Strickler Knob, New Market VA

"Ow!" I exclaimed to the dogs and to no one in particular as we headed downstairs Monday morning to go outside. My quads were really sore, as sore as they have been in decades, thanks to an 800-foot descent in a half a mile on Sunday. It was so intensely steep that we had to take a "quad break" about 600 feet down to rest our burning legs. And worse still, though I didn't know it at the time, that descent caused a blister on my left heel, the first I have had in over a year.

We roused for our fifth hike of 2017, the year in which we have committed to 52 hikes, at 8am on Sunday morning, very early considering that we got crushed at the restaurant the night before and that I didn't sleep well on account of this damned cold that started coming on about Wednesday. 8 am was not a friendly hour to get up considering all that, but up we got with some insistent urging from the aforementioned hounds, mainly because we had a long day ahead of us in climbing Strickler Knob, reputedly one of the toughest hikes in this area. By now, my screaming quads have already let you know that it lived up to its reputation.

Atop Strickler Knob

It was a warm day in February, already 54 degrees and threatening to go to 65, so we both pulled on shorts and were away about 8:45 to stop at the local Sheetz for gas, coffee, and breakfast. Ann went inside and returned with two sausage and egg muffins and two cups of coffee while I filled up the tank on the Jeep.

We are spoiled by great coffee. We need to give a shout out to Sleepy Monk Coffee Roasters in Cannon Beach OR from whom we get our coffee for home. It is truly delicious. And our coffee at the restaurant isn't half bad either. Once I got onto I-81 heading south for New Market and got settled in to traffic, I finally got a second to take a sip of the Sheetz dark roast. Wow! Just Wow! It really sucks for coffee is the best that I can say. To compound things, breakfast was totally unsatisfying: the sausage in particular tasted like equal parts sawdust and cayenne. Delicious! NOT! At least it got us moving more quickly than wrangling coffee and grub at home.

Not a Great Start to the Day

At New Market, we headed up into the gap on 211 towards Luray, to turn north up Crisman Hollow Road to find where the Massanutten Trail intersects the dirt road. There is a gate a ways up the road where it turns from narrow paved road to dirt, right at the trailhead for the Massanutten Story Book trail, a short, wheelchair accessible trail. We had heard conflicting information about the gate, that it is closed from February to April and that it is only closed during bad weather, of which we have had approximately none this winter. We took a chance. As chance would have it, the gate was closed seven-tenths of a mile short of the Massanutten trail head.

At 9:45am, we were the third vehicle in the lot that can hold about six vehicles. The drivers of the other two were waiting on members of their hiking club to arrive before heading out to Strickler Knob. Ann and I decided to hoof it up the road to the trailhead and get some space between us and the group, reportedly 10 to 15 people, so we left at a rapid clip. What we didn't know is that the hiking group had a plan B that we would find out about later when they came blowing by us just about where we met the Scothorn Gap Trail.

Seven tenths up the road, we turned east into the warm morning sun on the Massanutten Trail which gently meandered along and over the ridgeline, before plunging straight down the hillside and by straight down I mean straight down, 800 feet of descent in a half a mile, where 500 feet in a half a mile is considered steep. This was no joke of a hill. It was so steep that I felt like I was skiing a triple black diamond slope. We had to take a "quad break" about 600 feet down to rest our burning legs.

Crossing Big Run on the Massanutten Trail

I could see by the bottom that Annie was not having a good day with her legs. She has good days and not so good days and this was one of the latter. I was worried that she needed to turn around, but turning around would mean scaling that beastly hill. As we got to Big Run creek in the bottom, it started to become really apparent how high we were going to have to climb to reach our goal. It was kind of cute when Ann exclaimed, "We have to climb THAT?!?" But trouper that she is, she soldiered on.

Ann: "We Have to Climb THAT?!?"

Our track took us east on the orange-blazed Massanutten Trail down the very brutal hill to Big Run. At Big Run we turned north and walked up the creek for two miles, crossing it a couple of times, climbing all the while to the intersection with the Scothorn Gap Trail. At this intersection, the Massanutten trail turns right and due east and makes a gentle climb to the ridgeline that is capped by Strickler Knob.

At the ridgeline, the orange-blazed Massanutten continues down over the mountain and eventually heads north again towards Camp Roosevelt, where we hiked back in the fall. But we were interested in an unofficial 3/4-mile pink-blazed trail south along the ridge to Strickler Knob. It was obvious where the trail should be but not obvious where it was for the trail was nothing but hopping from rock to rock and I hadn't yet figured out that the pink blazes were on rocks on the ground, as I was so used to looking for them in trees.

It was actually kind of fun sleuthing out where I thought the trail should be, sometimes finding a blaze and sometimes not, winding in and out of rock formations and hopping from rock to rock. Towards the end of the walk, the rocks started getting a bit more serious, including one about 9 feet high that we had to scale, which you see Annie doing below. It became obvious that our trekking poles were starting to be a hindrance, so we left them leaning against a big rock. On our return to this point, we had obviously started a trend because there were a dozen sets of poles where we left ours.

Some Climbing Required

From there it was a matter of winding in and out of cracks between immense boulders and rock stacks until we came up and through a formation of three large boulders to a very large stack capped with slab of rock, much like a giant's diving board.

Almost to the End

A Large Rock Stack at Strickler Knob

Annie Just Making it to the Top

Turkey Vulture Over Luray

While we were up top, we were joined by the large group that we had been leapfrogging all day. We all sat together and ate lunch. One guy even brought a plastic container of chocolate cake that he shared around to all interested takers. We felt a touch out of place as we were older than everyone by a good 20 years. After we ate our grilled chicken BLTs with pesto on focaccia, Ann decided that she wanted to go to the very top. I wanted to go up too, but she started a trend and it started to get crowded up there so I stayed below to photograph the goings on.

Lunch was Grilled Chicken BLTs

Show Off!

Selfie Queen in Action

The Resulting Selfie

Panorama from Very Highest Point

New Market Gap and Beyond

It was quarter to two when we started back along the ridgeline. I could see Ann's legs knocking together as she was walking, a sure sign of jelly legs and I was really starting to feel the blister on my left heel, despite a tape job at the top. Never mind that I had a raging cold and was only about 60%. I always scope the maps for potential bail-out points and alternate access in case of emergency. In this case, I knew Annie was going to have a rough go of climbing that 800 feet that we had descended earlier and I was leery of doing the same on a gimpy heel.

We bailed out on the Scothorn Gap trail back to Crisman Hollow Road, trading the 800-foot climb in half a mile for the same climb in two miles, a much more gentle and doable climb. It left us with a 2.7-mile road walk, but it would have been stupid to go the other way in our condition. I like to think that I have gained some wisdom from age. The 18-year old Ed would not have done this.

Just beyond the crossroads where we picked up the yellow-blazed Scothorn Gap trail, we started hearing an insistent noise coming from the woods just ahead. It was clear that Annie was hearing it too. I asked out loud, "Could that be geese?" Then I mused blackbirds. But then it became obvious that it was frogs. I don't know what kind of frogs though. Certainly not spring peepers, which I could also hear calling back in the woods and certainly not bullfrogs, whose calls I well know. We bushwhacked through some really soggy ground to come out on the little pond below.

Surprise!

As I was scanning the pond for signs of life, I saw a what looked like a log out at the far end. I imagined that perhaps there was a turtle on the right end of the log and I asked Ann if she thought there was one. She thought there might be, but it was too far away to tell for certain. I snapped a photo for giggles. Imagine my surprise when I got into Photoshop and could see not one, but three turtles! I do not recall ever seeing turtles basking in mid-February, but then, when have I ever been hiking in the mountains in Virginia in shorts in mid-February? This non-winter is pretty freaky, but I have to admit that I did enjoy hiking without toting all that winter gear on my back.

Turtles Sunning. In February?!?

Once we got back to Crisman Hollow Road, it was a long, long 2.7-mile trudge back to the car, nearly an hour. We were both really tired, but glad to be on a smooth dirt surface. But as we would crest one rise on the road, another would appear, and so on and so on for two straight miles. Being dog tired and hoping for a downhill stretch really makes a hike seem long. When we finally crested the ridge and started downhill to the car, we were exactly at the point where we started walking the Massanutten Trail. The last seven tenths went very quickly with the prospect of beer calling us on.

We were totally unprepared for about 50 cars where we left ours. They were lined head-to-tail down the left margin of the road, converting the already narrow road into singletrack. Thirty minutes after we thankfully unlaced our boots and sat down in the Jeep, we were sitting in the Woodstock Brewhouse just a few miles up route 11 towards Winchester.

Woodstock Brewhouse

Hophead that I am, I went straight for the 130 IBU Crow's Provender IPA, while Annie decided to go with the delicious Casey Jones Vanilla Porter, her first really big-girl beer. She's been slowly coming over to the dark side after starting with Corona and Blue Moon. It's been a steady evolution in her palate. I don't think she'll ever come over to hopland with me, but her palate is definitely widening. The beer here is very good.

Annie Tackles a Big-Girl Beer

While getting our second round at the bar, Ann also ordered a pretzel and a flatbread. The pretzel has size going for it, but not much else and the flatbread kind of reminds me of cheap college bar "pizza." It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.

Monster Pretzel

Meh Flatbread

To change the subject slightly, we've been discussing getting a tent and had narrowed the choice to two from a sea of contenders. We both ended up choosing the same one for slightly different reasons. Ann said wanted the one with more headroom for the times when we get in the sleeping bags and aren't ready to go to sleep. I told her that I would remind her of that at some point. My experience is that you are passed out within moments of hitting the sleeping bag after a long day's hike. Suffice it to say that back at home on Sunday after the brutal Strickler Knob hike, she rolled over and turned out the light at 8:20pm and was asleep within seconds. Ever the gallant husband, I now take the opportunity to remind her.

Honeymoon: Three Doors Down, SE Portland OR and Heading Home

Saturday May 4, SE Portland OR

After munchies with beer at noon on Saturday and so-so cart food later in the afternoon, it was finally around 8:45pm that we got somewhat hungry. For our final meal in Portland, Ann wanted a simple plate of pasta so we searched the web for the closest reasonable sounding Italian joint, which proved to be at Hawthorne and 37th, called Three Doors Down.

As an aside, how nice is it to go out somewhat late and still have lots of restaurants open? Living in small town Winchester VA, we are done with our dinner service by 9pm even at the end of June when the days are the longest of the year.

That said, I judged the crowd to be slow and asked our server about it. In Portland as in Winchester, it seems you cannot compete with Mother Nature. Because it was one of the first beautiful weekends of the year, so many were people out of town at the beach or otherwise enjoying the gorgeous weather and grilling out.

We commandeered a table out on the sidewalk and people-watched for a while with a bottle of Brick House Gamay Noir, which tasted exactly as Gamay should taste. If you told me I was drinking Beaujolais, I wouldn't have argued with you. But really, I don't know enough about New World Gamay to understand how it differs from Beaujolais.


Ribbon Ridge Gamay

Because we weren't super hungry, we ordered a couple appetizers followed by a plate of pasta. Both our starters were good. First up was a large slab of grilled bread spread with goat cheese and topped with arugula and duck confit. Yep, it was every bit as good as you might imagine, though an informed palate might be wishing it had some of our house-cured duck confit on it. There's no hiding the extra flavor that ours develops over the three-month curing process.

Duck Confit, Arugula, and Goat Cheese

Next up was a board of burrata topped with tapenade, some so-called jamón ibérico, and flatbread. We enjoyed this plate, but two things confuse me. First, look at the mash up of ingredients from at least three different cultures. How does this make intellectual sense? Second, look hard at the jamón ibérico. Really, if you're going to spend that kind of money on some of the world's best ham, are you then going to cut it thick and then partially cook it?

"Jamón Ibérico", Burrata, Tapenade, and Flatbread

By the time we finished our appetizers and the server delivered our plates (they split our pasta for us; kind of them, but they needn't have) of house-made ricotta cavatelli bolognese, it was really dark out on the sidewalk. Our server had brought us a candle earlier in the evening, but it was way too gusty to keep it lit, so Ann downloaded a candle app on her iPhone and set it to flickering.

I must say that the cavatelli was deftly made and deftly sauced but was desperate for salt. And doesn't anyone make true bolognese with shredded meat anymore? Really, you're going to the trouble to make cavatelli, but you won't do the same for your meat sauce?

In the end, it was a really nice low key dinner that we shared on our final night in Portland. We were very comfortable and enjoyed sitting and talking and watching the street parade. If I lived in Portland, I think I would like this place a lot.

Sunday May 5

Sunday the 5th is a day I would like to forget. I forced myself up at 0600 local time, trying to wean myself off Pacific time to help with the transition back to work on Monday morning. In retrospect, maybe this was a bad idea. We skipped breakfast at the B&B and hurried to return our rental car and get through security to catch our early morning flight to SFO. I managed to set off the millimeter wave scanner again: I'm simply too tall for the little booth. When I looked at the monitor, it had alerted right on the top of my head, the usual location, so I got my (lack of) hair patted down. All the TSA agents here were very friendly, unlike at Dulles, and the tiny guy doing the pat down started chuckling when I had to bend down so that he could reach the top of my head.

It proved that all that hurrying was for naught. Because of weather and because of weekend runway closures at SFO for federally-mandated safety improvements, our plane was over two hours late arriving at PDX. Our plane arrived at PDX *after* we were supposed to depart SFO for Dulles; how's that for late? The flight crews were bitching too: they have to deal with runway closures all the time and naturally, the brunt of passenger fall-out lands mostly on their shoulders. And their layovers are impacted as well. The whole situation is screwed up.

The weather continued brilliantly nice and we had awesome views of Mount Hood from the tarmac while we sat at PDX and the rest of the major Cascades peaks: Ranier, St. Helens with its flat top, Adams, and the Three Sisters down near Bend once we got airborne. We also saw Shasta and the peaks in California before weather closed in a few minutes out of SFO.

Mt. Hood from the Tarmac at PDX

We managed to get re-booked on a flight out of SFO that departed not 20 minutes after we landed (and need I mention that our inbound flight sat on the ground waiting in SFO waiting for a gate to open?). When we got to the Washington departure gate, mercifully only about four gates from our arrival gate, the monitor above the gate read "Delayed - Awaiting Inbound Aircraft"), which confused me because there was a plane at the gate. The plane had just arrived and so we stood around for about 45 minutes while they turned it around, giving me time to nip over to the concession just behind us and grab some power bars and a couple sandwiches. At this point, we had been going all day without food.

"Delayed:" Just What Every Traveler Wants to See

Once we boarded, we had to sit at the gate for about 20 minutes before ground control would give us permission to join the long line of jets waiting to take off. We were about an hour on the plane on the ground before we finally got underway to DC and with weather ahead of us, we were unable to take the most direct route in. We finally arrived at just after 1am and by the time we got our car, got home, and got the dogs walked, it was 3am. Waking up just three hours later to go to work was a doozy!

This is the final post in the Honeymoon series. We had a wonderful time at the Oregon coast, in the Willamette Valley, and in Portland proper, along with some of the most fantastic weather ever to grace the first week in May in that area. What an amazing trip!

You Say Pizza, I Say Focaccia

Monday night = date night at our house. But we've busted the budget recently and so decided to stay in and have dinner and a movie. I left Ann to puzzle over what to eat for dinner while I was at work in the morning. Late morning, she decided she was in the mood for pizza.

What do you do in a town where there is zero pizza worth eating and you want pizza at the last minute with no time to make dough and let it ferment for the requisite 24 hours that it takes to develop great flavor?

You make do. Following the shopping list that Ann sent me, I picked up some olive and oregano flatbreads from Costco, along with some prosciutto, and a tub of mozzarella di bufala. She said that we had some grape tomatoes at home on the counter that were in dire need of roasting.

I also grabbed a bottle of Brunello while I was there just to splurge a bit. What to drink with pizza? Sangiovese in my book. And what better Sangiovese is there in this world than Brunello? You might argue that pizza is best known from Napoli/Campania and that maybe a wine from Campania might be a more natural choice, but how are you going to find Greco di Tufo or Piedirosso on short notice, especially in Funchester, Middle of Nowhere? Besides, I'd rather drink Brunello!

What to Drink for Pizza and a Movie Night? Brunello!

In the photo above, you see the prosciutto torn into pieces and the mozzarella di bufala sliced and ready to go. If you have never had buffalo milk mozzarella, you owe it to yourself to try it. Buffalo milk mozzarella is to cow's milk mozzarella as a Ferrari is to a Fiat, but unless you get behind the wheel of the Ferrari, you will never truly understand. Even this silly analogy does not convey how truly amazing your first bite of mozzarella di bufala is. It doesn't convey the idea that until that very moment, you had no idea how good cheese could be.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes, Awesome!

Ann had the fabulous idea of oven-roasting the tomatoes, but I don't think that she expected me to turn the somewhat raisined tomatoes on the counter into caramelized bites of oven-dried awesomeness. I put the oven on 450F with the fan on, which is as hot as it will go with the fan on, and put the halved tomatoes tossed with extra virgin olive oil and salt in. I opened the door every three or four minutes to let the steam escape and after about 20-25 minutes, we had the deliciously caramelized dried tomatoes that you see above. You must vent the steam frequently to dry the tomatoes. Trust me, it is so worth the effort. And really, how much effort is it to get up from the kitchen counter and vent the steam between sips of wine?

Prosciutto, Oven-Dried Tomatoes, Mozzarella di Bufala: Divine!

Oh my gosh, did I gorge myself! I was silly stuffed after this meal. But who wouldn't have gorged on this? I didn't do anything to the focaccia that I bought at Costco. It came prebrushed with oil and sprinkled lavishly with green olives, oregano, salt, and a wonderful bit of crushed red pepper.

Pizza? I'm not sure that this qualifies for that moniker, but I do know that it was better than any pizza I have had in years and it came from stuff that I hauled home from not-some-exotic store, but rather, Costco. Go figure!

Great meal, great company, great wine, great movie, and a great date night with my sweetie that I won't forget anytime soon!

A Costco Dinner

Betcha you thought a chef would never grab dinner from Costco. You guessed wrong. We're humans too and we do get tired of cooking dinner too, just like you. So why not let Costco do the heavy lifting once in a while?

Mondays I have to run to Costco to score a few things for the restaurant, stuff like black pepper and milk that we don't use in case quantities, so while I was there I grabbed some stuff for dinner: a flatbread, a roasted chicken, and a jar or organic pesto.

Back at home, Ann made dressing, tossed a quick salad, and picked the meat off both chicken legs while I caramelized about five pounds of onions—might as well do a lot at one time and keep them handy in the fridge. The flat bread got a quick schmear of pesto, a generous slathering of caramelized onions, a scattering of chicken, and a sprinkle of grated cheese. And then into a hot oven for seven minutes. Good teamwork there girlfriend! I love it when we get a chance to cook together.

And the good news is that we still have the chicken carcass and white meat for soup tomorrow.

Paired with this we had a 2008 Pinot Noir "Miller's Vineyard" Willamette Valley (Eola-Amity Hills) from Stangeland Winery thanks to friends Jen and Dewi who picked the wine up when out west. Very red fruit, reasonable acid, medium body compared to some of the heavier 2008 Pinots from Willamette, all in all a really approachable Pinot.