Thursday, July 14, 2011

Oregon Trail


This year, Kyle and I spent the long 4th of July weekend exploring Oregon with our good friends, Brent and Christine.  It was a perfectly relaxing vacation with just the right amount of activity thrown in to keep things exciting.  Join me as I give you a quick tour of our Oregon Trail ... minus the Typhoid Fever (old-school computer game reference, if any of you are confused...)


We started out in the great city of Portland - we enjoyed a couple microbreweries and endulged in the best donuts this side of ... anywhere.


The next stop on our trail was Multnomah Falls on the Columbia River Gorge.  It's the second highest falls in the US and we hiked all 11 switchbacks to reach the top.  Not only did we take in beautiful views, but we worked off a good quarter of each of our donuts.




On to Willamette Valley where we spent the bulk of our trip enjoying Oregon's wine country.  Known for Pinot Noir and rhymes with "damnit."  We did our research in advance and impressed the locals with our command of the Oregonian dialect.  :)


Take a peak at the place we rented ... in a vineyard, among the rolling hills, overlooking Mt. Hood, and more room than we knew what to do with!





We toured over 15 wineries across 3 days, enjoyed some nice restaurants (and one with the worst service known to man, minor detail) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.




We spent the 4th of July on a day trip to the coast.  We had an awesome seafood lunch at a cute restaurant on the beach, sampled cheese curds at the Tilamook cheese factory (yes, three of our crew were from Wisconsin, would you expect anything less?!) and finished the day watching fireworks from our deck.






For anyone remotely interested in wine tasting, I would highly recommend this region of the country.  It is still in the early stages so you often meet the vineyard owners and family and are commonly welcomed with free samples and bonus tours, mixed in with some of the best storytelling you'll find anywhere.


To Jim and his daughter, Martha, at Maresh Vineyard Retreat - the Petersen's and Erspamer's will be back!

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