Birthday Weekend in Walla Walla

Ann and I decided many weeks ago that a fall trip to Walla Walla wine country was in order, as it is one of the few American wine producing regions that we have not seen. We also thought that it would be a really nice place in which to celebrate Ann's 60th birthday, a milestone for sure. By pure coincidence, it just so happened that a good friend of ours from back in Virginia, Dimitri Galanis, was coming to Walla Walla the same weekend with a group of friends to taste wines. We joined forces with them to visit several wineries over our four-day weekend, in which we got to explore downtown Walla Walla, eat in some of its best restaurants, and taste many great wines.

We Left Bend for Walla Walla on a Spectacular Fall Day

It was a spectacular sunny and crisp fall morning when we left Bend for the drive north and east to Walla Walla. I had just read about a new bagel bakery in Bend that I thought we would visit for breakfast because it was on our way out of town on Highway 97. I had no idea that Mimi's Bagel Deli was in fact a food truck until we pulled into the parking lot and spied it. It's run by a fourth generation baker from Jersey and I've got to say that while they are not quite the bagels that we used to get in Manhattan, born of Hudson River water, they really stand out in Central Oregon. They're certainly the closest thing to a real NY bagel that we have run across out in Oregon. Color me both surprised and happy.

Mimi's Bagel Bakery Bagel with Lox, Red Onion, Capers, and Cream Cheese

Leaving Bend on US 97 for the Columbia River, what appeared to be a bluebird day back at our house on the southside turned into quite the hazy day looking north. Gray Butte and the Ochocos were only faintly visible in the haze as was snowcapped Mt. Jefferson.

Fortunately, the further north we traveled, the clearer the sky became until we once again had blue skies. Near Kent, OR, the landscape to our west was nothing but golden grass and/or wheat fields backed by four clearly visible volcanos against the brilliant blue sky: Jefferson, Hood, Adams, and Rainier, the significantly shorter St. Helens being hidden behind the horizon. It's not every day in my life that I can see the vast and majestic expanse of the Cascades like this. And although I live in Oregon where I see volcanos daily, I can never get enough of them.

Just north of the farming hamlet of Moro starts a huge series of wind turbines that stretch as far as we could see, the farthest running on a bare ridge just across the Columbia River in Washington State. You can see some of the turbines in the photo below. I had never really been close enough to a turbine before to see how curved the blades actually are. They are no doubt an impressive piece of engineering.

Pit Stop at I-84/Columbia River: Birthday Girl Hamming

At I-84 east of The Dalles, where US 97 crosses the Columbia on its way north to Yakima and ultimately the Canadian border, we switched drivers and I pointed us east for an hour and a half along the Columbia. Speaking of feats of engineering, just minutes after joining I-84, we came across the John Day Dam, a hydroelectric generating facility with twin fish ladders and a lock. The lock lifts 110 feet (34 meters) and is the highest lock in the US. Just east of the the dam, the John Day River empties into the Columbia.

Just after I-84 veers southeast towards Ontario and Boise and away from the Columbia, we turned north back towards the river on I-82 exiting onto US 730 in Umatilla. Umatilla is home to a large port on the Columbia and also the site of the McNary dam complex, the next dam complex up the river from John Day. Just after the Port of Umatilla and the Two Rivers penitentiary, the highway comes right back to the bank of the Columbia and the drive becomes quite scenic once again, from the tugboats pushing barges up and down the river to the crazy escarpments of the the gorge on both sides of the river.

As the river bends northward towards its junction with the Snake, we crossed over into Washington State. Just beyond this in a bend in the river sits the Walla Walla Yacht Club. As we climbed up above the river just beyond the marina, Ann snapped this wonderful photo of these awesome basalt pillars, named Twin Sisters Rock.

Twin Sisters Rock

At Wallula Junction, we veered due east on Highway 12 away from the river and straight towards Walla Walla. Back on I-84, we saw the first of many onion trucks carrying loads of both yellow and red onions; along highway 12, they really started to get thick. And about 20 miles out of Walla Walla, we saw the first trailer load of empty MacroBins, headed to a vineyard somewhere to be loaded with fruit, it being heavy harvest season in Walla Walla and pretty much everywhere else in the the PNW, ahead of the rain forecast for Tuesday.

About 2:30, we arrived in Walla Walla, tired and about a half and hour too early to check into our room. So we availed ourselves of the Internet and found the closest brew pub to our room, Big House. When we walked in, we were a bit frightened by the Coors Light and Bud Light taps on the back wall. But fortunately, they do brew their own beers as well. I got an IPA and Ann a hazy before we drove to our room a couple blocks away and unloaded our things.

First and Only Beer of the Trip

The remainder of the trip is covered in a bunch of other posts which contain a lot of pictures. The frames in the following posts have been winnowed from 600-ish frames to about 220.

Friday October 6: Wesley Walla Walla, Dinner at Brasserie Four
Saturday October 7: Breakfast at Bacon and Eggs
Saturday October 7: Saturday Wine Tastings
Saturday October 7: Dinner at Saffron
Sunday October 8: Tasting at Historic Wineries in Lowden
Sunday October 8: Birthday Bash at Kinglet
Monday October 9: A Quiet Monday in Town
Monday October 9: Holocene Wines and Dining In

After our highly successful and enjoyable celebratory weekend, on Tuesday morning, in the spitting rain, we packed our wine and clothes into the car and reversed our path back to Bend. As we travelled back downstream along the Columbia, we saw two large cruise ships making their way upstream. Until just then, I had no idea that cruising the Columbia was a thing or even feasible. Apparently, there are several companies that offer cruises up the Columbia and then up the Snake.

Near Umatilla where we saw one of the ships, we also came up on the back of a semi carrying some kind of reddish produce. Once we were stopped behind it at a traffic light, we saw that it was a load of red bell peppers, a sight that I have never seen before. I've seen truckloads of a lot of different kinds of fruits, vegetables, hops, and nuts, but never red bells before.

In the highly intermittent weather at one point headed south along US 97, I found myself in the bizarre position of driving through the rain with the wipers going and my sunglasses on against the sun! That did make for some beautiful rainbows along the highway, such as the one in the photo below. 

Rainbow Over Oregon

Soon enough, we left the bare hills of Washington State behind and returned to the more familiar scrub of Central Oregon. Though the climates are similar in Walla Walla and Bend, the landscapes are very different. After a long weekend away, it was great to arrive back to our familiar Western Junipers and Ponderosa Pines. We had a great celebration of Ann's birthday and great stay in Walla Walla.

I feel like we might make more frequent trips to Walla Walla in the future, for short getaways from Bend. It seems like a really nice place to visit, reminding me of our time in McMinnville, another regional wine capital. Still, Walla Walla seems older and more prosperous than McMinnville, based on the number of amazing old and expensive houses.

Another plus in favor of revisiting Walla Walla: I have yet to answer the question, "If the majority of the world's great wine regions (Bordeaux and Châteauneuf-du-Pape excepted) are in hilly locations, how in the world did we discover that the flat wheat fields of Walla Walla are a great place to grow wine grapes?"

Getaway to Portland

Although one of the reasons for moving from McMinnville to Bend was to get farther away from Portland and its woes, we really do like visiting Portland. And after a solid month of being without our kitchen during its renovation, we really did need the change of pace. Back in the summer, Ann bought us tickets to see Richard Thomas in the touring production of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

While attending the play might have been the impetus for going to Portland, experiencing a wide variety of food was a secondary motivator. Bend is something of a food desert in that there are dozens upon dozens of places to get burgers, but finding other cuisine is a chore.

We left post-coffee in the late morning heading north up highway 97 to Madras after tanking up on gas in Bend. From Madras, we headed straight for Mt. Hood on US 26. The trip north had been pretty smoky, but we got a slight respite from Terrebonne to the west flank of Hood. In the sunlight going up and around Hood, the dark green Douglas Firs were accented on the roadside with scarlet Vine Maples and golden Aspens. That is the extent of our fall color in Oregon where the Douglas Firs way outnumber the people.

Back into the smoke on the west side of the Cascades, we came into Portland from the airport side before dipping south on I-205 and then cutting through town in Southeast to get some lunch. Ann chose a B&B in Southeast, so I limited my search for food and beverage to that quadrant of town. The only time we left Southeast is when we took a Uber directly across the river to Keller Auditorium for the show.

Looking for something different and unique, I decided to give the Norwegian food at the Viking Soul Food trailer a shot for lunch. In fact, tasting styles of food that are unavailable in Bend drove all our dining choices in Portland. We arrived somewhere in the 2:30 hour and pretty much had the food cart pod where VSF is located to ourselves.

Viking Soul Food Airstream Trailer Hiding Behind Tent

We tried a couple of different lefse wraps, one filled with smoked steelhead trout and arugula, the other with pølse (a mild pork sausage) and surkål (sweet and sour red cabbage).The lefse, traditional Norwegian flatbreads made with potato in the dough, were extremely tender and delicious. We also got a Kraken Snack, a fun little riff on a tuna melt made from herring and horseradish cream on rye bread topped with melted Jarlsberg cheese. The food was tasty enough and just the right amount to hold us until dinner.

Kraken Snack and Pølse Lefse Wrap

Ann Tucks into Smoked Steelhead Lefse Wrap

Next up was our opportunity to try a new brewery. Our Portland go-tos have been Culmination and Breakside. We have never visited Ruse before, but it has been on my list ever since I first tasted their beers. I do believe they are making some of the very best beers in Portland (and Oregon as well). Located in the tastefully renovated Iron Fireman Collective building, the tap room is airy, light, rustic, and quasi-industrial in feel. We had a hard time picking from among the nine fresh hop beers on offer so we let our bartender pick for us.

Ruse Tasting Room

One of Nine Fresh Hops on Tap at Ruse

After two beers, we headed a few blocks over to our B&B to relax before dinner. We have a short list of places in Portland at which we'd like to eat. Given that it was a Tuesday night, many places on the list were not open. We selected Kachka, serving Russian and East European fare. Our B&B was a half-hour walk from the restaurant so we had a leisurely stroll though Southeast and the beautiful Ladd's Addition neighborhood to reach it.

We were seated immediately in the busy restaurant and when our server came to the table to greet us, we asked her to order for us. She chose well, including the horseradish-infused vodka that we toasted with. Ann swore up and down that she was not going to drink straight vodka (weird coming from a woman whose favorite cocktail is a filthy vodka martini) but she did! And she loved it.

We started with horseradish-infused vodka and then I ordered a round of Żubrówka flavored with buffalo grass (well, not really). The FDA has never approved buffalo grass as a food additive because it contains coumarin and so the vodka we were drinking is chemically flavored. Although the flavor is similar to real buffalo grass, it is not the same thing that I used to bring back from European duty free shops.

Cheers! Horseradish Vodka

Our server ordered us several small plates: tomato salad, smoked Baltic sprats on rye, deviled eggs flavored with the same sprats, and two dumplings, one meat and one cheese. The meat dumplings (Siberian pelmeni) were much tastier than the farmer cheese-stuffed tvorog vareniki. When we were nearly stuffed, she brought out a small clay casserole of rabbit haunch braised in sour cream with porcini, sour cherries, and whole garlic cloves.

Comments on the food: the tomato salad was fun even though the tomatoes were not terribly ripe. The sprats on rye were one of the best single bites I have ever eaten. The deviled eggs were blah. The dumplings were fun and the meat ones were very tasty while the cheese ones needed a little more seasoning. The rabbit was good, but I missed the porcini in it. Don't let me forget to add that the house-made bread was delicious. All in all, a wonderful dining experience.

Heirloom Tomato Salat with Ukrainian Tahini and Jimmy Nardello Peppers

Baltic Sprat Buterbrodi with Parsley Mayo and Hardboiled Egg

Sprat Deviled Eggs

Siberian Pelmeni (Beef, Pork, Veal, and Onion) and
Tvorog Vareniki (Farmer's Cheese and Chive)

Two Breads, Butter, and Salt

Rabbit in a Clay Pot
Braised in Smetana, Porcini, Sour Cherries, and Garlic Cloves
with Crispy Draniki (Potato Pancakes)

Annie Taking on the Żubrówka (Buffalo Grass Vodka)

Sitting Indoors Under Tree Branches

Walking back to our B&B along Division Street, we ambled past Salt & Straw ice cream shop. There is one thing that Ann cannot resist and that is ice cream. On the other hand, I am lactose intolerant and so I hate her a little bit each time she gets ice cream, which I love but cannot eat. And invariably, she tries to stick a taste in my face, not truly understanding how painful eating it really is. I was taken with some of the very creative flavors on offer: Beecher's Cheese with Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls, Pear and Blue Cheese, Arbequina Olive Oil, and Strawberry Honey Balsamic with Black Pepper. 

Coffee and Caramel: Ann's Go-to Flavors

After a restful night at our B&B, we had a leisurely day ahead of us with nothing to do before the show at 7:30pm. First thing, I booked a Uber for 6:30 and then started wondering about what to do for the remainder of the day. The night before, I had found a pretty decent coffee shop just two blocks away from our B&B, so we walked there for our morning cup.

I figured that Portland might have some decent bagels for breakfast unlike Bend. After coffee, we walked another few blocks to Spielman Bagels, before wandering through Ladd's Addition on the way back to the B&B. I was shocked at the quality of the bagels, the best since we used to have them brought down from H&H Bagels in Manhattan. One of the great things about living on the East Coast was that someone was always going into the City and would often schlep bagels back.

Leisurely Coffee

Damn Fine Bagel: Spielman Bagels

Back at the B&B, we put together a game plan for the afternoon: a large late lunch in lieu of dinner when we would be at the show and then run back by Ruse to pick up some beer to take back to Bend. Our good friend Tim loves Ruse and Citra hops, so I made sure to get some Citra fresh hop beer for him.

For lunch, I chose Tierra del Sol, a Oaxacan food truck at the Portland Mercado, simply because I love Oaxacan food (which may be the best in all of Mexico) and there is no place in our area to get it. I was especially in the mood for a tlayuda (a very thin, flat, large corn tortilla topped with lard, black beans, and other toppings depending on the vendor). A total bonus that I ordered when I spied it on the menu: a tetela de frijol, a black-bean stuffed thick blue corn tortilla cooked on a comal and folded into a triangle, most awesome street food.

Waiting on our Oaxacan Street Food

Portland Mercado: Home to Many Different Latino Food Trucks

Blue Corn Tetela de Frijol

Our Tlayuda Topped with Mole de Pipián

Take Home Bounty

After a couple of beers at Ruse, we drove back to our B&B to shower and get ready for the show in Downtown. Although we drove our car, there's not a lot of profit in hunting for parking near the theater, so we booked a Uber to take us the ten minutes across the river where we arrived at dusk, just in time to see the lights on the fountains across the street from the entrance to the Keller Auditorium.

Fountain at Keller Auditorium

In Our Seats in the First Balcony

Despite "To Kill a Mockingbird" being pretty much de rigueur reading to exit high school successfully, I never had to read it for school, which oddly enough, was in Auburn AL, two-and-a-half hours northwest of Monroeville, home to Harper Lee. I have read it a couple of times on my own and at least twice, I have seen the 1962 movie in which Gregory Peck won the Academy Award playing Atticus Finch. So the story being pretty familiar to me, I truly wondered how it would be adapted to the stage.

Having a 6-year old Scout narrate a Broadway play seems difficult to pull off. And in this Rodney King era, having Atticus Finch be the Great White Knight seems a touch tone deaf. I thought that Aaron Sorkin did a pretty decent job of adaptation, knowing that he could please no one. In the end, the movie focused on Atticus and took a sharp veer away from the bildungsroman centered on Scout's loss of innocence. Richard Thomas did a great job of bringing humanity and emotion to the character that Peck played much more drily. I was sad to see the Boo Radley story line eviscerated, but I understand why it had to be. I enjoyed the production; it was worth the long drive to Portland.

The next morning, we left early and returned home via Beaverton to see Don and Terry, who relocated to the Valley from Seattle right after we left it to move to Bend. It was our first chance to see them in a year or more and our first chance to see their new house. The drive back to Bend down I-5 and across Santiam Pass on OR 22 was uneventful. We arrived about 1:30, just in time for me to put a second coat of paint on the ceiling and walls of the kitchen.

Alaska Day 7: Walking the Homer Spit

Last night was a doozy in that I was up most of the night with reflux like I have rarely had in my life. Fortunately in our room, we had the tail end of the baguette that we bought in Anchorage the day we drove to Homer. At various periods during the night, I ate small bites of that and sipped water to help keep the acid at bay. Sleep was not possible.

When I finally gave up on trying to sleep and rolled out of bed, I found out that I had an easier night than Michael, who went to the ER because his GI symptoms mimicked a heart attack. I know exactly this feeling. Man, this getting older stuff is not something they tell you about when you're younger. Anyway, I feel like hell and it's just going to be a day to get through. Fortunately, it is not a day of big plans, just a short 10-mile walk the length of the Homer Spit and back.

The Homer Spit is a 4.5-mile finger of land running northwest to southeast that juts straight out halfway into 9-mile-wide Kachemak Bay. Cook Inlet opens to the southwest (the ocean side) and Kachemak Bay (the bay side) runs to the northeast of the Spit. Rising on average 19 feet above the water, the Spit ranges in width from just over quarter-mile to just barely enough room for the roadway. Before the 1964 earthquake, there was some larger vegetation on the Spit, but now it's primarily just gravel and sand.

Because of the narrow beaches hard against rip-rap on the ocean side, we had to wait until late morning for the tide to turn to walk on the exposed beach, so we sat out on the patio listening to the sandhill cranes trumpeting and looking at the stunning mountain view across the bay. Annie had her coffee but I couldn't stomach it.

Bagel with Lox with a View

Late morning on the way to the Spit, we stopped at The Bagel Shop where we both got bagels with lox. They weren't gold standard New York bagels, but they were better than average and were some of the best food we would eat in Homer, sad as that is to say. The little shop in an industrial area east of town had a long queue out the door. Because of COVID, all orders are to go and we took ours down to the beginning of the Spit where we ate them on a picnic table on the ocean side.

All alone on the beach covered in small, well-rounded pebbles and stones, our plan was to walk the length of the Spit on the ocean side. Walking the bay side would be impossible along the shore because that's the protected side where the boats enter the harbors, including the deep-water harbor near the end of the Spit. Alas our timing was off and despite the ebbing tide, there was still a quarter-mile stretch where the water came right to the rip-rap bolstering the side of the roadway.

Ann’s confidence in navigating rip-rap and scree fields is slim. So, we put plan B in motion, carefully climbing through the giant rocks to the highway above. On the bay side of the highway, a paved bike path runs the entire length of the Spit. We crossed to the bike path and continued our trek alongside the highway, trading the solitude of the beach walk for a schlep through all the touristy bits of the Spit, dodging children, dogs, and bikes for much of the way.

Before we left the beach, a bald eagle took off from the sand. It’s sheer size prompted Ann to quip, “Is that a prop jet?” We would see a lot of eagles during our stay, but honestly, I was expecting to see more of them. Michael said several times that eagles in Homer are as common as pigeons elsewhere. I'm sure there are more eagles to see in the winter when they congregate, not being busy off raising babies.

During our outbound tour of the Spit, we walked past abandoned boats, the ice rink, a fishing lagoon, boat storage, campgrounds, a drydock facility, lots of tourist-focused businesses such as art galleries and fishing charter operations, the harbor, and a fish processing complex before going down to the beach on the bay side once again just past the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry terminal. Businesses are clumped together in pods along the Spit with the businesses on the ocean side up on a boardwalk above the beach.

Starting Our Beach Walk with Quite a View

The Only Two Loons, Gavia immer, I Saw in Alaska

Is This Not a Stunning View?

Boreal Yarrow, Achillea millefolium v. borealis, and
Beach Fleabane, Senecio pseudo-arnica

Pink Foxtail Barley, Hordeum jubatum

Fishing for Salmon at Entry to Fishing Lagoon

Where I Filleted Salmon Yesterday

Homer Harbor with Stunning Glacier Backdrop

After Homer Harbor, we made a 180 following the beach around from the bay side back to the ocean/Cook Inlet side, passing the Land's End Resort, and stopping at the iconic Seafarer’s Memorial for a few minutes. The memorial honors those who have been lost at sea and underscores the importance of the fishing industry to this region.

Seafarer's Memorial

Bell at the Memorial

From the end of the Spit, we retraced our steps back to the car, which feeling as miserable as I was from last night's GI pyrotechnics, I never thought we would reach. The walk back was a real trudge despite being flat and paved; I was out of gas.

The car was a welcome site. Ann wanted to go out for a late lunch/early dinner, but the only thing keeping me going was the thought of bed and a long nap.

After a decent snooze, I was feeling a little better, but still not great. Ann wanted to go out for dinner but I didn’t feel I could stomach food. Mike offered a glass of wine while we sat outside and watched the bird activity pick up in the late afternoon. I passed on the wine, not wanting to pour gasoline onto the fire that was my stomach.

In the golden rays of late afternoon sun, we watched the goldfinches eating cow parsnip seeds just off the patio, while flycatchers worked from the taller shrubs. A bald eagle circled in close over where we were sitting, above the cranes which were busy feeding and trumpeting in the meadow. It was a really relaxing scenario and just what the doctor ordered for me.

Flycatcher Posing in a Red Elderberry

Ann asked me to take her on a beer run so we went part way into town to the liquor store. Back at the inn, she enjoyed a couple cold IPAs while we talked with Mike and ate the remainder of our sandwiches from yesterday's lunch.

Mike and I having been up the night before, we decided to head to bed around 7:15. I fell asleep around 10, only to be awakened at 11:20 by other noisy guests who managed to get themselves locked out. I got up to let them in before they woke anyone else and finally crashed out for a decent night's sleep.