Miller Woods, McMinnville, OR

For our first hike in Oregon, we found Miller Woods, a 130-acre tract just west of McMinnville where we could have a quick walk while not stranding the dogs at home for too long. We walked 4.5 miles on an undulating track through fields and woods, with one brief climb of a couple hundred feet. In other words, it was flat.

The hills just west of McMinnville, approaching the Coastal Range, are an intriguing mix of deciduous and coniferous woods, some containing old growth. I saw some vast Western Red Cedars, Big-Leaf Maples, Oregon White Oaks, and other Hemlock-looking trees. I can't wait to spend some time out in the woods figuring out what all these western trees are.

Pasture at Miller Woods

Hiking Under an Oregon White Oak

Crown of a Huge Oregon White Oak

Under a Big-leaf Maple

Big-leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) Leaf

Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea

So Not Virginia Anymore!

Ferns and Moss in the Understory

We had descended into a creek valley covered in old growth trees and were just making our way up a hill through a stand of planted Ponderosa pines, when I caught movement just ahead of me as a Great Horned Owl turned its head directly at me. I don't know that I would have seen it if it hadn't moved. It is most unusual to see an owl being active at high noon. They're usually crepuscular to nocturnal creatures and you hear them much more often than you see them. I was really excited for Ann as this was her first owl.

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl on the Wing

It being mid-October and us being mostly in the woods, there weren't a lot of flowers to be seen. We saw a few cranesbills, a few purple, white, and yellow asters, and not a whole lot else. I'm really looking forward to spring and learning a whole new set of flowers. The Pearly Everlasting above is one flower that I do recognize from back east.

Random Yellow Aster

Another Pasture

Small Pond on the Property

Given that it was high noon and that we were having typical Oregon October weather, sunny one moment and raining the next, we didn't see a lot of birds. As we arrived, we saw one accipiter flying away from us and now and again, a Scrub Jay would yammer at us from the brush. Most of the little birds were limited to Oregon Juncos. We did hear a pair of Flickers talking back and forth to each other and flying from fencepost to snag to fencepost. I finally got a halfway decent picture of one on a snag. I did get to show Ann the golden blush of the feathers (Yellow-shafted) as the birds flew, which is a totally different look from the red blush of the eastern ones (Red-shafted) that we're used to.

Yellow-Shafted Flicker

Three Sheets, Portland

Ann's birthday arrived just days after we landed in Oregon and just days after our anniversary. I wanted to take her out for a nice meal and I wanted her to meet one of my former sous chefs, Danny Robayo, before he decamped for a new restaurant venture in Hawaii. I had some great talent in my kitchen back in Virginia and Danny is an all star. His exec gig at Three Sheets in Portland is about his fourth or fifth restaurant since becoming an executive chef in his own right and I couldn't be prouder of what he has become.

When we planned to move, I was excited to be able to hook back up with him. Over the course of the summer though, it became apparent that we might miss him: I did an extensive interview with his new employers in Hawaii and knew that he had been offered that gig back in September. We just did make it to his restaurant with only days to spare. In fact, I met his replacement who was in the restaurant training to take over the reins. That's how close we were to missing each other.

Three Sheets is a brand new restaurant on Hayden Island along the south shore of the Columbia River and is situated in what looks to be a condo building right at the Columbia River Yacht Club. We chose to come for Saturday brunch because that would be one of the slower shifts and hopefully would leave us more time to visit with Danny. As it turns out, we did get to spend several minutes with him at various points in the morning and we got to meet his wife and family as they came in for breakfast.

The Birthday Girl

And Her Date

We got ourselves situated and when our server asked if we'd like a Bloody Mary from their bar, who could resist? She offered to let us garnish our own, but we left her to do it, not expecting these crazily decorated concoctions! I love pickles of all sorts, so it was no hardship to feast on these meal-worthy cocktails. Garnish aside, the texture and flavor of the bloodies was fantastic!

Excellent Bloody Marys

I wasn't sure what to expect. Danny told me that he'd cook us something when I called him earlier in the week. He dropped by the table and told us to order entrees and he'd take care of the rest. So, at this point, we were pretty much starving and ordered two of their vast entrees from the menu, not knowing that we would soon have more food than an army could eat.

Steelhead Caviar with Blinis and Squid Ink Mascarpone

Ann and I are not huge eaters. We like to eat, but this plate of blini with squid ink mascarpone and a tin of steelhead trout caviar was a good start towards satiating our appetites. What a beautiful appetizer!

Matsutake Mushrooms on Pea Purée

Next came this plate of matsutake mushrooms on a pea purée. I'm surprised at green peas in October, but the seasons are very different out here. This was a beautiful dish.

Pork Belly and Quail Egg on a Biscuit with Syrup

Next up was an entire breakfast, a split biscuit stuffed with pork belly, topped with a quail egg and drizzled in maple syrup. At this point, we were already plenty full and our entrees had yet to make an appearance at the table.

Hangtown Fry

For my main course, I ordered a Hangtown fry with soft scrambled eggs, fried oyster, and pork belly all sitting on a grilled slice of sour dough bread, garnished with harissa. Really delicious.

Grilled Cheese with Duck Egg

Ann went for an adult grilled cheese, topped with an over easy duck egg. The plates are huge and so the mammoth slices of bread appear to be normally sized, but don't let appearances fool you: the portions here are enormous.

King Salmon on Fresh Chickpeas

Now a good 2-1/2 hours into our feast, out comes Danny with this plate of king salmon, "just because you have to try this." The salmon was cooked perfectly, but I expect no less from Danny and his kitchen, and it was a really spectacular piece of fish. Not all salmon is created equal, and this stood head and shoulders above most.

What made the dish so outstanding was not the salmon, but the fresh chickpeas, just slightly cooked and mixed with a mild harissa and feta cheese. I love fresh chickpeas and was fortunate to have Yael to grow them for me at the restaurant. They're a pain to shell out, but they taste so wonderful. This is probably the single best dish I had in a restaurant in 2017.

Lobster and Matsutake Mushroom Risotto with Black Truffles

On the way out the door, Danny handed me a cardboard to-go container and whispered conspiratorially, "I know you'll know what to do with these." Not that I couldn't already smell the truffle from several feet away, but I resisted opening it until we got home to find a couple matsutakes, a couple lobster mushrooms, and a black truffle. I did indeed know just what to do with them and made this risotto a couple days later when we had finally gotten sufficiently hungry to eat again.

My great thanks to Chef Danny Robayo for taking great care of us, affording Ann and me the much-needed time to sit and talk for a morning, and of course, for the goodie box. Danny, I wish you all the luck with your move to Hawaii and in opening your new restaurant.

Old Home Weekend

Back in Winchester, VA, on the north side of the high school, we had a pretty cool neighborhood in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, a bunch of young couples busy raising families, getting together when we could, drinking wine and beer, listening to music, and just hanging out. And then life happened. I got divorced and moved across town to live with Ann. Chris and Perrin decided to head out west, first to Whitefish MT and then (after Ann and I had decided to retire to the Portland area) to Beaverton OR. Only Billy and Shawn stayed in the old neighborhood.

Now fast forward to 2017 when all our kids are grown and in college or beyond. Ann and I, we packed up and headed for Oregon ourselves, arriving on September 25 and staying temporarily in Yamhill for a couple of months before ultimately settling down in McMinnville. I hadn't seen Chris and Perrin in some years and Ann, though having spoken to Perrin on the phone, had never met her in the flesh. I was looking forward to the whirling vortex of craziness as the two of them got together for the first time. Many of our mutual friends consider the two of them virtual doppelgangers in exuberance and out-there-ness!

Just before we moved, as we were saying our goodbyes, Billy told me that he and Shawn were flying out to Portland the weekend after we arrived. Party time!

Before that, first a little about Chris and Perrin. Chris and I are from the same part of the world: Albemarle County, VA, near Charlottesville. He and I went to junior high school together and played on the same soccer team. Then I moved to Alabama for three years to finish high school before coming back to the University of Virginia, where who should I find living in my very same freshman dorm but Chris?

We lost touch after freshman year as we went our own ways, but fast forward another twenty or so years, after I had moved to Texas, Maryland, the DC metro area, and finally to Winchester, VA some 60 miles west of DC. At this point, I owned the restaurant and a friend told me that she had a friend who made chicken pot pies for her small business who was in need of a commercial kitchen in which to make her pies. So, long story short, I agreed that Perrin could rent my kitchen on Sundays, the one day that it was closed. At this point, I had no idea that she lived just yards away from me, my life being confined totally to the four walls of the restaurant.

Come the first Sunday morning and I am at the restaurant to show her the ropes and give her the key and alarm codes, putzing in my office when I hear the door chime sound. I walk out of the office and looking in the direction of front door, I do a double take in disbelief as I see Chris for the first time in maybe 25 years. At this point, I hadn't put together that he and Perrin had the same last name. And after that "Holy crap!" moment, we reconnected and now we find ourselves both living outside of Portland, Oregon.

So the six of us got together at the end of September at Chris and Perrin's house in Beaverton and pre-gamed it a bit before heading in to Portland to have lunch at Tasty n Alder. It was a circus there as we stuffed ourselves into the tiny bar area with 20 other people and kicked off the day with some decent Bloody Marys. Feeling no pain, we finally got seated after nearly an hour wait and then we proceeded to have an even better time at the table while eating lunch. Servers love tables like ours who come to have a good time and who want to try the entire menu. Our server was a good sport!

Billy, Ann, Shawn, Perrin, and Bloodies

Chris

Shawn, Perrin, and Ann

The Whole Crew with our Server

Lunch concluded mid-afternoon and we made our way back to Beaverton. We had to get back to Yamhill fairly quickly as we had the dogs in the house with no dog sitter. It turns out that Chris and Perrin's daughter Elizabeth, who is a runner in college up in Washington, had a cross-country meet down in Salem south of us the next morning, so we made plans for everyone to meet us at our house in Yamhill on their way back north to Beaverton. Ann and I wanted to take them to one of our favorite wineries in the Willamette Valley, Patton Valley.

Low-Budget Tasting Room,

Excellent Wine

Patton Valley's wines I carried on my restaurant wine list for about 15 years, so I knew them well and was happy to take our friends to see this unpretentious winery up on a hill north and slightly west of Gaston, OR in the very northern reaches of the Willamette Valley. While some wineries in the Valley are now Napa-style multi-million dollars show palaces, Patton Valley's tasting room is a wonderfully utilitarian space devoted to showcasing their excellent wines.

After doing a tasting, we headed outside the tasting room to sit in some Adirondack chairs and look out over the vineyards. It was the middle of harvest, so it was pretty busy in the winery behind us, with trailer loads of grapes arriving for processing.

Sitting out Back, Drinking 10-Acre

Monte and Shotgun, Scaring Starlings

Me and My Harem

It turned out that our visit to Patton Valley coincided with Ann's and my anniversary and these jokers picked up the bill behind my back as an anniversary present. Thank you very much! You are all great friends! But I will pay you back!

Oregon Trail

We had the time of a lifetime moving across the country from Virginia to Oregon. The map below shows our route and some of the places that we visited. Many of our friends called us crazy or asserted that we have really big balls and most said that they were envious that we were doing something that they had always wanted to do. Like most things in life that are extremely challenging, it mostly just takes an unwavering conviction to accomplish a journey such as this, a journey that requires leaving the comfort of an established life on one coast to face a total unknown on the other coast. Call it what you will, here it is.



Index of Posts by Day

  September 15, 2017: Oregon Trail: Moving Day
  September 16, 2017: Oregon Trail: Ohio to Lake Michigan
  September 17, 2017: Oregon Trail: The UP
  September 18, 2017: Oregon Trail: Michigan to South Dakota
  September 19, 2017: Oregon Trail: Badlands National Park
  September 20, 2017: Oregon Trail: Custer State Park SD
  September 21, 2017: Oregon Trail: Wyoming Day 1
  September 22, 2017: Oregon Trail: Wyoming Day 2
  September 23, 2017: Oregon Trail: Yellowstone and Idaho Falls
  September 24, 2017: Oregon Trail: Idaho
  September 25, 2017: Oregon Trail: Oregon!

Oregon Trail by the Numbers

  13 states
  11 days
  4300+ miles
  3.5 days in EDT
  3 days in CDT
  3.5 days in MDT
  1 day in PDT
  3 cameras
  1200+ photos 
  7 bald eagles
  1 great grey owl
  countless hawks and falcons
  sandhill cranes
  50ish wild turkeys
  thousands of pronghorns
  4 bighorn sheep
  7 elk
  hundreds of bison
  some mule, blacktail, and whitetail deer
  a solitary bull moose

I had not been to Ohio, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Montana, or Idaho before.
South Dakota takes the prize for being the most beautiful state.

Oregon Trail: Oregon!

It's Monday the 25th and the final day of our adventure in moving from Virginia to Oregon. It's been a lot of fun and its been tiring living in a cramped car and an endless stream of hotel rooms with two dogs. Grace doesn't seem to mind the life, head hung out of the car window and snoozing in the sunshine in between, but it's been tough on Charlie, he who hates to travel. He hasn't eaten well but he has managed OK despite his anxiety. It has seemed like a small victory each time we have been able to persuade him to eat.

Final Day on the Road
Why is Chuck Getting Breakfast in Bed?

Finally in the Pacific Time Zone after crossing into Oregon—how weird is it that this is home now?—we would make our final push to Yamhill in the Willamette Valley, 28 miles as the crow flies (and an hour in the car) southwest of downtown Portland. We're aiming to meander along the Columbia River, bypass Portland traffic, and arrive in Yamhill late afternoon. But first, coffee in Baker City before hitting the road. One of the great things about the PacNW is coffee, good coffee, everywhere. The roadsides are littered with tiny little drive-up coffee shacks.

Tiny Coffee Shop in Baker City, Quintessential Oregon

Northeastern Oregon is really cool high mountain desert of a type that I have never seen before. The mountains are really tall, pretty rugged, and totally treeless, quite the alien landscape for a guy from Virginia. Across in Washington state, it looks exactly the same. Google "Blue Mountains" if you've never seen this kind of otherworldly landscape. Further west, the mountains get more rugged and covered in what looks to be ponderosa pine for the most part.

Between La Grande and Pendleton on I-84 sits Deadman's Pass at 3631 feet in the mountains. We climbed more than 2,000 feet on some steep grades with a bunch of double-hairpin turns. It was unnerving to be on the outside of a logging truck going through some of these beastly curves. This section of I-84 follows the old Oregon Trail wagon road, a fitting place for us to be on this trip. There must be a lot of accidents involving trucks (likely brake overheating and failure). On the western downgrades, we saw one sign restricting truck speed to 18 mph.

At the pass, we stopped at the rest stop and to go to the scenic overview. The scenic overview is down a frontage road along the interstate and then along a dirt track winding through the woods for a ways. It is open range here and cattle were everywhere.

Off-The-Beaten-Path Scenic Overloook

The Columbia River even at this point hundreds of miles from the ocean is a serious river with tugboats pushing barges and here and there, buoys and floats for gill nets. We saw a lot of gill nets deployed; I'm not sure of the salmon seasons here, but this seems very late to me and the fish are likely to be a little thin from their trip up the river.

The Columbia River Gorge is spectacular and to see it closer and at slower speed, we got off I-84 at The Dalles and took the scenic US 30 through the hillsides covered in grasses and Oregon white oaks interspersed with huge ponderosa pines. We climbed the very twisty road up to Rowena Crest where we had great views of the river and Washington state across the river.

The Road Less Traveled

The Rowena Crest Viewpoint

The Columbia River and Washington State

Barge on the River

Brown Dog Loves the View

Black-tailed Doe

US-30 winds down through beautiful oak savannah, farms, and orchard land into the tiny town of Mosier where we picked up I-84 for a couple of moments until we exited at Hood River.

One Last River View

We left the Gorge at the town of Hood River and followed the Hood River up to Mount Hood which we never got to see fully for the abundant cloud cover. We got some teasing glimpses of it here and there, but nothing worth stopping for especially since it had started raining about the time we left Hood River.

On the back side of Mt. Hood, we picked up US 26 and headed back for the Portland area to pick up 99-W into the valley. Traffic on 99-W was terrible and that is all I will say about that. We were so frazzled by the traffic that we stopped at Chehalem Valley Brewing in Newberg on the way to the house in Yamhill, another 15 minutes down the road.

Final Road Beer

And there you have it. It was a long eleven days and we got to see some of the most spectacular scenery that this country has to offer. Now on with our new lives in Oregon.

Oregon Trail: Idaho

Tomorrow we arrive at our new home in Oregon. We're ten days in at this point and the sightseeing is mainly behind us. We have to get clear across two states in two days. It is 750 miles no matter how you slice it, so we buckled in for a couple of long road days. Still, at 75mph average speed (most of I-84 is posted at 80mph but there are constant construction zones), we did have a little slack in our schedule to get off the highway for a few minutes.

The first thing I noticed was lava. There are lava rocks everywhere and we have driven through a few cuts in lava beds. The rest of the place is flat, dead flat, and I have the distinct impression that there is but a very thin veneer of topsoil over lava beds. I also notice that it is very arid: just about every field has big irrigation rigs. Good thing the Snake River, which keeps getting wider every time we encounter it, has a lot of water.

The ever present irrigation rigs prove to be excellent perches for raptors. We see hundreds if not thousands of raptors. Every fence line and every irrigation rig has at least one if not more raptors perched upon it. Every couple of minutes, we see a kestrel hovering over some prey. As the Snake River came close to the highway, we saw four bald eagles perched right alongside the highway. Remember my U-turn in Wyoming to see two eagles in a tree and my thinking that I might never see such a sight again in my life? Never mind. Life is good.

But the most prominent sight? Potato fields. Mile upon mile upon mile of potato fields. And potato barns. Some are tiny, some are acres and acres under roof, but they all have one thing in common: the lower side walls are insulated with mounded dirt, rigid insulation, or some combination. I have never seen anything like this before, huge above-ground root cellars. Some of the larger warehouses have monster condensing units outside with refrigeration lines going inside. Potatoes are huge business here. We also saw row after row of potato harvesters, giant rolling conveyor belts that loosen the earth, scoop the potatoes and dirt onto an open conveyor that lets the dirt falls through and transports the potatoes to a truck or hopper.

Mustard in Eastern Idaho, A Rare Non-Potato Field

We Agree. Portland Beer in Idaho

Because we had a little slack in our day, we started looking for things along the interstate to amuse us and we quickly latched onto Shoshone Falls on the Snake River at Twin Falls, ID. The pictures we saw on the internet were amazing; they don't call it the Niagara of the West for nothing and at 208 feet high, it's taller than Niagara Falls. And bonus, it is perhaps a 10-minute detour off the highway to get to the park managed by the City of Twin Falls. As we were navigating the back roads to the park, we got a great view of a prairie falcon as it winged right in front of our windshield.

Shoshone Falls. Detour Number One

Snake River at Shoshone Falls

As you can see in the photo below, we didn't see the massive Niagara of the West that is shown in all the photos of the place. Waterflow was restricted to a trickle, the usual state of affairs at this time of year. Still, as a great place to get out of the car and stretch our legs, it was well worth the detour off the highway and the $3 entrance fee.

Where are the 208-Foot Falls?

Looking Downstream of the Falls

Small Waterfall at Park Entrance

Creek Spilling Into Snake River Canyon

Another Trickle

The Main Falls, Just About Dry

Butte Overlooking Canyon

I took leave of Ann to scramble higher on the canyon walls to get a different angle for my shots and at one point when I looked down at her from a couple hundred feet above, I saw this shot of her warming herself in the sun.

Warm Sun, Chilly Morning

Hillside Covered in Gutierrezia sarothrae, Broom Snakeweed

For the last week at least, we have been driving past clematis plants covered in their fuzzy seed heads. This is the first place that I have actually been able to walk up to a plant to see what it was. And to my surprise, it was still blooming, making the identification that much easier.

Clematis Seed Head

Invasive Clematis orientalis, Oriental Clematis

As I was scrambling on the hill sides, I came across a lot of prickly plants blooming pink. I was guessing they were Euphorbias, but that turned out not to be the case. I had no idea that I was looking at Prickly Russian Thistle aka Tumbleweed. It's a pretty undesirable invasive in most of the western US.

Salsola tragus, Prickly Russian Thistle (Tumbleweed)

We all recognize sunflowers when we see them, but when those of us back east see them, it's almost always because they've been planted in somebody's flower bed. And the ones we see are likely highly selected and bred for color, shape, and height. I find it really cool to see the native plants growing in their native habitat. It's fun to be where they grow just naturally. Of course, I am reminded of the vast fields of sunflowers grown as a crop in South Dakota.

Annual Sunflower, Helianthus annuus

After visiting the falls, we headed back to the highway for points west. There wasn't a lot to see along the road at this point, just mile after mile of high desert. West of Twin Falls the land becomes much more rugged and then the interstate dives down inside the Snake River canyon for a while. Off to our north, we had good views of the Sawtooth Range, some 60 miles distant.

About 1pm, we started getting really hungry so we looked for a nearby town. The next town of any size (there's a whole lot of nothing between Twin Falls and Boise) was Mountain Home. We were looking for a sit-down meal to get us out of the car, rather than fast food, of which we were totally sick.

We came across a Singaporean restaurant named Shiok. With visions of Singapore noodles running through my brain, we left the interstate to find the restaurant which is about 15 minutes south of the highway, right near the main gate for Mountain Home AFB. In other words, the restaurant is smack in the middle of nowhere, BFE to be exact. We wondered exactly why such a restaurant would be this far out in nowhere. The Air Force base, we guessed.

Pavement Mirage, Mountain Home ID

The food was well worth the effort. Of the four dishes we ordered, three were really good. Only a hot pot was not good, the worst kind of American-Chinese glop in a dish. We ordered extra Singapore Noodles to take with us for dinner.

Laksa Curry Noodles

Singapore Style Vermicelli

Salt and Pepper Calamari

After lunch we headed to Ontario on the Idaho-Oregon border. This is the point where we needed to decide which route to take across Oregon. We could go through the back country on either US-20 or US-26 or we could continue on I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge. It was the traveling with dogs deal that decided for us. It was tough enough finding a hotel that accepted dogs along the I-84 corridor. Traveling the backroads did not look like a win, so we stayed on I-84 until we came to a town with a hotel that accepted dogs, Baker City OR.

Northeast Oregon. Golden Brown Mountains with Zero Trees

After our dinner of leftovers, we turned in for our final night in a hotel, equally looking forward to our last day on the road and a bit sad that our great adventure was coming quickly to a close.