Richard & Karen at Tu Tu' Tun Lodge:
July 3, FridayOur plane left this morning at 7:30 am and everything went smoothly on the flight to Portland. Because it's the July 4th weekend, it was a full flight, but other than that, it was fine. After we arrived, we picked up our rental SUV and headed for Dundee where we had reservations at the
Black Walnut Inn for 2 nights. Along the way, I spotted a "
u-pick" cherry orchard in Sherwood, and I made Richard stop. It was so worth it - we picked 3 kinds of cherries: pie cherries, black, and Queen Anne. I can't even begin to describe how yummy they all were.
Although we could see the snow-covered Mount Hood in the distance, it was quite a hot afternoon - about 90. That's not too warm by Phoenix standards, but it's bad in direct sunlight. Dundee is only about 30 miles from Portland, but it took about an hour of driving time, due to heavy traffic.
Upon the recommendation of the folks at the orchard, we stopped at
Yamhill Grill for lunch and this meal did not disappoint. I had chicken in marionberry & pinot noir sauce that was scrumptious.
We then made our way to the Black Walnut Inn. I didn't have precise directions, but we just looked for a road in Dundee with a lot of vineyards, since I knew that the inn overlooked several vineyards. We found the right road - Worden Hills - and followed it up to the tallest hill, where we found a sign for the place. We were in awe - the inn looks a lot like a villa in France or Italy, except newer. It's high on a hill, with a gorgeous view of all the surrounding farms and vineyards. This is the entrance:
Views from the main terrace:
We had a little bit of daylight left, so we visited 3 wineries:
Erath,
Bella Vida, and the
Maresh Red Hills Vineyard.
We found out that this area is renowned for its pinot noir and we sampled about 4 or 5 at each vineyard. I think Erath is my favorite. Dick Erath, the previous owner of Erath now owns a winery in Willcox (Arizona), and it will be interesting to see what comes of his new winery there.
The inn offers a nice evening happy hour, so we sat on the balcony and had a pinot noir from a local vineyard and a variety of French cheeses. The inn is located near a forest as well as fields, and we saw lots of birds and butterflies while we were sitting there.
July 4, Saturday - All American Celebration!
This was a day for fireworks and homemade cherry pie. It started out with wine-tasting, and we made it to 6 wineries.
Our first destination was
Aramenta Cellars. The grounds are just beautiful, with a pond, fountain, and lots of bird feeders. The wine was good too:
We later visited
Trisaetum,
Beaux Freres,
Lawton Winery,
Adelsheim, and
Torii Mor. Each winery has about 4 or 5 kinds of pinot noir, and they were all good, but Adelsheim was my favorite.
Back at the inn, we had a real treat: not only homemade gourmet pizza and a gift bottle of wine from the owners, but also a fireworks show. Two neighboring vineyards - Bella Vida and Domaine Serene - put on a fireworks spectacular. We had a view of the entire valley, with lots of smaller fireworks in the distance - what a sight! In order to enhance our viewing pleasure, the owner of the inn, Karen, made a homemade cherry pie for us all to enjoy. It was a fun evening - sitting on the terrace watching fireworks and eating cherry pie.
July 5, SundayToday we drove from Dundee to Crater Lake - a trip of about 260 miles that took 5.5 hours. Once we got onto the scenic road north of the park (Hwy-138), progress was slower. We followed along the Umpqua River most of the way:
We came into the park via the north entrance, and I have this advice - don't go that way - take the south entrance, whatever you do! There were so many sheer drop offs without guardrails that I felt faint. Maybe it was the altitude. We made slow progress up to the lodge, at an elevation of 8,159 ft. At the top of the crater, it is surreal and breathtaking. I don't think I've ever seen such a deep blue:
It was about 70 - warm in the sun, and cool in the shade. We took a short hike up a trail near the lodge. Here is the lodge from the top of that trail. There is still snow on the ground!
The lodge has been recently renovated is gorgeous inside. We later ate in the dining room and had filet mignon in wild mushroom & merlot sauce that was delicious. We also sampled the local Crater Lake Pinot Noir. From our room we had a view of the lake. Richard got up at sunrise to get this photo of the sun coming up over the lake:
July 6, MondayWe were very pleased with the Crater Lake Lodge - such amazing architecture and food. After a wonderful breakfast there that included the best hash browns I've ever had in my life, we traveled 260 miles to Gold Beach. We didn't know it was so far, or that it would take so long - over 6 hours. We discovered that there is no easy route to get from Crater Lake to the Oregon coast. You must drive south to California to get to Hwy-101 and then follow it up the Oregon coast. It seemed strange to have to drive as far south as Crescent City, California in order to get to the Oregon coast, but the locals advised us to take that route. We were told that the other route, through the wilderness, is a real white-knuckle road, and so I convinced Richard not to try it! One benefit of the route we took was getting to drive through the
Smith River National Recreational Area in California. This area is a wilderness with lots of redwoods, streams, and mountains. To our surprise, we were stopped on our way into California for an agriculture inspection. Good thing we had eaten all our Oregon cherries by then!
When we finally got to Gold Beach, we found out that the signage for
Tu Tu' Tun Lodge leaves something to be desired. At the first 2 turns, there were signs, but at the last crucial turn, there is a faded & hidden sign that we missed. This only set us back for about 20 minutes, though, and we eventually found the turn off because Richard said we should go back and look at the sign we couldn't read the first time we passed it. Shortly afterwards, we found the lodge:
We then found our place, the River House:
The River House is so spacious that it's bigger than our home in Phoenix. It is surrounded by a huge deck that even has a hot tub. It has great views of the Rogue River, and the ospreys nesting there. We arrived here just in time for happy hour, and discovered that they have wine tasting. I made it my mission for our stay to try out every Oregon wine on the list, which was about 15 or so. At the end of our visit, I found my favorite to still be the Erath pinot noir. Too bad we can't get Oregon wines in Arizona!
July 7, TuesdayToday we decided to rest , after 2 days with lots of driving, so we didn't go anywhere. I'm still working on my camera skills, but here is my attempted video of the view from our deck:
We just lounged around the house, and I tried out the swimming pool and the hot tub.
I saw a family of
California Quail running across the yard this morning here from the deck of the River House:
We spent a lot of time just looking out from these windows at the amazing nature spectacle outside. We saw lots of birds, ducks, deer, and fish (jumping in the river). Here is the view from the inside of the River House:
We also visited the pier at the lodge:
The lodge has an a la carte menu, which means you only pay for the meals you eat there. Every evening, there was such a huge spread of appetizers that we didn't eat dinner, which we usually don't eat anyway. The appetizers tonight included salmon cakes, fresh steamed oysters, shrimp, and baked brie.
July 8, WednesdayFeeling rested, we decided to explore the coast south of Gold Beach today. As for the city of Gold Beach, we didn't find much to recommend it, as it's very small and doesn't have much in the way of places for tourists to visit. We drove south for about 20 miles and stopped at several places to walk along the beach or forest trails. Below are a few scenes from our trek:
At this stop, we walked through an awesome forest trail to get to the beach, and I saw my first
Chestnut-backed Chickadee - very cute.
Wild iris:
July 9, ThursdayBreakfast today was an egg & cheese panini as well as lots of Oregon fruit. I am getting spoiled by the fresh marionberries, blueberries, and raspberries. A breakfast speciality of the lodge is white bread made with corn meal flour, and it made a scrumptious sandwich this morning.
Our goal today was to explore the coast north of Gold Beach. About 30 minutes away, our first stop was the
Port Orford State Park beach. We walked a nice trail up to the lookout point:
In the category of you gotta hear the wind to believe it, I present this video taken at the beach lookout.
On our last night at Tu Tu' Tun, we decided to eat dinner, so we shared a meal. Geez - it was delicious, but sooooooooo much food! We had cheese popovers, spinach salad with fried shallot rings, beet soup, citrus-glazed scallops, roasted cauliflower, and chocolate croissant pudding. I have never seen such huge scallops - they called them diver scallops. I had not heard of these kind of scallops, so I had to look it up. In any case, they were by far the best scallops I have ever had.
July 10, FridayWell, today it was time to head back towards home. After enjoying fresh Oregon fruit for breakfast one last time, we packed up and left. We headed north up Hwy-101 along the coast. A memorable stop was the
Sea Lion Caves, an attraction located right off the highway. Once we got to the ticket counter, Richard didn't want to pay the $11.00 entry fee, but I talked him into it, and it was worth it. We took an underground elevator to an ocean cave where there are dozens of sea lions. You can watch them bark and swim around from behind a chain link fence. That is, the people are behind a fence, not the sea lions. This cave is NOT for the claustrophobic - not only is it dark and crowded, but it stinks to high heaven! Still, we enjoyed the experience, holding our noses the whole time...
There are also lots of seabirds in there and I saw a
Brandt's Cormorant for the first time. I enjoyed watching the Pigeon Guillemots, which had nests in the cave. The view below is looking out from the cave towards Heceta Lighthouse:
Closer view of
Heceta Lighthouse:
After about 7 hours of driving, we finally reached our destination city: Carlton. Finding the inn took us a while, but eventually we found it. It was complicated by the fact that I used Google maps instead of the map on the inn's website. We really loved the
Lobenhaus Bed and Breakfast. The hosts are so friendly and the food was fantastic! The owners, Joe and Shari, are originally from Phoenix. The grounds are spectacular, with a view of the river, vineyards, and forest:
In the evening, we visited a restaurant in Carlton called the
Horse Radish Cheese & Wine Bar where we enjoyed a selection of various wines and cheeses.
July 11, Saturday
Time to leave - this trip went too fast!
Our hostess, Shari, got us started with a delicious breakfast of heart-shaped hazelnut pancakes, baked bacon, eggs Florentine, and coffee. She also gave us some of her homemade lavender cookies (there was a lavender festival in this area at the time). We did make a couple stops on the way to the airport. We stopped at the orchard in Sherwood to pick more cherries, and also at one last winery: Sokol Blosser. This winery is set high on a hill, overlooking vineyards, and is quite picturesque. In addition to wine tasting, they were also having an oil tasting, which we enjoyed. Our plane left at 3:15 this afternoon, and we made our way back home without any glitches - yeah!
We arrived at the Briar Patch Inn around 4:00. This statue is in front of the office. Surrounded by feeders, it's a good place to watch birds:
This is the cabin where we stayed - Creekside:
And a view of the creek from our deck, where it cooled off nicely in the evening:
This is the garden where we always have our picture taken (see above!):
When we got to our table, we were surprised by a bouquet from Mom - everyone who walked by our table commented on how beautiful it was! This was an extra special treat!
Dinner at Garland's is always a highlight for us, and we savor every bite. Here is the menu we enjoyed this evening:
View from the bridge at the entrance to West Fork - the creek was pretty low:
Long, hot beginning of the trail, with no shade in sight!
Interesting black beetles with a red spot. I believe this is a type of nymph.
At the third river crossing, we saw several Painted Redstarts.
Richard crosses the creek in the hot sun:
Driving away from West Fork, I stopped to get a picture of this rock called the "Queen of Sedona." From the proper angle, you can see Queen Elizabeth I (second formation from the right):
We then visited the Page Springs Fish Hatchery which has a pond where you can buy fish food and feed the fish. This is often a great place to see birds, and we saw a Black Phoebe as well as a Summer Tanager. We got there kind of late in the day to be looking for birds however. Here is Richard feeding the fish:
In the large, shaded enclosure, you can see hundreds (or thousands?) of these baby fishes:
Conveniently located next door to the fish hatchery is a winery - Page Springs Cellars. We stopped here to sample a flight of red wine. All the red wine was pretty good! It's weird to see grapevines in the desert:
The outside of the winery:
