Category Archives: Travel

SUMMER VACATION IN OREGON PART 2 — THE OREGON COAST

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After spending the first few days of our vacation in Portland, we headed for the Oregon Coast.  Our route took us through the Willamette Valley, home to more than 500 wineries, and renowned as a premier pinot noir producing area.

We stopped for tastings at three very different wineries.  The first stop was at Evening Land’s tasting room, a modest, but very nice room in a commercial building:

Based on a recommendation from Kelly, our likeable tasting guide at Evening Land, our next stop was for a private tasting at small producer Ayoub Wines, in the home of Mo Ayoub.  I think this is what the term “garage wine” refers to.  Mo’s home is in the Dundee HIlls, and the view from his back porch was spectacular.  I definitely had a bad case of yard envy.

Our last tasting was a private tasting at Soter Vineyard’s Mineral Springs Ranch, “a 240-acre savanna-like oak woodland and grazing land.”  The biodiverse property provides natural predators and healthy microorganisms, allowing the production team to focus on sustainable farming.  The property is dry-farmed, no insecticides or herbicides are used, and sheep and goats help with mowing and weed control.  When the vineyard had a problem with birds eating the grapes, they enlisted a falconer to help with the problem.  Get the picture?  There is a biodynamic farm on the property, and a huge open kitchen where chefs prepare dishes for special tastings using meats and produce from the farm.  I was enamored with the garden, kitchen, views, tasting room — pretty much everything.

Before leaving the valley we stopped at Red Hills Market in Dundee to pick up some provisions, and sat for a spell in these chairs made from pinot noir barrels:

We eventually made it to the little town of Yachats on the coast, where we spent the next 4 nights.  After the 100-degree weather in Portland, we appreciated the much cooler weather (highs around 60, lows around 50).

We rented a cozy cottage with a view of the ocean at Overleaf Village (Overleaf Lodge, which manages the rental cottages, is next door, and also has comfortable rooms with ocean views).

Oh, how we loved this cottage and its proximity to the ocean.  We marveled at the tides, the fog, the sunsets, and the sounds and smells of the ocean.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport was fun for everyone.

We saw lots of interesting fish:

unicorn tang
polka dot grouper
spotted moray eel
parrot fish
green moray eel

 

See if you can spot the fish and crab hiding in this picture

Touched a few tidepool inhabitants:

And learned about pelicans:

But our favorite attraction was the comical sea otters — we could have spent hours watching them:

After the aquarium, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Newport and the surrounding Yaquina Bay area.

One of the things that really intrigued us was watching teeny bay shrimp being processed at Pacific Seafood (haven’t you always wondered how they did it?):

We got up early one morning and went in search of tidepools during low tide.  We didn’t find any tidepools at Devil’s Churn, but still enjoyed the views:

We did, however, strike tidepool paydirt at Neptune State Scenic Viewpoint (actually, my husband found the tidepools, because there was no way I was going climbing on those rocks):

It was an incredible feeling being the first people to step on the pristine sand that morning:

Here’s something we’d never seen before — cool patterns created by different colored sands running off of the rocks, like sand art:

The Sea Lion Caves in Florence were a lot more fun than we expected (we thought it would be kind of hokey).

The Sea Lion Caves, America’s largest sea cave, is a privately-owned wildlife preserve, and home to the Steller sea lion.  The sea lions are free to move in and out as they please, and this time of year they mostly move out of the cave and onto the rock ledges in front of the cave, known as the rookery.  The cave, discovered in 1880, is roughly 12-stories tall, and access is via elevator.  On this day, there were about 100 sea lions on the rookery, and about a dozen in the cave.

Another surprise attraction in Florence was Darlingtonia State Natural Site, dedicated to the protection of Darlingtonia californica, commonly known as the cobra lily, a member of the carnivorous pitcher plant family (Sarraceniaceae).

A boardwalk trail leads to a marshy area where the plants flourish.  The cobra lily has yellowish-green hooded leaves that form erect, 10 to 20-inch-high hollow tubes.  On top, the leaves are mottled a purplish color with transparent areas.  “A hidden opening into the stalk is bordered by a large, green, mustache-shaped appendage beneath the curved hood of the leaf.  Nectar inside the plant’s hidden opening attracts the insects. Once inside, an insect becomes confused by the transparent areas that appear like exits.   The insect eventually drops into the lower part of the tube, where it’s trapped by downward-pointed hairs, and falls into a pool of water at the bottom of the stalk. Bacteria in the water decompose it into nitrogen, which is then absorbed by the plant.” We saw a few remaining flowers of the plant, which blooms in the spring.  This was quite a sight, and we stood there in stunned silence — I’ve never seen anything remotely similar, and it was simply fascinating.

 

We had a bit of excitement one day when my husband, an avid cyclist, rented a bike and took off for a ride in the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area.

We didn’t hear from him for a while because he was in and out of cellular range.  Unfortunately, he got two flats, only one of which he was able to repair.  Fortunately he had service briefly — long enough to let us know we needed to come pick him up and send us his location (this is a great feature on the iPhone — see instructions below for how to send your location).  Unfortunately, the single lane gravel road was a little too treacherous for my son and I in our rented SUV.  Fortunately, we found the camp managers — a couple named Tom and Cindy — and Tom agreed to drive me up the mountain to find my husband (I offered a “reward”).  Tom turned out to be a really interesting fellow — a retired Texas A&M oceanography professor, and a great storyteller.  We were all very relieved to find my husband and bring him and his bike back down the mountain.

 

He’s up there somewhere

Thank goodness for Tom and Cindy

Great iPhone feature — we never would have found him without it

We weren’t expecting much in the way of dining, but we had some really enjoyable meals along the coast.  Clearwater, an attractive waterfront restaurant in Newport, had wonderful views and great food, including clam chowder, crispy maple salmon salad, blackened bay shrimp tacos, and grilled ham and cheese on 3-cheese sourdough bread (so good!) with truffle garlic fries:

Homegrown Public House in Florence is a quirky little place that serves tasty pub food made from locally-produced organic ingredients, including clam chowder, Cajun fried oysters, and a cheeseburger with garlic parmesan fries (we really liked those long parmesan shavings on the fries):

At Ona, in Yachats, which offers an upscale menu, we enjoyed an Oregon Dungeness crab cake with caper remoulade, grilled Yaquina Bay oysters, clam chowder, housemade yakisoba with miso black cod, and strawberry pineapple cobbler with ginger ice cream (note that the restaurant states that it closes at 8:45-ish, which translates loosely to “whenever we feel like it”):

Our favorite restaurant, hands down, was Drift Inn Café in Yachats.  We ended up there after being turned away the first time we tried to eat at Ona (don’t say I didn’t warn you), and wound up eating three meals there.  The décor is a little unusual, with a curious mural that greets you and umbrellas hanging from the ceiling:

The restaurant has a pretty extensive menu, and we enjoyed quite a few dishes, including clam chowder (yeah, we ate a lot of clam chowder on the coast), cheeseburger and fries, and a salad my husband loved called Rubbery Shrubbery with chicken and a housemade cranberry vinaigrette:

But the restaurant really excels at pizza.  This pizza, with olive oil, garlic, paper thin slices of Yukon gold potatoes, slivered onion, manchego cheese, and prosciutto, was a thing of beauty (so good that we had it twice), baked in an outdoor wood-fired oven:

We enjoyed our time on the Oregon coast, and would have loved to have been able to stay on longer.  I’m certain we’ll be back — there’s lots more to do and see.

SUMMER VACATION IN OREGON PART 1 — PORTLAND

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We just returned from the dreaded eagerly-anticipated family vacation.  This year our daughter has an internship that sadly prevented her from joining us (I don’t really think she was too broken up about  it).  Each summer we look to vacation somewhere that has significantly cooler temps than Houston, and this year we headed to Oregon, spending a few days in Portland before heading to the coast.  Unfortunately, Portland was in the grips of a heat wave with record-breaking highs, so that kind of sucked.

vacation fail

But this was vacation, and we weren’t going to let a little hot weather ruin our fun.  We stayed at the Hotel Vintage, where we enjoyed our reasonably-priced spacious suite, nightly wine tastings, and convenient downtown location:

Our first stop was the Portland Japanese Garden, “a haven of serenity and tranquility” for more than 50 years.  It’s considered the most authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan.  It was beautiful:

I was especially enamored with these tiny-leaved maples, which looked like stars against the sky:

We spent quite a bit of time just looking at the Sand and Stone Garden, referred to as a karesansui garden, which translates to “dry landscape.”  The aesthetic principle underlying these dry landscapes is known as yohaku-no-bi, meaning “the beauty of blank space” (a principle I’d like to see some of my more wordy opposing counsel adopt).  This style of garden is intended for contemplation, not meditation, and so we sat and contemplated.  (My son informed us that every principal’s office he’s ever been in has one of these gardens on the desk, complete with itty bitty rake.)

Our favorite part of the garden was the Strolling Pond Garden.  The huge Japanese Iris were unlike any iris I’d ever seen before, and of course, now I must have some for my garden:

Directly across the street is the International Rose Test Garden.  The garden has been there for about a century, and features more than 10,000 roses (Portland’s nickname is the City of Roses).  The garden is stunning, with the biggest, most perfect, gorgeous roses I’ve ever seen, and although we were wilting in the heat, the roses were not.

We spent the better part of the next day at the Portland Saturday Market, an arts and crafts open-air marketplace started in 1973, which is held every Saturday from March through Christmas Eve.  All of the items sold at the market are made in and around Portland, and are sold by the people who make them.  We found so many interesting and unusual items there, including jewelry, purses, apparel, woodcrafts, paintings, and handpainted scarves:

Gotta have tie-dye!

Purses made from coffee bean sacks and vintage fabrics

Carnivorous plants

Beautiful soaps — eucalyptus mint was our favorite

Star Wars art

The next day we headed to Mt. Hood, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Portland.  First, a quick stop at Vista House at the Crown Point State Scenic Corridor, to take in the scenic (and very windy) views from 733 feet above the Columbia River.

Continuing on, we stopped to see several waterfalls.  First was the 249-foot Latourell Falls:

Next we stopped to see the 242-foot tiered Wahkeena Falls:

From the Wahkeena Falls we followed the short (unpaved and rocky) trail to hike to the Multnomah Falls, which took about 15 minutes (but seemed like an hour).  The Multnomah Falls are split into an upper falls of 542 feet and a lower falls of 69 feet.  There is a short but steep paved trail up to Benson Bridge, which spans the upper and lower falls.

In addition to being the tallest waterfall in Oregon, Multnomah Falls is also the “most visited natural recreation site in the Pacific Northwest with more than 2 million stopping by each year to take in the views.”  Now, I’m not saying it was crowded . . .

Snow-capped Mt. Hood was a welcome sight on this hot day:

We threw a few obligatory snowballs at each other, and then went to poke around the historic Timberline Lodge, a Works Progress Administration project built in the late 1930s.  “The lodge’s design mirrors the lines of the mountain, and was constructed out of stone and wood from the surrounding forest.”

The lodge is filled with art and crafts, including wrought iron features:

Wood carvings:

And oil paintings and mosaics:

We enjoyed lunch at the lodge’s Ram’s Head Bar, centered around a huge stone column with giant beams, and which had a great view of Mt. Hood.

Highlights of our lunch were a grilled cheese sandwich made with fromage blanc, Tillamook cheddar, and Swiss cheese on sourdough with a cup of cream of smoked tomato soup, and cheese-stuffed kasekrainer sausage on a pretzel bun with beet sauerkraut, pickled mustard seeds, and potato salad:

The next day we left Portland and headed to the coast, which you can read about in Part 2.  But before leaving Portland, I have to say that we were excited to discover that Portland is a foodie town.  We had great meals in Portland, highlights of which were lunch at Grassa that included radiatore with beef and pork Bolognese, pancetta, and pecorino; and chicken cacciatore with rosemary pappardelle, pancetta, tomato, and nduja ricotta (seriously delicious):

Dinner at Nostrana that included antipasti di mare (ahi tuna crudo lettuce cups with avocado crema & crispy spring onions; pink shrimp fritters with green goddess mayo; and grilled octopus and potato salad with capers,  oregano and mama lil’s peppers); grilled copper river sockeye salmon with aioli, spring onion and green garlic risotto cake, sautéed spinach, fava greens, and morel mushrooms); and tagliata flat iron steak with arugula and garlic-rosemary oil:

Great Thai lunch at E-San Thai Cuisine (recommended by a Lyft driver) — we had som tum (papaya salad); gaeng kiew wan (green curry with beef); and Mao special (rice noodles with red curry):

Dinner at Higgins, where we swooned over a beautifully composed salad of summer greens, toasted hazelnuts, and herb vinaigrette; charcuterie board; halibut over quinoa with lemon vinaigrette; summer vegetable fisherman’s stew with sauce vert; and cherry pie:

And an inventive and outstanding dinner at Irving St. Kitchen of meatballs over mashed yukon potatoes with green peppercorn sauce; black garlic butter steamed clams with chicken liver mousse toast; chicken fried oysters; pan-roasted porcini with ricotta blinis, zucchini, shaved porcini, and peas; carrot butter poached halibut with green garlic puree and pickled ramps; buttermilk fried chicken with collard greens, smashed potatoes, and tasso bacon gravy; and dessert of cherry sorbet gel, almonde tarte, meringue, salted honey chiboust, and red wine syrup:

Before we left Portland, my husband went and stood in line for about an hour at the much-hyped Voodoo Doughnut:

Although they were fun to try, I think we all agreed that they were too sweet for our tastes, as in make-your-teeth-hurt too sweet.  Reeling from our sugar high, we departed Portland, having thoroughly enjoyed the city and looking forward to returning again one day.