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James and Julie's Trip to the Pacific NW, Memorial Day 2005 |
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(this is the trip diary written by James)
Friday, 5/27:
After work I headed home, packed (as I only packed the CDs the night before!) and left with Julie to the Pacific NW. It took a while to get to DFW (no surprise) and then both remote parking lots were full, but we went into the North Lot anyway and found a spot. The flight to San Francisco seemed a bit more cramped than usual, but no biggie. I think my �good� headphones are set at a quieter volume so that means I have to turn them up louder. Eh, whatever. The layover in SF was around an hour, so no real time to go see anything in the city, much less see any part of the city from the air (fog, you know). I�ve never been to SF so some day I hope to go there and not just stop at the airport. While at the airport we did pick up some See�s Chocolates from the little store there and it kicked some serious ass. The long day continues and we head to SeaTac airport, which is oh so conveniently located between Seattle and Tacoma. It took us a while to navigate through the maze of the airport. By the time we got our car (which was only about 30 minutes after we landed) and got on the road it was around 1 am. Hell, it mighta been later! Either way, a tad late, especially considering that we were both on Texas Time so that meant it was 3 am for us. Cherish and Dan live in Olympia and that�s about an hour south of Seattle. We found the house just fine and were happily greeted by our friends who we hadn�t seen in a while. We hadn�t seen Dan since the last time we visited them in Olympia back in 2000. We last saw Cherish last year at Pat�s wedding in Los Alamos. She has gotten herself pretty skinny and she seems pretty happy. She has braces now (at 28) so that�s pretty amusing. Like Julie is now, she�s thinner than she was in high school. Awesome. I don�t think Julie had a shot when we got in, but they offered me one so I happily took it. I think it was Bailey�s and something else. Who cares, it tasted good! So, we chatted for a while and by the time we got to bed it was just past 2, with my ass having been up for the past 21.5 hours. Long day. |
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view of Olympia, WA from Dan & Cherish's front sidewalk |
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James chillin' by the window in Dan & Cherish's guest room |
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Cherish and Julie in back of Cherish's house |
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Saturday, 5/28
I think we ended up waking up around 8, maybe 9. Yes, definitely not enough sleep, but as the sun rises around 4:30 in the NW in the summer, we didn�t have much choice! Dan was awesome and fixed us a great breakfast with eggs and beef and onions and a bunch of other stuff that all tasted so good together. Like I said, a great breakfast. Since Julie and I already had our stuff packed, it wasn�t too difficult to get ready for the day ahead in Oregon. After Dan & Cherish were packed we hit the road. Before getting on I-5, we just had to make a pit stop at the Fishbowl Brewpub. This is the local brewpub that Dan & Cherish first showed us back in 2000. I am not exaggerating when I say that this is some of the best beer *anywhere*. We needed to fill up our two �Growlers� (half gallon bottles that you can refill on the cheap) so we had some pints while waiting. Since it was around noon, the bar wasn�t too busy, but there were a couple other patrons besides us. So, after the pints we put the growlers in the cooler in the trunk and headed to Oregon for a day of wine tasting. Yes, uh, we drank a lot on the trip. |
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Oregon - Wine Tasting Tour '05, a vinyard! |
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another vinyard |
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James and Cherish in front of a great view |
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| we passed this street and thought it was funny... |
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We drove south for a few hours on I-5 until we hit Portland (looked like a cool city) and then went out into the country where all the wineries are. I honestly don�t remember how many wineries we hit, but I�m assuming it was 5 or so. Some of the wineries charged for the tastings, but you got a souvenir wine glass for giving them your $5 or so. Even if you do get wineglasses (we ended up with 9 glasses by the end of the day), it�s still a rip to charge you for small nips of wine. Also, I noticed in the places that they charged, the people working there were much snootier than the places who gave the wine away for free AND the wine was also not near as good at the charging wineries. So there you go, if you go wine tasting in Oregon, go to the places that don�t charge. At Beran Vinyards, the first �free� winery we went to, after the tasting (good stuff) we went out back to their gazebo and had lunch. Of course we bought a bottle of wine from there and had it with lunch, as well as some great sandwiches that Cherish had made. Oh yeah, cherries too. A great lunch with the house-dogs coming to our table to try to get food. They failed. |
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the barn at Beran, where we ate lunch |
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amazing |
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Yup, this is what Oregon looks like |
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The winery that really made an impression on me (and the rest of the gang) was the Oak Knoll Winery in Hillsboro, OR. The people that worked at this place were so unbelievably cool. They had their wines all in a row in the testing area and I�d say there were, like, 10-12 wines that we tasted (with generous portions, I must add) all in the perfect order from lights to darks to desserts. The guy pouring was super knowledgeable and just the nicest guy in the world. He went into great detail about how the wines were made, and what food they went well with and all that. All of them really good, but the Niagara was the best. I think Julie and I bought a couple of bottles of it, and Cherish bought a CASE. OK, when we left this winery, I think she had purchased a total of 3 cases. Maybe it was 4, I�m not totally sure! We bought 4 bottles total, but I guess that doesn�t compare with multiple cases. The trunk was already full with our bags, so the cases went in the back seat of the rented mobile and formed a wall between Julie and Cherish. Oh, FYI, I was the navigator while Dan was our designated driver. Yes, he was actually good and only had slight tastes of a few of the wines. The wine country in Oregon is gorgeous, but our last stop had probably the best view of all. Of course I can�t remember this winery either, but all of us ended up buying more wine. Julie got 2 more bottles and Cherish bought two more cases. I don�t even want to know how much they spent. |
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this was a shot from the last vinyard we visited |
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same vinyard, a picture of how much wine Dan & Cherish bought |
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While we were heading to our destination for the evening, the girls were in the back opening up bottles and going to town. I�d get handed a glass periodically, but they definitely got the lion�s share. That night we stayed in the town of Forest Grove, OR, at the McMenamins Grand Lodge. This was a pretty cool place kind of tucked away off the main road. They have some nice lodging packages. For $100 a couple we got a night�s stay, dinner that evening, breakfast the next morning, two pints of their home-brewed beer, as much disc golf as you�d want to play, plus the other stuff at the lodge like live music, movie theater, hot tub, etc. Yeah, cool place! We stayed in the Bob Marley room, which really wasn�t as cool as it sounds. The rooms were �European Style� which basically means that you had a sink in there, but there were communal bathrooms on each floor. Eh, no big deal. The only things that made it the �Bob Marley Room� were the sign on the front of the door, a strange painting of Bob on the wall by the bed (evidently it creeped out Julie all night long!), some quotes by him and about him on the walls, and that was basically it. But hey, we stayed in the BOB MARLEY room! |
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the front of the Grand Lodge |
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at McMenamins Grand Lodge we stayed in the Bob Marley Room |
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James and "Bob Marley". This artwork freaked me out at night! |
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a view of the disc golf course at McMenamins |
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After we dropped our things off in our respective rooms (D&C had the �Revolution Room��I have no idea of the significance. They were disappointed to not get the JRR Tolkien room, which was right next door to them) we went outside to play some disc golf. I had never played, but Dan had loads of times (Cherish a few times) so he showed Julie and I the ropes. While the girls walked down the street to get some phat cigars, Dan and I got drinks at the bar that was *on the grounds* by the disc golf course. How cool is that? We both got some of the home-brewed beers and they were excellent. I had the Hammerhead and he got the Terminator (really dark), and I sort of went between my beer and Julie�s Terminator while she was at the store. Two fisting, sweet! Once the girls got back we commenced our game. Being drunk-ish and novices the game took a few hours, but we all had a blast. The last hole was pretty cool in that you had to go through the lodge itself and go out on the back balcony and throw from there�and to get down to the ground there was a big slide. After the game (which Dan probably won, but we weren�t keeping score) we sorta changed clothes and went had dinner inside. Good dinner and some hilarious conversation then we went to the rooms and changed into our swimsuits and hit the hot tub. We didn�t get to stay in the hot tub too long (only like 20 minutes) before we were kicked out because they were closing it for the night. So, with us a bit water logged and full of food and drink we hit the hay sometime pretty late. |
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on the way home from Oregon... |
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See more pictures on page 2! -> |
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