road trip – Page 40 – On the road with Jim

Grants Pass – Oregon

Our trip today took us up the Willamette Valley into the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon to Grants Pass (how do you have a possessive noun without an apostrophe?). A town in the mountains . . . sounds wonderful doesn’t it? In Silverton yesterday, the highs were in the 80’s and the lows in the 50’s. As we set up camp, I glanced at the thermometer, and the temperature was 104°. Compare that with the high in Congress today, which was 93°. What’s wrong with this picture?

Our drive was pleasant as we followed the Willamette River to its headwaters. South of Eugene, the rolling farm-land gave way to a low mountain range. We played tag with the trailer trucks, passing them on the up-grades and they’d return the favor on the down-hill runs. We had the cruise set at five miles over their speed limit, so they shouldn’t have been able to do that. For a moment I thought about calling the 800 number posted on the trailers and report their speeding, just for something to do, but that would have spoiled the drive. Besides, I would have had to wake Anne.

I noticed today that the great raptors circling in the sky are no longer eagles. They’re turkey buzzards, just like we have at home. They seem pinned to the sky, never moving their wings. I wonder why their arms don’t get tired.

We made the two hundred mile journey to Grants Pass in less than five hours. As I said, we were poking along, enjoying the ride. Because we got here during the heat of the day, we had to move all the new wine bottles out of Fritz and into The Ritz, where we could keep them air-conditioned. I’m afraid that will become a daily routine until we get home next week.

After the heat broke, we searched for a place to have dinner. We found a nice one called River’s Edge. It’s an upscale restaurant perched above a riffle on the Rouge River. The first thing you see in the entrance is a ginormous painting of a fly fisherman making an impossible cast. Still it was romantic in a River Runs Through It sort of way.

From the Deck at the River's Edge — I found it impossible to concentrate on dinner, when the river called to me.

We had a very good meal, but while we sat there, I wanted to go get my fly rod out of the truck. That river called to me. “Fish me! Fish me!” It was the haunting voice of the Goddess of Fly Fishing (maybe we should have a contest to give her a pseudo mythological name). Anne kept gushing on about how romantic it was, and I kept looking for steel-head in the riffle.

We left just after the bus came in. Two large tables were reserved for a group of octogenarian on the lowest deck. They walked through the door with canes and walkers. The restaurant didn’t have access ramps, so they struggled down the stairs clutching at the railing and each other. They certainly had the best seat in the house, and undoubtedly an excellent dinner, still . . .

Blue Bear in Grants Pass — A sculptor of a blue bear reading a fairy tale to its cub. Is that a Goldilocks tattoo on her chest? “Eat my porridge will you?”

On the way back to camp, we stopped in downtown so I could take some snaps. Bear sculptures decorate downtown Grants Pass. That surprised me, because after Alaska, how could there be any bears around this much civilization. All of California’s grizzlies were wiped out by 1855. The statues are artists interpretations as each was different. There weren’t any plaques explaining their existence or meaning, just the artist’s name.

The Redwoods Hotel with a mural of the original Hotel Josephine painted on its wall. The five-story structure was an addition to the original which suffered a fire and was torn down. Now the original hotel lives on as a mural on the side of the addition.

Tomorrow we’ll take the Redwood Highway to Eureka, where we will spend a couple of days. We read that there is a walking tour of the Victorian Era homes available, so that has Anne excited. As you already know, I love to shoot old buildings, so I’m looking forward to it too. Maybe it will be cooler down by the Pacific.

Rogue Theater — The Rogue theater was converted from a movie theater to live performances. In addition to the bill on the marquee, Iris DeMent is coming in October.

Willamette Valley – Oregon

I want a job where my sole responsibility is visiting wineries and tasting the varietals they offer. I think I’d be good at it, and I promise I wouldn’t spit anything out. Who am I kidding? Like any job, it would be a drag after a while, but it would be fun until my liver gave out.

That’s how Queen Anne and I spent the afternoon, and ‘they learned us’ a thing or two about Oregon wines. Most of the wineries in the state are in the Willamette Valley, a broad river valley that stretches from Eugene to Portland. The west flank has a low coastal range of mountains and the Cascades separate the valley from the high deserts to the east.

View From Erath Vinyards — The four tasting rooms we visited were an area known as the Dundee Hills. Although we stuck to four, we could have easily worked the area for a week.

What grows well here is the Pinot Noir grape, because of the weather and the soils. When you visit a tasting room, you may sample one of these or one of those, but a half-dozen Pinots. Two of the four places we visited had two bottles of the same wine, but only the vine location or the year set them apart. Although they had the same general taste, their personalities were distinct. Choosing which to buy was a matter of personal preference, both were excellent bottles of wine.

Willamette Farm House — There are gobs of photogenic things to shoot in the Willamette Valley. In this case it was an abandoned farm-house along the back-road.

Another fun thing about visiting tasting rooms is the presentations. The large vintners have lavish gardens and a showroom full of ancillary things for sale. The smaller growers may only have a room at the back of the farm-house. Production size is not a good indicator of the quality. The better known labels do offer bottles not available in . . . say, Costco. They have labels marked ‘Reserve’ or ‘Private Reserve’ which are low volume hand crafted wines. Our experience has been that these bottles are substantially better than what you would buy off the shelf.

Pine Grove — Only in New Zealand have I seen crop forests planted as dense as here. It’s so dark inside the grove, I wouldn’t be able to shoot without a tripod.

So much for the fun part . . . back to work. Tomorrow we will be on the move again. This time to Grant’s Pass in southern Oregon. We’re only going to stop for a night and the next day we will head to the coast and Eureka, California. Anne and I never actually visited the town, although we stayed nearby. We’re excited to check it out.

Silverton – Oregon

Capital Theater — Sunday evening, we went to Yakima’s old town to find a place for dinner. As we sat at our table, I noticed this theater across the street and went outside to shoot it and particularly, the restored painted sign on its side. Since it was cloudy out, the shot came out OK, but bland. When we finished dinner, the sun dropped below the cloud’s edge and lit the place up, so I decided to re-shoot the scene. However this time there was a group of young women doing a photo shoot of their own, so I included them into my composition.

After a wonderful day of sampling Washington wines yesterday, we continued on our journey south this morning. Our route took us down the east side of the Cascades till we reached the Columbia River. After crossing the bridge into Oregon, we drove through the ever windy Columbia Gorge, where even on a Monday, there were plenty of wind surfers skimming the white-capped river. Then, just short of Portland we turned south through the Willamette Valley.

Hydro-Electrical Dam on the Columbia River. — There are several dams along the Columbia River that produce gobs of electricity. Although they cause their fair share of ecological problems, it was the power these dams generated that made it possible to produce aluminum on an industrial scale. Aircraft industry used that aluminum to build the planes that helped the allies win WWII.

We’ve stopped in Silverton, a place we’ve visited before more than a fifteen years ago. It’s a couple of miles north of the 45th Parallel; the halfway line between the north pole and the equator. When we were last here, Silverton’s downtown was a cluster of empty historic buildings waiting for re-purposing. Now, they’re filled with boutiques, restaurants, and antique shops. It was fun to walk the couple of blocks trying to find someplace for dinner, but it was Monday, and most of the businesses were closed.

Downtown Silverton — An example of the carefully restored buildings in Silverton.

We chose Silverton because it’s a convenient base for exploring the vineyards of the Willamette Valley, Oregon’s wine country. It’s going to be a rough day tomorrow, because we have to sit down and whittle the list of stops down to six. That seems a good number for us to taste without getting our taste buds confused.

Sllverton Mural — A new mural is being painted on a blank wall of a Silverton Building.

After we leave here on Wednesday, we’ll head toward south Oregon then make our way over to the Pacific Coast. We want to spend some time along the coast before we go through the Sonoma/Napa Valleys. As much as we’d like to add some of those bottles to our collection, they may be out of our budget. There’s no harm in finding out, is there?

Yakima – Washington

It felt good to leave the Seattle noise and traffic behind today. The weather was sunny and dry with highs near 90, but the evenings cooled down enough to sleep with the windows open. If you like to have background noise while falling asleep, the Seattle freeways do a great job of providing that.

This morning we climbed over the Cascades to get to Yakima. This section of road kept confusing my senses. It never felt like we were going up a steep grade. Several times, I thought we were going downhill, but the big trucks were lumbering in the slow lane and my mileage gauge kept going down.

The west side has dense forest with lots of lakes and streams. The tall trees on either side of the highway acted like horse blinders hiding everything behind them. The only clue that we were in the mountains was what little we could see of them through the front window.

Finally we reached the pass at West Summit, and began descending into the Columbia Basin and the northern reaches of the Great Basin Desert. Instead of dark green conifer trees, tawny low sage brush the terrain cover the terrain, and the views open in all directions.

As we drove through one curve, a great snow-capped volcano crowning the Cascades appeared in front of us. “Is that Rainier?” “No it can’t be, because it should be to the east of us.” Then a second one came into view to the right, “Which is that one?” “Don’t know!” Just then we passed a sign with two arrows and mountain names. It was like they knew what we were talking about. Rainier was on the right and Mount Adams was in front of us.

We left Interstate 90 at Ellensburg and picked up 82 south. We crossed another range of low hills that would make any Nevadan or Arizonan feel at home. After reaching the top, the road dropped into the Columbia Basin and Yakima. I wondered how they could grow crops here until we crossed the Yakima River. Duh! Apple orchards, hop vines and row after row of grape vines lined each side of the road.

Yakima Barn — An old barn along the Yakima Highway

The agriculture corridor runs along the Yakima River for about sixty miles and there are maybe a hundred wineries we could try if we wanted to go blind. We got into camp early enough that we had time to stop at a couple of nearby tasting rooms. I’m pleasantly surprised at how nice their red wines taste. We picked up a couple of bottles and got some recommendations for tomorrow. It’s been our experience that stopping at each vineyard along the road isn’t productive, because our taste buds get confused.

Yakima BBQ — A historic downtown Yakima building is a place for local BBQ.

On the way back to camp, we drove through old town. As you know, I love to shoot historic old buildings and I suspected that I might find some here. I was right, and I may have to get out early to shoot more in the morning. Some of the buildings have trendy restaurants, so it looks like coming here was a good choice all around.

Commercial Saloon — I love finding old painted signs on brick buildings and I think they should be preserved.

Everett – Washington

Shoot out at the border.

We spent three nights in Vancouver at a very nice RV Park, but when we got ready to leave yesterday morning, I found out that it was only a couple of miles from the border crossing. “Great,” I told Anne, “We’ll get a late start, I’ll buy gas with the remaining Canadian money, and still be in Seattle by noon.” Since it was early on Wednesday morning, we really didn’t expect much traffic, there was little reason to go eleven miles out of our way to the smaller port of entry on BC15.

Peace Arch — While you’re in line to cross the border at Interstate 5, you get to enjoy this lovely park. Just don’t get out of your car.

As it turns out, BC99 is Interstate 5 after crossing the border, and very few customs stations handle more traffic than this one. It was ten lanes wide with traffic backed up for a quarter of a mile. We were committed now, so I picked a slow lane. It really didn’t matter, because which ever lane we would have chosen, would wind up the slow lane.

After about a half hour, we finally made it to the customs agent (or are they TSA? maybe border patrol . . . whatever), who turned out to be Edwina (Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona). She rattled off the standard questions; Where do you live?, How long were you in Canada, Why did you go to Canada, did you buy anything in Canada, are you carrying any meat or produce with you . . .

“Well, we have some bacon, but we bought that in Montana, and some steaks, which we bought at the Anchorage Costco. We don’t have and citrus.” (I knew that citrus is a very bad thing to have.) “We just have a tomato, a couple of potatoes and an onion.”

Hearing that, Ed’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed and she filled out an orange slip and slapped it on the windshield. “Follow the yellow arrows to the building over there, then take the form inside along with your passports for further inspection.” We obediently followed the yellow arrows and went inside.

Inside, there was a very long line, which as it turned out, was for the bathrooms. Relieved (in a different kind of way), we entered the main hall and saw a much bigger line snaking its way to a very large counter. Forget what you know about TSA lines, this was worse. There actually were two lines, one said Nexus, Agriculture, Meat. That line was empty, so it couldn’t possibly be the right one. The other line was for everybody else and everybody else was already in that line.

We stood for a moment trying to figure out which line we belonged in, when a sweet young customs woman walked up and asked if she could answer our questions. We explained what Ed had told us and we were just trying to figure out which was the correct line.

“Oh, this is for produce, you’re here to see me, come up to the counter over there.” That was a first, but who was I to argue. We met her at the counter and handed our passports and orange form to her and explained about where we lived, why we went to Canada, how long we were there, where we left the States and did we own the truck and trailer. She slipped a declaration slip across the counter for us to fill out and sign.

“We’ll need to inspect the produce, may I have the keys please?”

“Sure, I show you,” I offered.

“No, you and your wife take a seat on the window sill over there and we’ll call you when we’re ready. Is this the trailer key?”

I explained that it wasn’t and told her where the trailer keys could be found in Fritz. Then we took our place on the window sill, with all the other smugglers.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only half that long, she came back in and summoned us to the counter. She showed us a bag of evidence: the remaining beautiful beefsteak tomato and five small Yukon Gold potatoes we bought from Michael in Clinton. “I’ll have to confiscate this produce.”

Anne actually blurted out, “Can I at least have a bite of the tomato?” That didn’t go over very well, and she moved the bag out of reach then bid us a safe trip and handed back our passport and signed orange slip. As we left, she said something curious, “Be sure to check the trailer and lock it.” So, once outside, we did.

It was now noon-thirty; two and a half hours later. We got into Fritz and headed out the exit with our orange get out of jail free card. The gate guard examined it and lifted the barrier. Once again, we were free US Citizens.

We stopped for lunch and then headed for our new camp site. After checking in and parking the trailer, we opened the door. Aah! It looked like two pigs had a cat fight in there. The doors and drawers were all left opened and all of their contents spilled out on the floor. Neither one of us knew how to react. I felt so . . . violated.

We’re spending a couple of days in the Seattle area to restock, regroup and to visit some dear friends living here. After that we’ll be traveling over the Cascades to Yakima, the center of Washington wine country. We could use a bottle or two.

Victoria – British Columbia

It was our last day in Canada, so how could we not visit British Columbia’s capital city, Victoria? Of course that means taking the ferry from Vancouver and a bus ride downtown. The cost of a walk-on ferry ride is $16.50 (Canadian) each way, and an all day bus pass is $5.00 (Canadian), so the trip wasn’t expensive. Riding the bus, however, doesn’t allow you time to dawdle and take pictures, and when I have to take public transit, Weird Al Yankovic’s, Another One Rides the Bus constantly runs through my brain.

Since we had limited time to spend in Victoria, I asked her majesty what she most wanted to do. Unequivocally, she answered that she’d like to have lunch at the Empress Hotel. “That’s where the Queen stays when she visits, and so I should appear there too.” She offered to buy, so why not.

Queen Anne and Empress Hotel — Anne’s overwhelming desire, was to have lunch at the Empress Hotel. Since it’s where royalty stays, she felt obligated to follow tradition.

When the bus dumped us off at the inner harbor, I thought to myself, “Wow! This is the closest I’m going to get to Monaco.” Like the famous principality, the inner harbor is rectangular, with the Legislature building on the left flank, some other grand buildings on the right flank, and the Empress Hotel commanding the center two blocks.

The harbor is full of yachts of all sizes, and is very busy with water taxis, float planes, and the Ferries from Washington. Adding to the festival are street artists performing for coins in a hat. There was even a man crocheting a scarf with a hat out for donations. That was a new one for me.

Anne Picks Out Our New Fishing Dingy — After her delusions on the hotel veranda, we went boat shopping, and Anne picked out this one.

If there isn’t enough activity there to keep your attention, fisherman’s wharf is a few blocks in one direction, while Chinatown a few in the other. Food? It seemed that every other store front was a restaurant. I did a search on TripAdvisor.com and in Victoria, there are over eight hundred restaurants to choose from.

As for lunch, we had an excellent experience on the Empress’s front veranda. I am so going to steal that recipe for a simple grilled chicken sandwich, with a side of dill seasoned French fries. The down side was that I had to keep dragging Anne back to our table, because she kept trying to wave to the passing crowd from the head of the stairs. If you want to eat at the Empress, let me warn you, the bill comes in a white envelope. Class, real class.

Harbor Seals at Fisherman's Wharf — One of the entertaining things to do at Fisherman’s Wharf is to watch people feed cut up mackerel to the harbor seals.

After our two-hour lunch, we walked around the harbor and strolled down to fisherman’s wharf before calling it a day and catching the bus back to Swartz Bay (and another gets on . . . ) to catch a ferry back to Vancouver. To top off an already great day, there wasn’t any traffic on the drive back to the RV Park . . . perfect.

Ferry and Mt. Rainier — There are lots of ferries to see when crossing to the BC islands. This happened to be going by Mt. Rainier as we cleared a small island.

Vancouver – British Columbia

I hate Vancouver, and I love Vancouver.

We’ve been in Vancouver for two consecutive days and at the end of each day, we’ve been caught up in traffic that, in each time lasted over an hour and one half. As I explained in the last post, the jam was due to a freeway construction closure, today there was an accident in the tunnel. As the traffic crawled along (my average miles per hour for the day was 15 mph), Queen Anne found an alternate route on the map.

We took the off ramp and sped away from the caterpillar of cars and within a half mile, caught the end of another caterpillar. The radio announcer updated the traffic report. “Traffic on the 99 is dead slow due to a head on collision in the Massey Tunnel. If you’re in that mess, just stick it out because traffic everywhere else is worse.” Jeez! We were trying to make our way back to camp after having a marvelous day in Vancouver.

It started in the morning when I came back from the camp office and told Anne that the air smells of west coast. It’s a pleasant smell of moist cool air with a hint of ocean. The last couple of days, the mornings are not quite cool enough for a light sweater, and shorts and tee-shirt are perfect in the afternoon.

Trying to figure out a schedule for the day, we came across an online debate comparing the famous Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, and the gardens at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. They’re both stunning rock quarry gardens, but one is open to the public and doesn’t need a ferry ride. So we decided to check it out.

When we got there we found that there was a rather nice restaurant next to the park, and that called for lunch. The restaurant, Seasons at the Park, looked pretty swanky, so when we walked in I asked about a dress code. “We have none.” Planners built The Seasons on the highest hill in Vancouver and our window table had a view of downtown with the coastal mountains in the distance. Up close, the window overlooked the gardens. It was hard to concentrate on lunch, which by the way, was excellent.

Table Side View From the Seasons — The Seasons is situated on the highest Vancouver hill so the views overlook downtown and the distant coastal range.

Afterwards, we took a leisurely stroll among the flowers and trees. I’ve been to a couple of renown gardens, and I can’t believe this place is free to the public and so immaculate. If you don’t care so much for formal gardens, the Vancouver Botanical Gardens is next door. You could OD on plants in one day, if you had the mind to.

Queen Elizabeth Gardens — The Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver has two quarry gardens for the price of none.

Anne wanted me to see the Gastown District. In 1886, Vancouver, like San Francisco, suffered from a catastrophic fire, which destroyed large sections of the original town. The Gastown was spared of the fire, so the historic buildings left now hold fashionable stores, sidewalk cafes, boutiques and galleries. All of the things that draw tourists, and they were there in droves. Although the district is about three blocks wide, the good stuff is on Water Street. If you miss it by a block, you’ll find yourself in the mission district, but there’s spill over anyway.

Gastown District of Vancouver — Gastown is Vancouver’s Scottsdale. All the right shops, bars and boutiques . . . and all the tourists.

We walked the sidewalks and came across a crowd hanging around an old brass grandfather-style clock with four faces. I noticed the time was a few minutes before three, so I guessed the crowd was waiting for the clock to chime. While we hung around, I read the clocks plaque. It’s a steam clock! I thought it was a relic of the 1800’s and it’s still working . . . amazing! At the stroke of three, the top whistles began to play the Westminster Quarters. This was way too cool, and to prove it, the crowd applauded as it finished.

Steam Clock — The steam-powered clock in Vancouver’s Gastown.

I’ve learned since then that Raymond Saunders built the clock in 1977 because the city needed to do something about a steam vent on a crowed city sidewalk. The clock is steam-powered, except for an electric motor driving a wheel that controls the chime notes. Wikipedia also mentions that the clock was on Nickelback’s album Here and Now.

After a great day the Queen and I got on the freeway for camp . . .