were glazed with hop-infused honey. Dave plans to use that idea on some of his ribs. Back at the RV, we grilled hamburgers during the VP Debate. 

 

BIG fish at the Hatchery

4000 fish went up the ladder that day...
but not while we were watching!

Paddleboat and Bridge of the Gods
Dave went over it in the RV!!!

Friday we will move to Portland and begin our “final phase”. We will preview some breweries and distilleries for Clay, check out the city some more and pack up (yuck!). We have had really beautiful weather for the past month, but they are predicting rain for the weekend.  This is almost as big of an event as snow in Charlotte.  The weather forecasters have been all "atwitter" for about a week, tracking the storm out in the ocean.  We thought rain was the norm around here, but according to the TV, this will be the first significant rain since June and according to the locals, the beginning of the rainy season.  I guess we are "getting out of dodge" at the right time.  We are both beginning to get that “homeward bound” mindset.