Oregon Coast. Yep, it's foggy but not always.

We headed to the Oregon Coast by way of the Smith River Canyon. To do so we first drove further north in Oregon (to Grant's Pass) and then south back into California. It's a nice drive and it is pretty much the only way to get to the southern Oregon coast.  We stopped along the way for hikes, views, and carnivoras flowers, specifically  "darlingtonias", large native pitcher plants.  

Darlingtonia (pitcher plant that is about 1 foot tall)

We stopped in Brookings for lunch at the Black Trumpet and to check out the Azelea Garden.  We decided to try the draft beers. Pat learned that she quite like Black Butte Porter and Bill likes Alaskan Amber. After lunch we drove to the Azelea Gardens (we had just missed the annual Azelea festival, but lots were still in bloom, although the Rhododendrons were more in their prime. Nearby there is a lovely chapel (Capella by the Sea).

The Rhododendron at the Azelea Garden were in full bloom.
The azeleas were a little past their prime.

The Chapel by the Sea is lovely.

Then we drove up the coast to Bandon, stopping at most of the scenic turnoff along the ways.  We've heard that the weather along the NW coast isn't always foggy and rainy but we definitely got our share of fog. (Inland it was hot and beautiful...but that does tend to bring the fog to the coast.)  

Pat fondly remembers being so amused by an Oregon Beach we visited in 1984 that was covered with huge driftwood tree trunks (some probably 20-30 feet long). She was hoping to find it again. We found some interesting "driftwood", but not that beach.  

Pat on a piece of driftwood.

After a quick stop at a shop selling preserves (where we bought some blackberry and some huckleberry jam) we arrived at our hotel on the beach in Bandon.

View from our room  - it would be prettier with sun...
And we would have explored more if it were warmer
and there were less wind. Sigh...

Thursday AM we were off early despite the continued grayness...luckily we got a little sun now and then, even at our first stop, the gardens at Shore Acres. 

Barberry...such bright blooms and berries

The most lush Monkey Puzzle Tree...ever!  Apparently it likes the foggy coast.

We went slightly inland to Lakeside for lunch at a small tavern (Up the River). We both enjoyed our BLT's accompanied by fries (Bill) and tater tots (Pat) and Black Butte Porter and Alaskan Amber (this time from bottles).  

At a brief stop for gas we noticed a huge pile of wood shavings with lots of truck activity. The service station attendant (yep, they exist in Oregon...where you are not legally allowed to fill your own tank) informed us the shavings were bound for Japan.

Wood shavings bound for Japan

Next stop: Sea Lion Cave, home to Stellar Sea Lions and cormorants. We walked to an overlook and saw many sea lions with babies. Then we took the elevator down to the large cave used by primarily in the winter.

The cave minus the sea lions who prefer being outside in the summer

Sea lion family

We were joined for dinner at "April's at Nye Bech" by Paul & Jane Germani (friends from San Miguel who summer in Eugene OR). Bill enjoyed his Chinook Salmon and Pat her Scallops. We all enjoyed the Trium Viognier from the Rogue Valley, the chocolate dessert and the conversation (as well as the dinner) and basically closed the place down.

Chinook Salmon

Chocolate Dessert...if you
share it, there are NO calories!

We spent the next day exploring Newport OR...starting at the Oregon Coast Aquarium with it's impressive exhibits of birds and sea life.

Young pelican hoping for another fish before leaving his perch 

Sea Otter...they are so darn cute! 

Sea Anemones 

Tufted Puffins

Later we shopped around the Old Port and Nye Beach enjoying our lunch at Saffron Salmon (cod sandwich for Bill and caesar salad with Salmon for Pat). Before returning to our room we visited Yaquina Head Lighthouse. We had a light evening snack in the room (Focaccia from the Panini Bakery followed by a biscotti and some Pinot Noir dessert wine).

Saturday. It was time to leave the coast for Portland on Saturday. Finally some sunshine!! 

Dare we stop at Cape Foulweather??? We did and the weather was far better than the day when Captain Cook arrived and named the Cape according to the weather he experienced. But first we checked out Otter Rock with a short walk to the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Along the way we encountered a young squirrel getting a little attention from his Mom (or some such combination.)  We also found a rather dated ice cream truck.  

Devil's Punch Bowl

Cape Foulweather

Next stop: Depoe Bay, a spot for whale watching (none for us) and a visit to the whale watching center with various artifacts and statistics re whale migration, birthing, sizes, etc... Further along we enjoyed a walk in the Taft area of Lincoln Beach where we encountered the giant drift wood Pat had been seeking. 

Pat on more driftwood

Two kids who are a bit more creative than Pat re posing on driftwood

Then we crossed the 45th Parallel (halfway between the Equator and the North Pole)...significant because in August we will be celebrating our 50th HS Reunion nearby the 45th Parallel in Maine.

In Tillamook we tasted cheese!!  

We had lunch at Mo’s in Cannon Beach before turning inland toward Portland.

Mo's Grilled Oysters with Fries...Pat's choice

Photo of the iconic Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach

Ashland Oregon...Shakespeare, Crater Lake, Wine Tasting, Shopping

Friday, May 22, we were off to Ashland OR. We stopped briefly to buy fresh cherries along the way and encountered a little rain for one of Pat’s stints behind the wheel. We didn't get to see Mt Shasta, but noted that Shasta Lake seemed a bit low...no surprise given the drought. 

Shasta Lake...a bit light on water

We arrived  safe and sound in Ashland in the late afternoon. We enjoyed dinner at Martino’s - a Viognier from Pebblestone with a lobster risotto (Pat) and smoked salmon ravioli (Bill).

Lobster Risotto

Smoked Salmon Ravioli in a
Fresh Tomato Sauce

Saturday we wandered around town, discovering that Ashland is a sister city of Guanajuato MEX (our neigboring city). We realized this as we shopped the artisan market along the creekside "Calle Guanajuato”. (FYI: “Calle" is “Street” in Spanish.) After a little shopping we had lunch at a Brew Pub and stopped at an Enoteca (wine tasting room) for a light dinner and music.

Two of the four theaters in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Group

On Sunday we toured the Applegate Wine Valley near Jacksonville, a quaint town with interesting 1850’s architecture.  

Jacksonville

Six wineries later (3 made the short list - Troon, Cowhorn, and John Michael Champagne Cellars), with a pizza lunch at Dancin Vineyards, we returned to Ashland and enjoyed our dinner seated at the bar at Lark’s.  

Countryside View

The "short" list

Monday we ventured off to Crater Lake. Along the way short hikes take you to waterfalls and an area, including a stream, strewn with boulders. A bit further along a walk along the Rogue River Gorge reveal some oddities, a living tree stump (living off roots that are interconnected with a living tree, and a natural bridge where the water suddenly disappears only to reappear about 30 feet further downstream. 

At Mill Creek Falls

The stream strewn with boulders

The dark blue water in the caldera and the lingering winter’s snow made the Crater Lake stop memorable and intensely blue. In addition there were birds and a chipmunk to entertain us.  

Crater Lake is renowned for it's intense blue color

This chipmunk seems to think it is a prairie dog

On the way back to Ashland we stopped at Beckie’s for pieces of blackberry pie and fresh strawberry pie (no calories, really!) While enjoying our pie we overheard two couples talking about the house one couple had purchased in, yep you got it, San Miguel.  We soon learned that Kathy and Kurt have a house about 2 blocks from ours. 

Later we enjoyed a few "small plates” paired with wines at Liquid Assets (cava with stuffed dates, viognier with salmon rillets, a rose with the lettuce wedge, a zinandel & a Nero d’Avola with the mushrooms). Dessert was a local pseudo ice wine pinot noir - very tasty (the grapes were frozen after harvest).

Given our uncertainty re timing we were delayed in booking tickets for plays in Ashland. What with being there for Memorial Day weekend, the weekend tickets were gone…but we got tickets to see two plays on Tuesday, the musical "Guys and Dolls” and “Pericles” by Shakespeare;  Both were very fun and well done.

We enjoyed a creekside lunch at Louis (very good) and dinner at Eleven (a basque place that sounded promising, but was disappointing).  

On the Road Again...includes full itinerary of the Great US Roadtrip

During our “Break” in San Miguel, we waited impatiently for our permanent residency visas. We also worked to tie up loose ends for Jóvenes Adelante, and, more importantly, we spent our time planning our trip and booking accommodations through our stay on Long Island over Labor Day weekend.

Friday May 15: finally Bill’s visa is ready. But NOT Pat’s.  Still we start packing and preparing for a quick getaway. Monday afternoon (36 days into the break): Pat’s is finally ready and both are delivered to us. We immediately make reservations (flight & shuttle) for the next morning. Tuesday: Finally we are on the road (in the air) arriving at 8:30pm in San Jose. Thanks to Patty for meeting us at the airport (in our car) to pick us up.  

We had hoped for more time in California but we (apparently optimistically) booked things with our first real stop on stage 2 of the trip being in Ashland OR on Friday night. 

We spent the next two days organizing our stuff and picking up a few things for the road while hanging around Patty & Matt’s in Los Altos.

Below is our trip overview. Everything is plotted out on Google Maps, with stops highlighted by stars. For details re the route and timing, see below.

• Depart SMA Tuesday May 19!!!
• May 22 - Jun 11: Ashland, Oregon Coast, Portland & Seattle. We have a “hosted” Home Exchange in down town Seattle. This means that later we will be hosting our new friends in San Miguel.
• Jun 11 - Jun 25: Brief stop in Boise Idaho, on to Salt Lake City, Page Arizona and then meeting friends (Steve & Sarah, Grant & Su, Peter & Peggi) for a couple days in Moab.  Then we’ll spend a few days in Denver with Peter & Peggi. I think Steve & Sarah will be there then as well.
• Jun 30 - July 19: Back north to see Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands. Then on to Minneapolis MN, Madison WI and Chicago. We’ll stay in downtown Chicago for 10 days through another Home Exchange.
• Jul 19 - July 30: Then through Detroit (gotta see the Diego Rivera Murals & the Henry Ford Museum) to Niagara Falls, Kingston ONT (the visit friends and the local wine country) and Montreal.
• July 30 - Aug 8: Arriving in Maine likely on July 30 (Our 50th High School Reunion is August 1.) Stay in Dexter/Garland/Mooshead Lake area visiting family & friends.
• Aug 8 - Aug 25: Spend a week in Bar Harbor, then Boothbay and Freeport, then on through Portsmouth to Boston.
• Next Newport RI and Long Island.
• We’ll be in NYC from Sep 10-20.
• Move on to Wilmington, Washington DC, and Charleston SC 
• Arrive in Savannah around the 11th of Oct.
• From there we go to Florida and pick up Bill’s mom who will join us for awhile, probably through New Orleans where plan another home exchange there but haven’t booked it yet.
• From there we hope to visit friends in OK and then onto San Antonio.
• In Texas we plan to sell our car and then likely we’ll head back to SMA. But if we still have the travel bug, who knows?

Onwards to the California and the Bay Area

April 4: Onwards to Carmel CA
The drive to Carmel was broken up by a stop at Tobin James Winery in Paso Robles for a tasting. We encountered several 30-somethings celebrating a B’Day. We lingered talking to one who teaches yoga in Mexico - Baja Norte. The wines and conversation made for a good break in long drive.  The weather in Carmel was a little chilly and windy. The seafood at Flahertys, Scallops & a Lobster Melt, was quite enjoyable.

Here are a few shots of some of the scenic highlights of the drive...

An Oil Farm

A Wind Farm - a cleaner look for a cleaner source of energy

Mission San Miguel - to help us deal with being away from SMA for so long

April 5: Hanging Out

Happy Easter! We spent the day strolling around town and shopping. The lunch break at Little Napoli included roasted artichoke and gnocchi and a bottle of Primitivo. We especially enjoyed returning to Demetra's (after a few years) for a "mediterranean dinner", in our case with an emphasis on Greece and a fine Agiorgitiko (Greek red wine).

The Beach at Carmel

April 6: Onwards to Los Altos & the Bay Area

We headed "home" to Los Altos by way of Capitola, a favorite stop of ours. We wandered around the shops and enjoyed lunch at a seaside restaurant. A great thing about this route is the that there are several farm stands that carry strawberries and artichokes. We topped and loaded up on both.

Capitola

Visiting with Friends in the Bay Area

It was amazing how many good friends we managed to visit in our short time in the Bay Area... a group from Apple, old friends from Stanford Business School, and more. 

In our brief visit with the Albrights we enjoyed some amazing wines.

The Heitz is 1984, the BV is 1978 and the Unico is 1970. Wow! We also enjoyed sampling some Chartreux!

On a visit to Half Moon Bay (actually El Granada) we visited Grant & Su's new home where Tom & Monica joined us for dinner.  We arrived early and shopped a bit and then hiked along the "Devil's Slide" area.  The last time we were there it was the Coast Highway. Now the highway is diverted through tunnels (due to the many issues with landslides in the area.)

We 

Pat Li came down from the city to explore with us and then have dinner with Fred & Sue. Before meeting up with Pat we wandered around Palo Alto.  And we almost missed the new Apple Store there because the glass front makes the space almost seem like just open space.

The new Apple Store in Palo Alto

The primary trigger for our US Roadtrip was the fact we planned to move to "Permanent Resident" status in Mexico and as such we cannot drive a US plated car there. Since our car was made in Japan (as opposed to a NAFTA country (ie Canada, US or Mexico) we could not "nationalize it" and get Mexican plates. So we need to sell the our 10 year old Honda CRV which had around 24,300 miles on it when we left Mexico. This just seemed a sacrilege. So we devised a plan (a US Roadtrip) to add miles before selling. 

To become Permanent Residents, we needed to return to Mexico while the paperwork was processed. So we left our car in the good care of Patty & Matt in Los Altos and returned to Mexico.  

Las Vegas

This is being posted in late May. We wrote the notes in April but apparently never quite completed the posting. Maybe we are finally getting our priorities right???

April 1: Grand Canyon to Vegas

We started our 4 hour drive from Tusayan (by the Grand Canyon) to Las Vegas after breakfast. The terrain along the highway was interesting but not very photogenic. We passed by Hoover Dam at the Nevada border with thoughts of stopping for a tour. The traffic line stretched several miles from the highway to the viewing point. We’ve been there before and we don’t like long waits, so we passed by. 


Vegas during the day is fairly acceptable. Vegas after 8pm (at least during Spring Break) is pretty crazy. The Grand Canyon was extremely busy but thinking back about it while in Vegas...it seems pretty calm (compared to the frenetic Vegas life.) Where do all these people come from? Well we know they come from everywhere. Native languages seem to span the world.  In fact we heard far less English than we expected. 

New York New York Resort - Note Rooftop Roller Coaster

The Paris Resort

When we were last in Vegas (maybe 1998) we really enjoyed life on the Strip. We don’t gamble but with the new Resorts (Mirage, Bellagio, Venetian, Paris…), the great shows (Cirque du Soleil, the Blue Men, David Copperfield, …), the great new restaurants, and the relatively calm Strip, we loved Vegas.  Now every square inch is filled in with more Resorts that are equally large.  And they are all busy.

We know it’s a crazy place but still the city is a work of art. Everywhere, inside and out, the Casinos, Hotels & Restaurants compete for your attention. It takes a lot to get more than a brief glance, so they put amazing effort into design.  

A Crystal Forest at "The Shops at Crystals" 

Flowered Parasols celebrate Spring...somewhere in our wanders

We arrived in the early afternoon and went to lunch at the Venetian. The Venetian, like most of the resorts spans acres.  And there doesn’t seem to be a Google Map for traversing the resort, so we were on our own.  We realize that the idea is to have the Casino areas catch your attention but we managed to find the signs for the Canal Shops & Restaurants. We found our way to Trattoria Reggiano and enjoyed our Gnocchi with Pesto and Spaghetti Carbonara as well as our artichoke appetizer …all accompanied by a very fine Super Tuscan wine.

The Grand Canal (Vegas style, ie not Venice)

After checking into our hotel we picked up discount tickets for the Zarkana Cirque du Soleil show at the Aria. 

This is nothing, she can juggle at least twice as many balls.

Yep, it is a guy on a ladder holding a gal on a ladder.
I can't recall how the piano fits in...

On the way back we stopped at the Bellagio for the fountain show. Somehow we ended up with this great shot with some key Vegas landmarks (Bally's, The Flamingo, and The High Roller Observation Wheel) in the background. 

Walking the street was a challenge with folks stopping for photos and grouped around street performers. Others were walking along with beers or with Yard Glasses of ale or cocktails.  This is either the new Vegas (the one we like less)… or it is just Spring Break.

April 2: Laundry, Shopping, Art Galleries & Tapas

Next morning we decided it was time to catch up on the laundry. From the laundromat we headed over to Fremont street. Normally Fremont Street is associated with it's casinos and it's nighttime lightshow. But we were headed to the Container Shops, boutique shops all housed in shipping containers. To our surprise, the first one to catch our attention was "The San Miguel Collection". It was the grand opening of a store featuring products from San Miguel (and other parts of Mexico.) 

Later we checked out another recently opened shopping center, The Fashion Show. It has it's share of luxe shops but there are high-end shops galore in Vegas. So to get your attention they have a "space ship".  It does nothing. It just sits there but it does catch you eye.

Later we checked out the Faberge exhibit at the Bellagio. No photos allowed, but the adjacent shops featured elaborate eggs (with either a Faberge or Easter spin in mind.)

An Easter (or Faberge) Egg

Then went to Julian Serrano's latest restaurant,Tapas, at the Aria where we had a fine Rioja and...drumroll...tapas! 

Huevos Estrellados Tapas (chorizo, fried potato, egg) — quite yummy!

April 3: Outside Vegas (and back)

We spent several hours at the Devine Springs Reserve, home to the Nevada State Museum and a fine nature preserve. We had a late lunch at the cafe (pretty decent). Enroute back to the hotel we were finally able to get our car washed...but somehow they seriously damaged our wheel covers...something we only noticed MANY miles later. 

Ocotillo in bloom

A hummingbird that posed so well and so long you just had to take a photo

For dinner we were drawn back to the Aria & Julian Serrano for Tapas & Paella, this time with Priorat.

The sauteed padron peppers were slightly piquant and basically amazing

Next: Onwards to California