Days 17 to 31—Spokane in Spring...

After Portland, we drove up to Spokane to visit my Brother-in-Law. On Sunday, we went downtown to a favourite Sushi spot, Sushi.com (whose website is not the name). I´m not much for the raw fish (although I´m told the sushi is excellent) so I had the vegetable tempura meal, which comes with really good miso soup. Why have I not tried the ginger ice cream before (I´d like some more)? 

On the way back to the car we stopped by Auntie´s Bookstore, which is conveniently next door to Uncles´s Games. The great thing about Auntie´s is they sell used books along side new ones, which is wonderful if you are an unemployed wanderer, you can find something to read without spending too much (I asked for cheap mystery novels and there was a shelf just for that :) ). I ended up forgoing the cheapest mystery novels and picking up Michael Connelly´s Chasing the Dime (a interesting Michael Crichton-style science-thriller from one of my favourite mystery writers) and Margaret Atwood´s Lady Oracle (about a writer who fakes her own death to escape her mixed up life—a blatant attempt by me to be more Canadian).

 Later on, the boys went go kart racing at Fastkart Speedway, an indoor kart racing track.

For about a week of our time, we stayed with my in-laws in a beautiful cabin near Lake Roosevelt. We played some croquet...

 ...explored the larger-than-usual beach (the water was low because it´s controlled by a hydro dam or something) looking for treasures that had been underwater for years in the mud...

 ...and watched the hummingbirds, which in Brazil are called Beija-flores (flower kissers), but definitely made humming noises like little helicopters or large bees which made me understand the less romantic English name...

 We spent time with family and enjoyed the first signs of Spring here...

Days 15 and 16—Oregon Caves, Craters and Doughnut Holes

On our first morning in Oregon we headed up to the Oregon Caves National Monument. Our tour guide was this Boston-accented, goofy guy who seemed to really enjoy his job. He kept asking quiz questions, which my husband kept getting right, much to his amusement.

Apparently, the cave was discovered by a guy who noticed it when he thought he saw his dog chase a bear into it. He went in to explore, even though, according to our guide, he only had six matches.  ¨Would you go into a cave with six matches?¨, our guide asked. ¨Well, three to go in and three to go out¨, said my wise husband. Apparently, Elijah Davidson was not so wise, and explored until his matches ran out. He survived by following the sound of water to the entrance, spending 3 hours in the cave. He found his dog outside.

The hike through the caves is actually moderately strenuous, with lots of stairs, including some extra stairs to see this view.

 After the tour was over, we discovered that I am an unphotographable vampire of the Twillight-Sparkling variety. Apparently, the Pacific Northwest is not as cloudy as advertised (we seem to have seen two straight sunny days in Oregon).

 There were many Stellar´s Jays in the woods around the parking lot. These were also fairly common in Yosemite.

We headed on to Crater Lake, which is 1,949 feet (594 m) deep and above 7,000 ft in elevation, which accounts for the amazing amount of snow still there in May.

 

 There is so much snow there, it covers this door, which I thought was an outhouse...

 ...but it turns out is really the entrance to a tunnel under the snow...

...to a heated washroom behind the snowbank.

 Afterwards, we climbed up on top of the visitor center and slid down it.

 After stopping in Eugene for the night we drove into Portland. Weirdly enough, it was sunny all day. 

 We did a little shopping and then tried to get some Voodoo Doughnuts, only to discover their main downtown location is under renovation.

 We made our way to the second store which lies at 1501 N.E. Davis Street, and has much easier parking anyway. We bought way too many doughnuts, and then brought them over to share with my husband´s very lovely cousin and her family. The second box ended up coming to Washington with us, and was eaten day+ old, but still yummy and crazy looking.

 We had dinner with family and then did exactly the wrong thing on the only sunny Portland day in recent memory and went to see ¨Source Code¨ in an almost empty theatre. After a very sugary breakfast, we were off to Washington.

Day 14—Now leaving CA, a playlist.

As we were leaving the Moscow General Store at Capilano RV Park we felt the need to listen to ¨Back in the USSR¨ and so started the music for the day:

• The Beatles—The White Album

• Vampire Weekend—Contra

For lunch we stopped at this fish´n chips place on Highway-1 (Tempura fish and chips!).

• Radiohead—The Bends

• Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Compilation) which is an amazing value for amazing music, and was perfect music for driving through really tall trees on the ¨Avenue of Giants¨ and the ¨World Famous¨ drive-through tree you can actually drive through.

• The Best of Mozart for our last California sunset for a long while.

• Massive Attack—Heligoland

From ¨Splitting the Atom¨:

The jobless return

The bankers have bailed

The mighty retreat

The pleasure it fails

At the end of the week

You take it or leave

Welcome to Oregon!

• Radiohead—OK Computer
• The National—¨Bloodbuzz Ohio¨ (Thought I had the whole album, but didn´t)
• The Submarines—Honeysuckle Weeks (This is good keeping awake music)

Finally we made it into the Junction Inn in Cave Junction, OR, and enjoyed finally having escaped California.

Days 11, 12 and 13--Weird Winds and Sonom-nom-nom....

After we got back from white water rafting (Yosemite post to follow, I promise!) we headed back for the coast. We ended up staying at McConnell State Recreation Area which is in the midst of a bunch of orange groves. I call this part ¨Weird Winds¨ because this is the first campground where I had trouble sleeping. The wind made all sorts of weird noises, tent noises, tree noises and the sound of a party nearby made me a little paranoid. In the morning the wind blew my peanut butter sandwiches all over, making me shout really loudly and scare the nearby camper´s dogs.

For dinner that night we had what I called 8 peas, shitake mushrooms and ravioli, which I was trying to make sound fancy, but was really fresh & easy cheesy canned ravioli (organic at least) and sauteed dried shitakes (leftover from the pantry) and 8 fresh farm stand peas.

The next day we headed towards Napa. We stopped at Starbucks to decide on a winery to visit and a campground to stay at. We ended up deciding Napa was overpriced and headed straight for Spring Lake Campground in Santa Rosa, CA. The campground was nice enough, but the wind was so strong that it bent the tent in the night. Also, the shower was $1.50 for 5 minutes and not even warm the whole time.

We packed up our tent and headed for our first winery, Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa, which obviously has a beautiful view.

Afterwards, we stopped at Whole Foods in Santa Rosa to pick up our provisions bag for Sonoma County Farm Trails tomorrow.

We decided to get lunch there since the food looked good (and no tips required). We each got a panini and cup of soup for $7 each, which were delicious. While in the store we heard an announcement for a free facial demonstration, I´ve been hankering for a spa day, and so I decided to stick around.

The demo was from Ted and Ron from MoonEssence. Their products use some wonderful smelling plant extracts and essential oils. Especially lovely was the Daily Moisture Whip which has the heavenly scent of fennel, SPF 30 from zinc and titanium dioxides and rubs in perfectly. My face looked, felt and smelled delicious (¨Honey, smell my face! Smell my face!¨). I will have to get a jar for myself just as soon as I get a job.

On a recommendation from a Whole Foods staff member, we headed over to Freestone Vineyards. Who were wonderful gracious at 5 minutes before closing, and were my husband´s choice for best wine of the vineyards we went to.

Nearby, mentioned in the same tip, we found Wild Flour Bread and ordered some delicious cheesy wonderful bread, delicious sweet cinnamon bread and hot cocoa. Yum.

Armed with yummy bread and a list of campgrounds we set off to drive up highway 1 and find a new campground. A campground by the Beach was rejected because there was way too much wind, and I couldn´t take it anymore. Once we got to the town of Jenner, we turned inland to follow the Russian River. We finally found Cassini Family Ranch. We loved that it had free Wifi (at least around the buildings), a not too expensive laundry room, and a nice secluded campsite with trees and wildflowers.

The next morning, it was time for Sonoma County Farm Trails aka Blossoms, Bees and Barnyard Babies. We took this as an opportunity to get an idea of what´s involved in some of the food making activities we might like to try once we settle in in New Hampshire. Mainly--raising chickens for eggs, keeping bees and raising cute goats for milk (I still have to learn to make cheese!). We actually went to this first goat place (Barlas Boer Goats) because they had a chicken raising Q&A. After answering questions from current chicken owners Dawn from Treats for Chickens gave us and another couple (who live in San Francisco, but plan on going back to Minnesota) the low-down on starting out. Admittedly, raising chickens still sounds like a lot of work, but fresh eggs sound so tempting, and baby chicks so appealing that I might just try someday.

Next, we stopped at the seed bank in Petaluma to pick up a free giant sequoia seedling (which we are trying to figure out how to get back to New Hampshire intact) and pick out a free seed packet. I picked this purple rohlrabi variety. I love kohlrabi (or cold rabbit as we used to call it as kids) and I know it grows in Canada, so NH should be fine. After that we sampled cheeses at Petaluma Creamery and had some delicious ice cream. Onward we went to Senk Farms for a very interesting beekeeping talk (how to start, how to catch a swarm) and some spicy pepper jellies.

Finally, heading back north, we attended a goat raising 101 session at Foggy River Farm. Thankfully, this made goats seem more manageable to my husband, because Nigerian Dwarf Goats are adorable.

The last two stops were Mueller Winery and Bernier Farms nothing like ending the day with great wine and an amazingly diverse farm (who knew there were 18 kinds of garlic?). We headed back to camp, knowing that Sonoma County had tried really hard to win us back for California. Time to leave!