A lot of stuff has happened since the last post because of some pretty hectic travel.  Must admit I need to be settled and relaxed to wax lyrically about our adventures!

The day before we due to leave Mac my left ankle was severely swollen and giving me a serious amount of gyp.  Into to Mac’s A&E, who I must admit were impressive and extremely efficient.  Result?  Not really sure!  Thought it was gout brought on by an ankle strain? Anyway the result was basic pain killers as the uric acid levels were normal so no gout medication!  Luckily it was the left ankle so once I was in the truck I was good to go – walking was a different issue!!

So it was back across the US of A from Mac to Charleston with a layover in Alabama to see Bill and Beth for a few days.  Day 1 was to Hines, OR a dusty little town just down the road from where a bunch of rednecks had taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and in a standoff with the FBI Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum was killed and his co-conspirators arrested. Nice and quite when we went through. Day 2 to Idaho Falls, ID where we stayed in the Rodeway Inn right on the river and went to sleep to sound of the waterfalls after a very good dinner at the Copper Rill Restaurant – hobbling distance from the hotel.  Day 3 it was Rawlins, WY where we stayed in a brand new Hampton Inn in the Wyoming waste land on the outskirts of town.  Did have a great Thai restaurant – Anong Thai – which made it a great layover. Day 4 was the Hotel Grand Conference in Grand Island, NE.  A huge conference centre that was basically empty, but made a good stopping spot, though I can’t say Grand Island had too much going for it.  Day 5 it was the Hampton Inn, Jefferson City, MO.  Once again picked as a convenient stopping spot – nothing else.  However, we lucked out as Domenico’s Italian Restaurant was 5 minutes drive from the hotel.  A great old school Italian spot where everyone seemed to know each other; complete with an old couple (way older than us) having her birthday dinner with a big cake for dessert!  I had one of the best clam pastas ever and Ann’s sea bream was large and cooked perfectly. Would you believe they even had a half decent wine list.  Good layover!  Day 5 was the Hilton Garden Inn, Jonesboro, AK.  Picked not only on the time/distance scale but because it supposedly had a very good restaurant – Omar’s Uptown.  Probably the only decent restaurant in Jonesboro – never seen so many jackets and ties on display for a long time! Food was good, not out standing, but good.  Couldn’t say the same for wine list, but then just about every man in the place was drinking mixed drinks – very country old school! Day 6 was Trussville, AL – a really good layover spot! Always fun with Bill & Beth and we celebrated with dinner at the Highland Bar & Grill which Bill had introduced us to many years ago.  Had an excellent meal and great wine – Chef Frank Stitt was still producing superb food – evidenced by the fact that the restaurant was packed.  Then it was on to Charleston, SC to abuse the hospitality of our good friends Scott & BB.  We drove in on I-26 in a major thunderstorm, a real frog strangler, with visibility down to a few yards.  Tried to get on 526 to Mt Pleasant only to find it gridlocked!  Back on 26 to downtown and across the Ravenel Bridge, by which time the rain had slacked off and we could see where we going.  Welcomed back with open arms and Scott’s renowned Margaritas – yes!!

We were scheduled to fly out to New York in 10 days to board the Queen Mary II for England, so it was a really hectic 10 days!  Met with Tom Morrison our lawyer to update wills and do a P of A for Mark  so he could handle stuff in our absence, Drs, dentists, accountant, and check storage, which included the Nissan Pathfinder.  Plus we put the house on the market with Lois Lane!  We just couldn’t see living in Charleston again and planned another 1-2 years of travel, so it was sell!  We had an amazing dinner at 492 thanks to Marky, did Bowen’s Island with Scott & BB, Charleston CC with Barbara & Arnie, and Scott’s awesome burgers on the grill after a round of golf at Rivertowne with Mark, Scott, and Remley.  A little stressful but we got everything done!

First class on Delta to NY where we had booked the Cunard meet & greet and an over night stay at the Crowne Plaza, with a transfer to the QM II the next day.  Mooched around Manhattan and then went for dinner at Hakkasan, a 1* Michelin spot, where the food was outstanding – some of the best Chinese we’ve had – and we have had a lot!   The next day it was coaches to the boat with our luggage having special QM II tags that ensured our bags went straight to our cabin. Total chaos!  Bags were not being brought down to meet the respective coaches so went and found ours and brought them out to the bus.  After that it all went quite smoothly and the actual Border Security check was relatively speedy considering the amount of people embarking. Our bags all arrived safely in our cabin, which had a balcony with a fabulous view of a Cunard life boat, but made for a light and airy cabin.  After a tour of the ship we headed to the top deck to see Lady Liberty slide past as we headed out to the Atlantic and the start of our 7 day crossing.

We are shortly going to start moving east to Birmingham and Charleston, then onto NYC to make the QM2 and start our adventures in the UK and Europe; so now would probably be a good time to do a quick catch up of the last 18 months.  In many respects it doesn’t seem like 1 1/2 years have passed, but then you start thinking back and so much has happened to us and our friends in this period of time that it makes you catch your breath.

For us we have had a fabulous time and learnt so much.  America truly is an amazing country and our preconceived notions of certain states and areas is put to the test as we travel and live in these new places.  One thing is clear – the USA is without doubt the best country in the world in which to live, and this is from an expat whose love of Asia is still very much there.  However, living and working around the world for 35 years before coming to the US really clarifies your thinking on so many things, plus age has to be a factor in what you want from life/home etc.  The timing on coming to America was good in so many ways and none of it actually planned – it evolved!  I had not the faintest idea that at this time in my life Mark and I would be married to southern belles, be citizens of the USA & UK, and be living in America.  Which of course brings my wife, travelling companion, navigator, and better half, Ann, very much into the picture.  Travels across America would not have been possible, or any fun at all, without her.  As we all know having the right travelling buddy is the lynch pin of travel and Ann makes us a great travel team. Tried and tested with our journeys in Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and China. But, none of these expeditions, exciting as they were, were extended travel of 18 months, which is serious travel indeed.  On the road we have settled in to my driving and Ann navigating while locating places to eat and stay, and handling my tantrums on wrong turns, idiot drivers, and crappy road conditions.  We work well together.  I mean if you can do this much travel as well as setting up home in various locations around the globe, and still remain married and friends, you are good!

We are continually asked where we are from and why we are in TX/AZ/CA/OR.  When we explain what we are doing and what our plans are just about everyone envies us and wishes they could do the same thing.  Occasionally we find a person who has lived a similar life style to ours which is great fun – expat bonding I suppose.  It’s clear that there are the wanderers like us and then there are the home bodies who have spent their whole lives in one spot and are locked into their family/community in such a way that leaving is not an option.  We targeted small towns in which to live on our travels and that has worked really well and confirmed our research that towns of 20-30,000 are great places to live. Big enough to have the facilities needed for a comfortable existence like restaurants, supermarkets, gyms, etc., but small enough to be relatively stress free as far as traffic, housing, and congestion is concerned.  We have found small town and rural America is so different from the large cities with quite a divide socially, economically, and politically, between the two.  In the larger states there is often a north-south / east west divide as well, normally produced by geographical features, which is an added element to the picture.  Very similar in many respects to other large countries like China, India, Australia, and Indonesia where in some instances the above factors are added to by a language divide as well.  That said our small town existence has also clarified what we want from a place to live, and that means downtown Charleston is not the spot!  There are pros and cons on all our recent locations, but basically we have really liked them all, but as of now McMinnville, Oregon is in No1 place.  Could I live here 12 months of the year? – hell no – the weather is crap for 6 months of the year.  It’s that our timing was pretty good and we have a beautiful, peaceful, location in spectacular countryside that is only 10 mins drive from all that we need.  However, to do another winter in Oregon is not up for discussion.  We also think that visiting the wine areas was a great idea as the people are consistently nice and the industry spawns the food that goes with the wine.  Plus of course you learn a lot about wine!  The other aspect is that we decided we needed 3-6 months in any place to really get to know it, and this has proven correct.  After 3 months you have settled in, know your way around, and got to know a few people, but 6 months is probably the best time frame.  Climate is a factor and only staying in Sedona for 3 months threw off the climate travel curve.  Looking back we should have just moved to a different location in Sedona for 3 months before heading into CA and OR in April, that way we would have avoided 3 months of torrential rain in Tualatin!  Mind you the flat and location were good so the wine and food exploration was able to continue and our Barbour’s were well and truly tested.

All our flats and houses have been comfortable and most cases well equipped. However, Ann has had a “cleanliness” issue with most places!  Renting an unfurnished flat in Fredericksburg and hiring furniture was in fact our most expensive stay as well as the most hassle.  But, it worked well and we achieved what we had set out to do. Sedona was the best furnished and equipped house and had stunning red rock views, but there were noise issues being so close to the main road.  Tualatin was a user friendly flat in a great location, but badly furnished and so full of useless stuff we figured the owner used it as a dumping ground for assorted junk.  Mrs Angry Anglo did work on that and got the place in shape!  The McMinnville house is bit tired, but very comfortable. The morning coffee view across the valley is spectacular, complete with the wind sighing in the pines, birds singing, and deer with fawn/s ambling through the garden.  Pretty hard to beat!

Time for a rant.  The one consistently bad aspect of our travels has been the United States Postal Service!  Though we have most of our existence online we have always put in a change of address with USPS every time we moved and every time they screwed up!  We always received our confirmation forms online, but that obviously meant squat as our letters disappeared into the ether. While in Sedona the manager of our Fredericksburg complex called us to say all our mail was piling up – what should they do!  Sedona then ignored forwarding instructions and sent everything back to Fredericksburg!  Unbelievable. The individual post offices were normally very good with helpful friendly staff.  (Small town America!)  The one exception being Tualatin – not a small town. The place was a mess and perpetually understaffed, with one older woman normally being the only person manning a slot.  She was not only rude and unhelpful, but in a couple instances actually obstructive in making her own arbitrary rules!

Our return trip across the country will put us back into strip mall / fast food America, which we all know is pretty horrendous.  However, I’m sure we’ll have our “wow” moments and locate one or two eating gems.  On-On!!

We are coming to the end of our time in the Willamette Valley.  As always time has flown and we are now looking at 3 weeks before we leave Hidden Hills and head back across The States.  Since our Canada trip we have been hitting selected wineries, plus we have had two lots of visitors. The veteran travellers Claire & Jack Tozier came for a couple of nights which is far too short as you really have to pack in the wine tasting and restaurants! However, they did managed to hit one of Oregon’s windows of spectacular weather – warm and sunny with low humidity!  As their time was limited, we arranged their wine tasting at Woodard Wines, run by Jeff Woodard an independent wine merchant whose family was one of the original Oregon Trail settlers.  Jeff is an amazing source of information on Oregon wines and he knows all the small producers who shun the limelight, as well as all the luminaries of the industry.  He did a super tasting for us and obviously impressed Jack who had a case of wine shipped back to Virginia.  Not sure when they will get to drink it as Jack was off to Chattanooga to do their Half Iron Man Triathlon before they headed off to Norway for a week or so!  Jack is my age by the way!  We manage to fit in one good restaurant with Claire & Jack – Thistle. It’s a small restaurant in an old store in downtown Mac, with one of the rooms a fabulous bar serving old-time cocktails.  Outstanding local fresh ingredients are used in their dishes all with an amazing wine list – the Pinot Noir section was 21/2 pages!

The Spruce Goose and others.

The morning of their departure we went to the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, as Jack, an ex-Navy flyer, wanted to see the Spruce Goose, the monster 8 engine flying boat transporter built-in 1947 by Howard Hughes.  Built mainly from birch the plane was only flown once before being mothballed.  An impressive space collection with everything from a V-2 to a Titan II rocket and a Mars Rover.  Found out that drones have been around since 1954!

Visited a few more wineries while putting together the schedule for Jim & Jerrie Bethels’ visit – not a trivial exercise as both are Pinot lovers and experts who have visited the WV before.  With just about all the renowned vineyards being by appointment we had a fun time getting things arranged, plus we fitted in a couple of unknown wineries thanks to Jeff Woodard.  A chance to impress J&J!  Typical Oregon weather for their visit – in other words rain, mist, sun, clouds, and more rain!  However, we did manage to fit in 13 wineries / tastings and 5 restaurants in the 4 days / 5 nights they were with us.  One restaurant was Bistro Maison, an old school French restaurant in an old house on 3rd Street.  Madam, the Chef’s wife, was probably the best sommelier I have come across.  Her knowledge of both Oregon and French wines was encyclopedic!  Needless to say we had a fantastic meal – thank you J&J!  Fabulous fun and Jim loaded up on a bunch of wine, much of it magnums, which bodes well for future visits to their Texas ranch.

As June arrived we suddenly went into 4 days of scorching heat – high 90’F/ 36-37″C – during the day – dropping to the 70sF / 21-2’C at night.  Luckily the humidity was low as our house is not air-conditioned, though we did have big floor fans.  Of course Mrs AngryAnglo complained of the heat – duh – it was fabulous!  Certainly better than the normal 4 seasons in a day weather that is typical of the north-west.  Just like the crappy English weather that I fled many years ago.  The only good thing is that it produces fantastic Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.

Now is probably a good time to list the wineries we have visited while in Oregon.  As I have said previously one of the reasons of this blog is to act as a diary as I’m certainly not going to remember half of them.  My avid readers can just drool and be envious.  This list is thanks to Ann’s meticulous record keeping. (probably need to do one on restaurants)

Dusky Goose tasting room

Airlie Winery, Archery Summit, Bergstrom Wines, Bethel Heights Vineyard, Blakeslee Vineyard Estate, Brooks Wines, Broadley Vineyards, Cardwell Hill Winery, Carlton Cellars, Carlton Winemakers Studio, Cristom Vineyards, Dusky Goose, Elk Cove Vineyard, Elizabeth Chalmers Cellars, Eyrie Vineyards, Keeler Vineyards, Ken Wright Cellars, Lachini Vineyards, Maresh Vineyards, Maysara Winery, Patricia Green Cellars, Penner-Ash Wine Cellars, Ponzi Vineyards, Potters Vineyard, Scott Paul Wines, Soter Vineyards, Tendril Vineyard, Walnut City Wine Works, Walter Scott Vineyards, Winderlea Winery, WillaKenzie Estate.

The Dundee Hills.

There are around 400 wineries in the Willamette Valley so we have barely scratched the surface, but as none of them are free, and they are widely dispersed over a large area we are doing pretty well.  What is amazing is that out of all the tastings we have done only one has disappointed us – Cristom Vineyard – one of the top ranked wine makers in the valley. It really was a double whammy at the tasting.  The room was crowded and the young lady running the tasting was hopeless, so waited ages for our taste and received minimal information on the wines.  The whites were quite good, but when we were given a Pinot made from 17 different grapes sources that had no acidity, finished mid-palate with no structure we wondered what they were trying to achieve!   However, one of the pleasant surprises has been Pinot Blanc which not all of the wineries produce, as it is point genetic mutation of the Pinot Noir grape – a big part of champagne. An old Burgundy grape that is no longer being grown to any extent, so maybe Oregon can come through on this as it is a really good wine that pairs well with seafood, chicken, and cheese.  However, it is the other Burgundian white that has really rocked our socks – Chardonnay.  There are some amazing wines being made that are so like Montrachet it is staggering.  In a blind tasting against the Beuane Montrachets,   Hamacher and Walter Scott stand a good chance of coming out on top – really.

We really like Mac – an easy town to live in – with beautiful country side and amazing wines. Coming down off our hill on a nice day as we head out to yet another wine tasting, you see the snowy splendor of Mt Hood in the distance; truly lovely.  However, those days are rare as more often everything will be shrouded in mist, rain, and clouds!  Thank God for wine!

The dates for our Vancouver, BC trip for the gathering of the A Division Drop Outs were set so on April 14 we took off for Ian Roberts’s house in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver.  It was a 6-hour trip with a border crossing so we just headed up I-5 – oh joy!  Our journey started in driving rain with a temperature of about 45’F/7’C and the weather didn’t improve until we were past Seattle.  Must be something to do with age but I really dislike fighting interstate traffic, especially in bad weather, and driving through Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, and Bellingham did nothing to change my dislike.  Tacoma and Seattle are virtually one city so the traffic starts building at Olympia and that’s it pretty much to the Canadian border.  There was some beautiful countryside, even going through Seattle, but as a driver you don’t get to see stuff.  Anyway, we made it safely to the border where a delightful Border Patrol lady checked us through after we confirmed we had no weapons in our possession!  The drive into Coquitlam was pain free though we did cross a lot of bridges.

A Division Nick – New Scotland Yard 1962

The A Division Drop Outs were Ian & Neil Roberts, Peter Taverner, and myself.  Peter was flying in from Australia, where he is now living in Queensland.  Neil and Lesley were travelling from their home on Savary Island, which involves a water taxi to Lund where they collect their car, then its 2 ferry crossings, in the 100 mile journey to Vancouver.  Took almost as long as Taverner flying in from Aus and certainly longer than our drive from McMinnville!  I hadn’t seen Ian & Peter since our days in the Met – 52 years ago!

The good old days – CND riots 1962

Traffic duty Parliament Square 1962 – took 6 of us working in sync to get the MPs in and out of the Houses of Parliament while they were in session.

Our host Ian likes to cook and bakes his own bread and pies as well as making jams, jellies, and chutneys, so our stay promised to be memorable in more ways than one.  Lesley & Neil had brought coolers of Savary Island oysters with them that were super delicious. The first night’s dinner was oysters on the half shell followed by Beef Bourguignon followed by Raspberry Tart – I could see things were going to be tough!  In fact every dinner started with oysters that Lesley prepared in a different way – truly spoilt.  Ian arranged for us to meet up with his son Robby and wife Cary whom we hadn’t seen since they visited us in Beijing while exploring China – now married with 2 children – that does make you feel your age!  We finally all gathered on Saturday night for one of Ian’s curries where we caught up, to a certain extent, and did “who the hell was the fourth person we shared the flat with in Russell Road?”  I think the lack of remembering was more to do with the alcohol consumed at the time, rather than old age!  Ian and Peter made a big impact on my life as they introduced me to their lives in Kenya and Tanganyika, Curries, Modern Jazz, and taught me enough Kiswahili to try and fool their friends in the Habari Club.  At least Ann and Lesley now know those outlandish stories their husbands had been telling for years were actually true!  With emails and phone numbers exchanged we’ll hopefully see each other a bit more often in the future.  On Sunday Neil and Lesley left to catch up with their kids who live in Vancouver, Peter was spending time with his daughter, and we took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to see our other Canaardian friends, Wishart & Kathy.

Coquitlam, BC

The ferry crossing was quite lovely as it was a fabulous day with clear blue skies as we made our way through a series of islands before the final open water stretch in Nanaimo, VI’s largest town after Victoria.  It’s a 1 1/2 hour crossing to VI, which is the size of England – about 550 miles long and 200 miles wide with the Vancouver Island Range running down the centre and Mount Golden Hinde topping out above 7,000 ft.  So named as it was first spotted by Sir Francis Drake.  Our stay with Wish and Kathy was quite splendid to say the least – I mean who has a guest suite with a king sized bed and bathroom the size of Marks Fulham flat!  Pure luxury!  Their new house is quite spectacular and in many respects very similar to Jim & Jerries’ new house.  Fabulous kitchen, dining, and living room all looking out over Nanaimo Bay and distant snow-capped mountains.   Our hosts were out playing golf when we arrived so we sat on the deck with a bottle of 40 Knots, a Vancouver Island Rose that was surprising good and went really well with the setting.  As we all had a tough day playing golf and doing a ferry crossing we went out to their local pub, the Black Goose Inn, for dinner; very much a pub as you order food and drinks at the bar.  Also, true pub fare – 7 varieties of pies including steak & kidney pie, halibut and chips, bangers & mash, etc.  My steak & kidney pie was one of the best I had in years!  Good draught beers, but a small wine list though we did manage to find a decent Shiraz to go with the pie.  The next day our perfect hosts gave us a tour of their area complete with rocky coves and beaches and the one and only sandy beach.

Pheasant Glen GC

The next day it was a round of golf at Pheasant Glen with Eddie, one of Wish’s old time Petro-Canada buddies.  Great fun in a beautiful setting though my golf was not so hot.  I blamed it on having to play in trainers with a mixed bag of old clubs – hey, I need every excuse I can to cover my lack of skill!  Did find a shitty green brown Pheasant Glen golf shirt for Scott in the sale rack, which made me a happy chappie!  While we were playing golf Ann & Kathy had gone off to collect a bunch of Spot Prawns which had just come into season and are only found in this part of BC. They are a hard shell deep water prawn with four small spots on the tail, which were some of the best prawns we had ever tasted.  Cooked by me in white wine, ginger, and garlic while Wishart prepared and cooked Ling Cod he had caught earlier in the year for the main course – what a meal!  What can ever be better than good friends, great food and wine, all with one of the most spectacular views you will find anywhere in the world.  Ann and I were mesmerised by the changing colours of the water and mountains in the evening light.  We reluctantly left the next morning to drive over the mountains to Victoria to catch the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State.  Wish and Kathy said we should have lunch at the Inn at Laurel Point which we could walk to from the ferry terminal and which had the best view of Victoria Bay and the town.  Rocked up at the terminal and parked number two in line behind a 1940 F-100 pick-up that was immaculately renovated.  Picked up our tickets and headed off to Aura, the restaurant at the Inn at Laurel Point, where, as Wish and Kathy had promised we had a stunning view across the bay to the town.  We enjoyed an outstanding meal of Asian inspired dishes (Chef was Japanese) followed by local VI/BC cheeses, all accompanied by an excellent VI Sauvignon Blanc, all while watching little ferries, float planes, and whale watching boats moving across the bay.

Victoria Harbour from the Inn at Laurel Point.

We cleared Customs and Immigration in Victoria and then it was an another 1 & 1/2 hour ferry trip that was pretty much a straight run across open water to Port Angeles.  Picked up some duty free for Steve, our next friend stop in Sequim (pronounced Squim – catchy) and then it was a quick check by Border Patrol before we headed down Rt 101.  Our Border Patrol agent asked where I was from in the UK, and when I said the Cambridgeshire/Norfolk borders he said he original came from Blakeney!   Travelling really is quite amazing at times!  Our host for the night was Steve Schermerhorn who had been best man at our wedding in Bali many moons ago.

Dinner was steamed Dungeness Crab with lashings of a very good Washington State Sauvignon Blanc.  The Friends with Food theme continued!  After dinner Steve produced a 35 year old cask aged Armagnac for us to sip on – quite something.  He then went one further the next morning when he produced Hangtown Fry for breakfast made with eggs and fresh Hama Hama Bay oysters.  Steve said we would drive past the Hama Hama Oysters store and we should stop as apart from their fresh oysters they did great smoked and pickled oysters.  We duly stopped and bought smoked and pickled oysters!  Our route back home was down Rt 101, across the Columbia River at Astoria, then picking up Rt 47 into McMinnville.  My Navigator in Chief decided we should stop for lunch at the Miller House in Elma, which was not easy to find!  We parked outside the Miller House only to see a truck across the road in a large parking area was belching smoke and fumes and surrounded by a number of police.  We ate our lunch while watching the local fire brigades get the fire under control – did a great job.  A beautiful drive through Washington and Oregon blighted by huge areas of mountains completed clear logged.  I’m sure they would all be replanted, but in the meantime it looked pretty awful.

So back to Hidden Hills after an International Friends & Food Road Trip!  It was quite amazing in so many ways – the people, the countryside, the food, and the wine – a once in a life time trip where everything just comes together!

We are in our last location in the US of A and have now been on the road for about 15 months.  This time last year we were watching the Blue Bonnets of the Texas Hill Country spring into life, and now we are watching the flora and fauna of Oregon come to life after a long wet winter.  We are in our house in Hidden Hills perched above McMinnville with a fabulous view from the deck across the valley to a 40 acre vineyard and the owner’s chateau – somewhat grander than our place.  This move was far more relaxed as we only had to drive 30 miles from Tualatin, which we did in two trips, so were in place by April 1.  We had fabulous weather for the move and our first few days at Hidden Hills – warm, sunny, with clear blue skies – which meant our move-in lunch of bread, cheese, and wine was on the large patio gazing across the valley.  Just lovely and a fabulous way to start our time in the Willamette Valley.

April 2 our good friends Wishart & Kathy Robson came to spend the night on their way back home to Vancouver Island after selling the house in Palm Springs.  Had a great evening spent mainly round the dining table as we ate mushroom and chicken carbonara, with salad and garlic bread.  Wish & Kathy had brought some good wine from CA, which added to the OR Pinots we had, and made for a damn good dinner!  They left early the next morning with the good news that we would be visiting them in their new house in a couple of weeks – yeah road trip!

Though we are only 10 mins drive from down town McMinnville our mountain retreat is quite remote.  The final quarter mile or so of our private road, or rather track, climbs about 200ft through the pines to our little enclave of 4 houses, with ours being the largest.  Once the holiday homes of the Antinucci family, but now rented out by David, the present owner.  There is no television service, which we knew about this time, though there is a 50” Smart TV, so we came equipped with Rabbit, Roku, DVDs, a dart board, and a number of jigsaw puzzles.  It took us about 5 days to get Roku up and running with extensive phone calls and emails to various tech support centres as getting Netflix, Amazon, Hulu etc., online required dealing separately with each entity.  I’m sure the kids would have been in stiches at Dad and Ann battling modern technology!  Anyway, we are now up and running on the entertainment front, the dart board is up on the back porch, and Ann has just finished her first 1000 piece jigsaw.

Our house came complete with a chicken!  The sole survivor of a number of chickens that David Antinucci’s son had brought to Hidden Hills and had basically become pets.  Clucky had set up home on the back porch and made it her own by crapping all over it!  David came up with his power washer and restored the porch to human rather than chicken use, but Clucky remained on the loose and was continually at the back door demanding food and intent on restoring the porch to chicken heaven.  After a couple of days I manage to grab dear Clucky and pop her into her chicken run, rather than into the pot as Debbie was worried about.  To thank me she provided an egg the next evening – good Clucky.

This time we have joined two sports centres – Ann is a member of the McMinnville Aquatic Center so she can do her water aerobics, while I joined Excel Fitness, the best of the three gyms in town.  Not a patch on the Stafford Club, and an old school gym, but it has all I need to try and stay in shape and the people are nice.  We continue to have The Oregonian delivered but now instead of it arriving on the doorstep, as was the case in Tualatin, it is now left in the mail box at the bottom of the hill!  On the days we get a paper I walk down the hill to collect it – 4 mins – and slog back up the hill – 61/2 mins.  It’s so steep I have to stop half way up!  Mind you it’s a lovely walk with a stream babbling away on the side, wild orchids on the verge, and the odd deer bounding through the trees.  All good for staying in shape and the coffee tastes really good when I get back.

Down town McMinnville.

McMinnville has 4 grocery stores and a Walmart and like Sedona you have to shop at all of them to get what you want.  Mind you, it’s amazing the difference in the supermarkets as we have moved west across the states, with the fresh produce getting better the further west we went.  We stumbled across a local supermarket in Lake Oswego when we out to dinner on our last night in Tualatin, called Zaman’s.  Think of Whole Foods/New Seasons on steroids and you’ve got it – they had 4 different types of local butters hand blocked and wrapped – amazing!  It’s privately owned by the Zaman family and only has 3 stores in Portland.  When we spoke to the manager she said they pride themselves on selling the very best of local produce, and if they ever see any of these items in the local chains they will not stock them anymore, which certainly puts them in the “whole pay cheque” bracket!

Apart from getting the house sorted we have managed to hit one of the named vineyards – Soter.  Jim Bethel lent me the Haeger’s North American Pinot Noir bible and I have listed the top 15 producers in the Willamette Valley, of which Soter is one.  By appointment only, so we booked for a “structured” tasting at 11.00am.  We were given very detailed instructions how to get to the vineyard as there are no signs!  We were met as we walked up to the tasting room by the manager with glasses of their pinot noir rose – a very good start.  After a tour of the main building were walked down to a small cottage that was our own tasting room for the morning!  Soter Vineyards has developed into North Valley Vineyard and Mineral Springs Ranch.  NVV has 34 acres under vine while the ranch is something over 250 acres producing its own produce and meat.   The wines were excellent with their Mineral Springs 2012 White Label Pinot Noir being outstanding – well it is $100 a bottle.  After that we had lunch at Horse Radish in Carlton – known for its home cooked meats and local cheeses.  Talk about big sandwiches!  We both had soup and half a sandwich – mine beef and Ann’s turkey – about 4-5 inches high and packed with in-house cooked meats.  The soup was roasted red pepper and quite delicious.  Love the food in wine country!

Out tasting room at Soter Vineyards.

As this goes to press we are about to leave for Vancouver, BC for the Met Police A Division Drop Outs Reunion.  Thanks to Jenny and catching up with Neil and Lesley, Ian Roberts, Neil Roberts, Peter Taverner and I will gather at Ian’s house to celebrate our time in the Met’s Government Protection Squad back in the early 60s, and sharing a flat at 44a Russell Road, Kensington. Peter, who now lives in Queensland, and Ian I haven’t seen for 52 years, which is quite a long time and makes you feel bloody ancient!  I gather Ian is a great cook and bakes his own bread, cakes, and pies and is a dab hand at curries.  My love of curries was started by Ian and Peter, as their East African upbringing meant curry tiffin on Sundays, and that’s where they ordered and I ate!  Many a chuckle at my red face and the sweat dripping off the end of my nose as worked my way through many Indian meals with them.  As you all know that hasn’t changed.  After the reunion we going across to Nanaimo, Vancouver Island to stay with Wish and Kathy for a couple of days.  I would say to detox, but there is little chance of that with those two!  Then we are getting a ferry to Port Angeles, on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, to meet up with Steve Schermerhorn who lives in Sequim, the home of the Dungeness crab.  Steve is and old DoS hand and was best man at our wedding on Bali and whom we haven’t seen since our Jakarta days.  Then it’s back to Hidden Hills for some R&R!

Just realised we only have another month here in Tualatin before we move to the Willamette Valley, so time for a spiel on our fun and games in the burbs of Portland.  Tualatin is about 10 miles from down town Portland and is a green and pleasant burb with a population of something over 26,000.  This is our first stint of city living since our couple of weeks in San Antonio, and our feeling that we would better off in suburbia rather than the countryside during the winter months has proved correct as we are experiencing Oregon’s wettest winter on record since 1947! Having supermarkets and restaurants on your doorstep is a big plus in weather like this.  We have 6 restaurants in walking distance of the flat, but most of the time you can’t walk because it is pissing with rain.

Stafford Hills Club

As always the first few days in a new location is busy getting stuff done like finding a gym, joining the library, getting the truck serviced, etc., etc.  Found a super gym – Stafford Hills Club – very upscale – and just five minutes from the flat.  It is a family owned and run club that has indoor and outdoor tennis, Olympic sized pool, super gym and equipment, complete with sauna, steam room, spa, luxurious changing rooms, and a lounge café with a fire place.  Needed this after 3 weeks on the road with no real exercise and recovering from colds!  Membership is normally a joining fee, with annual dues, but we got a 3 month introduction membership to cover our stay!  The best gym we have come across in our travels.

As soon as we arrived Jenny Duchene (ex Hendey) called to say that our old friends Neil and Leslie Roberts were on their way south from their island home of Savary in British Columbia, and we should get together.  We had a lunch time gathering at the CI, an old-school bar close to the flat that serves good drinks and pretty decent food, where we did an awful of playing catch-up.  Nobody had really changed though we were a tad older than when we last met!  Great fun!

At the end of January Riley Sever, Ann’s long-time friend and DoS buddy came to stay for a couple of days.  His son lives in Portland so Riley was doing the parent/grandparent bonding before staying with us.  As always, having a guest kick-starts you into doing things, so it was off to Powell Books in downtown Portland – the largest independent book store in the US.  It takes up a whole city block and is 3 stories high!  Ann, Riley, and I split up to head to our section/s of choice and an hour and half later I was told to meet in the coffee shop as it was time to regroup.  At this time I had not finished in the travel section even though I had 8 books and 4 maps in my basket.  The next day it was off to the wine country, which as you know is our thing, but Riley had never done a winery visit and tasting!  Our first stop was Willa Kenzie, one of Oregon’s best wineries.  The owner is a French American who made his money in the medical-tech field and produces some very good old school Burgundian wines.  He built a $20 million air conditioned warehouse to store/cool his grapes during harvest time to ensure the best crush each year!  Then it was on to Carlton to check out the house we were renting for our 3-month stay in the Willamette Valley, which was a good move as it turned out to be literally slap bang on the main road to McMinnville in a pretty run down area.  We decided to forgo our deposit and find somewhere else. We headed into McMinnville for lunch at Jem, a good Cajun restaurant which, as luck would have it, rented apartments over their two restaurants.  It turned out they couldn’t help us, but put us in contact with someone who could and in two hours we had a new place to stay in the hills just outside of town!  Then it was on to Archery Summit for more Pinot Noir tasting.  Lovely vineyard in the Dundee Hills producing some super wines, but as they start at $80 a bottle not your everyday tipple.  The weather cleared at we were leaving so we got a great view of the snow covered Cascades.

The next Saturday it was Jenny’s birthday bash at the House of Louie in Portland’s China Town for Dim Sum with a group of her friends.  There were about 12 of us including Jenny’s 3^rd husband and his new wife as well as Ann and I – quite a gathering, but unfortunately didn’t get to talk to half the people.

Then Sunday it was Super Bowl!  The Stafford Club was doing a Super Bowl gathering so we started off there – boring with lousy food – so moved on to the CI for Drop Top Amber and nachos – both really good.  Then as the Panthers were getting their head handed to them on a plate we went home for the final quarter to ease the pain with some good wine.

The Tao of Tea in better weather.

As it was Chinese New Year we decided to visit the Portland Chinese Garden – back to China Town.  A lovely garden with traditional buildings constructed by mainland Chinese brought in for the job – not one nail in the whole place.  It has a traditional tea house serving a myriad of Chinese teas and snacks where we had lunch.  Just fabulous – we felt we were back in Beijing!

Next it was off to have dinner with Bill and Teresa Crowell, DoS friends from our Beijing days, who live on Hayden Island in the middle of the Columbia River in Portland.  Considering all things we used Uber for our transport, which worked really well.  Benefits of living in suburbia!  Fabulous food and Bill and Ann had a great time playing do you remember…? and where is… ?

Yachats.

At the end of February there appeared to be a period of reasonable weather which we thought would be a good time to visit the coast.  Guide books coupled with the Internet meant we selected a spot, Yachats (Pronounced Yaa-hawts), found a good a good hotel on the beach, and then got a deal on Hotels.com.  Yes! We hit the coast at Lincoln City and headed south down Rt. 101 through Newport, which was having its Wine & Seafood Festival.  Newport has a population of 10,000 but the festival brings in an average of 25,000 people so chaos reigns!  Yaahats is about 25 miles south of Newport so we figured we were out of the danger zone.  Our first night we had dinner in our hotel – The Adobe Resort – and met Vera – waitress and bartender extraordinaire.  Vera makes a mean Manhattan and a very good Irish coffee.  She is the only bartender I have come across in the US who understands the nuances of Bushmills versus Jameson’s.  The hotel is literally perched on the rocks about 10-15 feet above the ocean, so there is the constant roar of the breakers, which are illuminated at night so you get a fabulous view from the dining room of the waves and driving rain.  A very good start to our coastal stay.

Adobe Resort, Yachats.

Explored Yaahats and found a great coffee shop and bakery – Bread & Roses Bakery – where we had lunch, and was so impressed we went back for breakfast the next day.  Dinner that night was at Ona – rated Yaahats No1 restaurant.  However, it has a miniscule parking area, so we had to park on the road a couple of hundred yards away, and of course it was pissing with rain, again, so our walk to the restaurant was not a good start to our meal.  You can imagine theangryanglo mood as the rain sluiced off our Barbours and Barbour hats (thank you Debbie & Mark!) as we slogged back to Ona.  Nice bar and the food was excellent so in a better mood at the end of the evening, plus it had stopped raining!  Saturday was a trip along the coast to the Heceta Lighthouse – a 100 year old lighthouse that is still in operation – as the Oregon coast is not a friendly spot for ships.  Spectacular views, gorgeous beaches, and towering pines as we drove south to Florence for lunch.  Florence is a small one time fishing village and is one of the nicer spots we saw on our trip.  Found a great spot for lunch – Bridgewater Ocean Fresh Fish House – but hey what’s in a name!  Really good seafood with Dungeness Crab Cakes for Ann and Fish & Chips Trio for me!  The trio was three pieces of fish – 1 Chinook Salmon, 1 Cod, and 1 Halibut – with a mound of excellent crispy fries.  I rated the fish as the Halibut, Salmon, and then the Cod.  Really surprised by how good the salmon was.   Neil & Leslie contacted us to say they were heading back to Canada along the coast road so we met up in Yaahats on the Saturday night where we drank a good selection of wines and continued getting up-to-date on our lives.  Turns out my old comrades from A Division – Ian, Neil’s brother, and Peter Taverner would all be in Vancouver in April and we should arrange a get together.  As I haven’t seen Ian or Peter for 52 years it seemed like a good idea before another 50 years passed.  Yeah, Canadian road trip!  After numerous bottles of wine Neil decided they would sleep in their camper at the hotel that night.  A real storm came in in the early hours of Sunday morning with 60-70mph winds and torrential rains.  The wind was so strong that N&L’s camper was rocked about so severely they couldn’t sleep and their dog was having fits, so they hit the road at 4.30am!

On the Sunday we headed back to Tualatin across country to visit a couple of vineyards in the Corvallis area.  Cardwell Hill Cellars, run by Dan Chapel, and ex-Fluor manager, who did a lot of work with Greenville, SC Campus!  Small world scenario again.  Producing some great wines, one of which got 92 point with Wine Spectator and all reasonably priced.  Then on to Airlie Winery where the owner and her dogs opened up the tasting room for us.  The wines in the tasting room were so cold that new bottles were brought from the house for us to taste!  A good Pinot Blanc and a couple of award winning Pinot Noirs.

Landslide on Rt.101 at Heceta Lighthouse.

Watching the news that evening we found out the coast road by the Heceta Lighthouse had been taken out by a massive landslide, and it was expected to take 2-3 days to get it back into action.  The news report didn’t mention it but the slide was in section of roadworks where they are rebuilding Rt.101, and have been for months.  Just saying!

At the beginning of March, Lindsey, Ann’s niece, and her husband Matt came to stay.  Super young couple who decided they needed to do some wine tasting and skiing while we were in Oregon.  Good to see someone had picked up on our 2bed/2bath places so family and friends would come and stay!  Would you believe they brought good weather so most of their stay was nice weather with only the odd shower.  They had one day on a wine tour with next day skiing on Mt Hood, and the final day we all visited the Multnomah Falls – the highest in Oregon and the 4^th highest in the US – impressive.

Multnomah Falls.

Then it was lunch at Jakes Famous Crawfish Restaurant in downtown Portland as Matt was from Louisiana!  Good food in a great old building dating back to the 1800s.  Then it was on to the Japanese Gardens in Washington Park in the western hills of Portland.  Arrived to find the gardens were being “upgraded” and were now in the middle of a construction site, which involved a half mile uphill slog passed trucks and equipment to get to the entrance!  The gardens themselves are lovely and have great views over Portland and out to Mt Hood – that is if the rain and mist permits.  Mind you the peace of the Zen Gardens was marred by the noise of construction equipment.  Probably be really nice in a year or so.  The day after Lindsey & Matt left it was back to sheeting rain and high winds.  The weatherman on the TV said that wind gauges on the coast had blown out after recording wind speeds of 70-90mph – windy!

Last Friday we decided to do nearby wine country as there was going to be a break in the weather, and maybe even sunshine!  Wrong!  It started raining as soon as we set off and basically rained for the rest of the day.  If I hear one more remark that “this is Oregon” and/or “liquid sunshine”, I’m going to lose it!!  Anyway, we located the Ponzi Vineyard tasting room, now located away from the vineyard itself.  It is a super modern tasting room with huge easy chairs, sofas, and a fireplace, where you can lounge and taste rather stand at the bar.  Being purists we stood, swilled, and spat.  Ponzi was one of the first Oregon wineries started in 1970 and produces outstanding wines.  The tasting list was primarily their 2012 and 2013, and we got a nice story about the 2013 harvest.  A good year right up until the vendange when they were hit by heavy rains, which meant big problems.  Dick and Nancy Ponzi decided they had to the get the water off the grapes fast so they could harvest, so hired helicopters to move along the vines blowing the water off the grapes that were then immediately picked.  It obviously worked as the 2013s we tasted were great.  Rumour has it that within 2 days you couldn’t find a chopper for hire anywhere in Oregon.  Their 2012 Chardonnay is bloody marvellous, but at $70 a bottle not an everyday wine.  Ponzi is without doubt the best wines we have tasted to date.  Let me know what you

The new Ponzi tasting room.

think.  On the backroads from Ponzi to Newberg for lunch we found the Pottery Vineyard.  The tasting room is a converted garage, pottery showroom, and jam stand.  They produce 500 cases a year from the vines around the garage and house, with one of their pinot noirs receiving 91 points from the Wine Enthusiast, and we couldn’t find it in any of wine books!  Newberg is basically the start of the heartland of the Willamette Valley with Rt.99W running right through town with two one-way 3 lane systems slicing it in half.  Not pretty.  It also had a reputation of being a culinary wasteland, but research came up with two relatively new restaurants, one of which was open for lunch, which narrowed decision making.  Recipe is in an old house between the one-way systems with only on-street parking.  It was worth the hassle as our lunch was the best meal we have had in Oregon.  French Owner/Chef, but 2 executive chefs do the heavy lifting.  A potato & leek soup that was superb – Ann rated it as probably the best she had ever had.  She then went on the Smoked Trout Salad – smoking done in-house over Alder wood – once again rave revues!  I had Oyster Stew that was probably the best I have ever had – huge local oysters that were amazing.  Finished with a shared Panna Cotta with boozy dried fruit on top and accompanied by large chunks of homemade shortbread – just outstanding.  The food was very reasonably priced, but the wine list took the piss.  But hey, it was lunch so not a biggy.  Feeling all was right with the world we hit the back roads to Blakeslee Vineyards, a recommendation from Ann’s Vietnamese nail lady!  It’s a lovely mountain setting that was purchased by Bill and Sheila Blakeslee as their retirement home, complete with a vineyard.  Their intention was to sell the grapes, but in having some made into wine for themselves, they were thwarted by wine industry rules and regulations resulting in a full blown winery producing about 2500 cases a year!  Good wines with an excellent Pommard Rose, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Noir.  Big bottle formats up 5 litres – a big Jeroboam!  Mary, our tasting room hostess, was brilliant and gave us restaurant recommendations along with a selection of vineyards we should visit with free tasting vouchers.  Doing the wine country in the middle of the winter in the middle of the week does have its benefits.

Hunkering down this weekend to do the blog as more storms roll in with very strong winds and bursts of heavy rain.  As we go to press the wind is literally howling round the flat and the Internet went down but luckily came back.  We have a fireplace, but have to burn Presto logs to conform to Tualatin’s emissions codes.  Tonight is going to be a 2-log night!

No doubt my ardent followers are wondering what the hell happened to my blog?!  As you will now see this move of homes entailed a couple of lay-overs, and our coping with bad colds on the way.

We left Sedona on New Year’s Eve and checked into Mr Hilton’s Garden Inn in Palm Desert on schedule.  The plan was to get take-out and hunker down in our room with food and champagne to watch Alabama beat up on Michigan State.  The hotel was a 5 mins walk from The River, a complex of restaurants, shops, and bars all round a “river”, where I collected our P F Chang’s take-out.  The place was rammed and there was a queue at the pick-up counter, where I encountered another English couple. We exchanged seasonal greetings, and when I asked about their Christmas in Palm Springs I was immediately corrected that it was Palm Desert not Palm Springs!  Duly chastened, I collected our food and headed back to the hotel, where we ate some good Asian stuff, washed down with a nice bottle of pink bubbly, and watched The Tide annihilate Michigan 38-0 – Yes!  A great New Year.

Next day it was a mainly interstate journey to Paso Robles.  I was under the misconception that traffic would not be too bad as it was New Year’s Day – wrong – everyone and his uncle was on the road!  We did I-10 to I-210 around Los Angles, and then onto I-5 north to Rt 46 into Paso, only a 5-hour journey but most of it was a nightmare of fighting really bad drivers on 10 and 12 lane highways.  The speed limit was either 60 or 65 mph, with this being treated as mere guideline by 95% of the drivers, while the other 5% were doing 50 mph in the fast lane!  I did most of I-210 on the 2 inside lanes as they were the fastest of the 6 lanes!  When we merged with 1-5 the traffic from both roads ground to a halt as 12 lanes became 6!  Slowly the wedge of traffic sorted itself out and we picked up speed to go through the switchbacks of the Alamo Mountains, with the lanes slowly dropping from 6 to 2 while the speed limit picked up 70 mph by the time we were in the Bakersfield area.  The last few miles into Paso were through huge orchards of almond and walnut trees before we saw the wineries of Tobin James and Eberle as we entered into town.  We made a quick stop at Albertsons to buy the basics for our cottage in the countryside of Adelaida, which turned out to be 11 miles out of town on a narrow, winding, very hilly road.  There were obviously not going to be any long dinners in Paso!

Our cottage was actually on a farm and we parked between hay barns before walking past the chicken coop and through the gardens to the house.  Probably the original farm house – lovely wide veranda all around the house.  Unpacked and started getting organised to watch some football only to find the TV was not hooked up and it was only good for DVDs!!  Then found there was no mobile phone service when we tried to contact the owners!!  Not a good start to our stay to say the least.  We are not TV junkies and don’t mind being without, but in this instance we had been lied to about the services, so were not kitted out with BBC box sets and jigsaw puzzles for the long winter evenings!  Listened to the final New Year’s Day games on TuneIn Radio on my trusty iPhone while having dinner, as we did at least have Wi-Fi.

Adelaida wine country!

We had a fun time in Paso visiting and revisiting wineries like Ecluse, Justin, Eberle, Tobin James, Adelaida, Tablas Creek, plus Olivas de Oro – 160 acres of century old olive trees producing great olive oil – and excellent lamb from their Katahdin sheep.  We did Executive wine tastings at Eberle and Tablas Creek where we tasted their reserve wines and had our own tasting room manager to guide us through the wines. At Eberle we were actually in an alcove in their cellars surrounded by barrels with that lovely musty smell of wood and wine, where at Tablas Creek we were in a smart private tasting room.  A really great way to taste wine!  We had lunches in Paso at Bistro Laurent and Estrelle.  Laurent is a real French Bistro and the food was outstanding!  We shared a Crispy Shrimp Salad as a starter where the huge prawns were wrapped in this crispy mesh, which turned out to be finely shredded phyllo pastry; extremely yummy.  Estrelle is one of these new Latin inspired restaurants where the food is a mixture of Spanish and South American dishes and once again the food was excellent.  Did some cooking in our farmhouse, but the light was so bad around the stove I had to wear my hikers head light to see what I was doing!  However, it was a lovely setting and in the mornings we had a covey of quail come out of the adjoining field and walk through the garden for their bug breakfast.

Adelaida cottage.

After our week in Adelaida/Paso it was on-on to Roseville, a town just north of Sacramento, to visit our old friends Candi & Frank Staszeski, who were our neighbours in Arlington.  Frank and I had bonded over golf and curry, so it was going to be a few days of playing golf and cooking curry – yes!  However, I had started a cold in Adelaida, and we arrived in Roseville to find Candi was sick with a really bad cold, which Frank had passed on, but we still played golf and cooked curry!  We actually put together a super Indian meal which proved that Frank and I hadn’t lost our touch.  By the time we left Ann wasn’t feeling so hot and would obviously soon be hit by the dreaded lurghi!!

Down town Kelseyville – we are the 2 story building on the right.

Thank heavens it was a relatively short drive to our next wine destination, Kelseyville, the centre of the Lake County where 7 AVAs are dotted around Clear Lake; all in volcanic soil with the wineries situated from 800 to 3,000 ft.  Kelseyville, CA turned out to be more like West Virginia than California, and certainly not the most attractive town we have ever stayed in.  It’s a strange area in that it prides itself on having the cleanest air in California, but that’s because it has no industry so it also has very high unemployment. Hence the West Virginia vibe!  Our flat was above an antique shop and tattoo parlour!  The “town” did have 4 tasting rooms, a brewery pub, an excellent coffee shop, and two good restaurants so the basics were covered.  The Kelseyville charm was not helped by grey rainy weather and having rotten colds!  Despite the odds we did 10 tastings at Lajour Estate, Boatique Winery, (so called because it has a large collection of antique boats in the tasting room!) Don Angel, Brassfield, Cache Creek, Chacewater, Smiling Dog Ranch, Rosa D’Oro, Steele, and Wildhurst.  Overall good wines with Steele, Cache Creek and Brassfield leading the pack.  Some good Sauvignon Blancs from the Big Valley and Clear Lake AVAs.  Zins, Syrah and Petit Syrah, with some Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are being produced with nice Zinfandels and Syrahs from Brassfield, Chacewater, and Steele.  A very good restaurant, SawShop, was 5 mins walk from the flat, and is owned by the ex-wife of Steele Vineyards owner Jed Steele, and is producing some really good food with a great selection of local wines.  The other good eatery was Woody’s situated in the corner of a lumber warehouse and hardware store!  A no frills restaurant that served fresh homemade soups, outstanding and huge burgers, as well as really good sweet potato fries.

Red Hills AVA.

With another wine region under our belt we headed off for Oregon along the coast on Rt 1/Rt 101 with an overnight stop in Crescent City before going over the mountains to Grants Pass and picking up I-5 for the final run into Tualatin.  We loaded up the car and had coffee and breakfast croissants at the coffee shop across the road.  In Kelseyville the fog was so heavy you could hardly see from one side of the street to the other and it didn’t clear until we were over the coastal mountains.  Then once we were running along the coast and going through the redwood forests it really started raining with some strong winds in places.  We made it to the Crescent City’s best hotel – the Best Western – at which time the rain was driving horizontally off the sea!  Luckily the rain eased so we were able walk next door to the Good Harvest Café for dinner.  One of those restaurants that served good fresh food but was just short of being a really good because of cooking all the fish in panko and over-breading in the process!  But hey, it had a reasonable wine list and did good Irish Coffees!  It wasn’t even raining when we worked back to our room!

Rt 101 north of Crescent City

The next morning was a different beast!  Filling up with petrol I was soaked by a torrential rain driving off the sea, even though I was under cover and this set the tone for the journey.  After a few miles we took Rt 199 across the mountains to Grants Pass just as the rain picked up to Monsoon levels with some serious gusts of wind. Visibility was down to 6-10 feet with the wipers going full bore, so we crawled along at about 20 miles an hour with small waterfalls coming off the cliffs and spilling across the road, and edging through a rock fall in 4-wheel drive.  Probably the worst driving conditions I have ever experienced!  Signs warning of falling rocks complete with a river running in full spate 50 feet below the road created a little tension now and then!  By the time we got to Grants Pass the conditions improved to mere pouring rain, but by then we were onto I-5 with complete with trucks doing 70mph.  Not fun to say the least and lasted all the way until our Tualatin turn off.  The journey from hell and up there with I-35 in Texas!

Tualatin flat – we are on the 3rd floor at the back.

New Seasons, a local Whole Food’s type super market was on our way to the flat so we stopped for bread, butter, milk, eggs, etc.  We found whole Jersey milk in glass bottles – really delicious – and something I hadn’t tasted since many years ago in the UK.  If they can produce milk like this where is the double and clotted cream?  Anyway, found the flat, which is actually on Sweek Street and not SW Tualatin as listed, sorted out door codes and got the garage opener so we could unload out of the elements and put the truck to bed.  We had made it to our 3^rd roost after leaving SC almost a year ago, and were very happy to settle in, put our feet up, and drink wine!!

Only a week to go and we are on the road again!  Our 3 months in Sedona have just flown past and we still have stuff to do before we leave, which proves our point that you need at least 6 months to really enjoy your new home.

Apart from the water aerobics, gym, jolking to stay up with the eating and drinking, we have continued to see as much of the area as possible.  However, the weather and winter conditions means it gets dark early and we have to pick our travel days.  Last week we had 2-3 inches of snow and sub-zero temperatures for a couple of days, which mean we hunkered down and drank vin choux.  The red rock mesas covered in snow look quite spectacular.  Probably because of our altitude the snow was small firm pellets, and not flaky and slushy, quite pleasant until it softened and then froze!

As soon as we got back from Palm Springs we went out to dinner with our newest, bestest, friends in the Verde Valley Amy Stein and Howie Usher, who we met on our scouting trip to Sedona back in July.  Amy is a professor at Yavapai College and Howie is a retired professor who now works on rafting trips through the Grand Canyon to keep himself busy!  We went to Mariposa a new restaurant that only opened a few months ago, and is renowned for its views of Sedona’s red rocks.  It has an imposing dining room with 50 foot glass walls and a 180 degree view over the Sedona wildness area – pretty awesome to say the least.  Amy gave us the local info on the Mariposa site, which was once the HQs of Sedona’s biggest construction company.  The owner was caught cheating on his wife and ended up selling the company to pay off his ex!  We appreciated his sacrifice.  A great menu, but we didn’t get past their tapas section!  We had 8 dishes between us, one of which was a Triple Queso Truffle Mac & Cheese!  I know, not a tapas dish but who the hell is not going to try this!  The Fried Avocado with Pimento Aioli was outstanding and seriously moreish.  Also found a new wine – Bonardo – from the Mendoza region of Argentina.  Almost a Zin in many respects – a really nice wine at a good price.

In amongst the snow storms we went out to the V Bar V petroglyph site, the premier rock drawing site in northern AZ.  The V Bar V part comes from the ranch that was on the site was before it was turned over to the Forestry Service.  Another beautiful, remote, site with a huge wall of petroglyphs that an onsite docent deciphered for us.  While excavating the site they realised a rock cleft high up on the cliff had been altered to mark the winter solstice on a rock at the bottom of the bluff.  At another spot a long thin rock jammed in a crack had a wavy edge to it that caste shadows showing the spring planting months on another part of the rock face.  This site was purely a religious and ceremonial site as there were no dwellings anywhere near it.  Our guide said the whole area was full petroglyphs and rock paintings, as well as the remains of buildings and terraced farming.  All from the Sanagua people around 800 to 1000 years ago.

Sedona had its second annual restaurant week that started just after we got back from Palm Springs, so we went to a couple of the better restaurants we hadn’t tried.  Amy and Howie joined us for dinner at L’Auberge the restaurant in Sedona’s premier resort hotel.  A 3 for $40 menu with 2 choices in each course, and as there were four of us we covered the whole menu!  Fabulous food – the best we’d had in Sedona so far.  Huge wine list rated by the Wine Spectator as one of the best in the west.  Amy chose an Arizonan red from a vineyard they knew that worked really well with our dinner.  Howie, knew everyone in the restaurant as they were his ex-students – a fun evening!  Next for restaurant week was the Saltrock Southwest Kitchen in the Amara Resort – not as up market as L’Auberge, but produced some great food all from a 3 for $30 menu.  One side of the restaurant had a wall of spoons – neat – but not up to Ms Rose’s wall back in Charleston.  Also, following Ms Rose’s they had a roasted corn appetiser, but this was grill roasted corn that had been taken off the cob and served with a spicy aioli sauce – delicious!

Ann signed us up for a geology hike in the Red Rock State Park, which turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day, though a bit chilly.  At least it wasn’t snowing!  We hadn’t hiked this area so a great opportunity for a new hike and to learn something of how the red rock country came about.  A super day, and needless to say we learnt a lot!  The hike was something over 2 hours, but there was a fair bit of lecturing a certain spots.  A small group of mostly “older” overweight Americans, but hey there were out there!  Ann and I were the fittest by a mile and were on the heels of our guide lecturer – yes!

Red Rock State Park before the snow!

Our next expedition was to Prescott, pronounced “Presket” of course!  The home of Earp boys and Doc Holiday in the good old bad days, before they moved to Tombstone.  It’s not until you look at a map you realise how out there Prescott is – you go to Prescott – that’s it – it’s not on the way to anywhere else.  One of those mile high cities amongst the mountains sitting at 5400 ft.  Going we drove through Jerome, the old mining town, and over the mountains, topping out at above 7500 ft.  A truly scenic route as you slowly make your way through numerous hair pins bends on a really narrow road amongst the pine trees covered in snow.

Rt. 89A  into Prescott.

Prescott itself has a population of 40,000, but is now just part of a sprawling urban mess, much of it new, which I would think is over 200,000.  We were not impressed.  The mountains lack the colour of Sedona so the winter landscape is pretty drab. Has a neat down town area with some nice older houses around the central square and courthouse, but that’s about it.

Down town Presket.

We visited the Sharlot Hall Museum, which is a small campus of 9 buildings, giving the history of Prescott from prehistoric times through to the present.  The site is anchored by the original governor’s mansion built in 1864 and still in its original location.  The Mansion escaped demolition because of Sharlot Hall, who founded the Museum in the Governor’s Mansion in 1927.  We took a break for lunch at the local brewery on Courthouse Square, which served mediocre food in huge portions, but did have excellent beer.  Then it was on to the Smoki Museum, the local Native American museum.  However, it turned out to be far more than that!  The young Hopi man in charge explained the Smoki was in fact a fraternal order of local white business men who dressed up as Indians and started doing the Hopi Snake Dance in 1921 to raise money for the Presket Rodeo.  Interesting connection here with Senator Barry Goldwater who was a member of the Smoki.  During the 20s and 30s the Hopi were actually banned from performing their sacred dances, and school age Hopi were compelled to go to boarding school to learn non-Indian practises.  This carried on for 70 years, but during this period the Smoki People actually collected large quantities of Indian artefacts, and constructed the museum during the 1930s depression. It was designed as a Hopi pueblo meeting hall by an artist who had lived with the Hopi and is made from local materials.  An outstanding collection housed in a beautiful building, run by the Hopi, who were basically banned from being Hopi until 1979 when the Freedom of Religion Act was passed.  Talk about living history!  Then it was back home via I-17 and Cottonwood, a longer route but actually quicker as you don’t have to crawl over the Mingus Mountain range.

We are now coming up to our first Christmas on the road.  The Wombat did an amazing job of selecting our Sedona Christmas card and producing the Christmas letter, so everything went out on time for once.  Our Christmas decorations comprise of the cards we have received, and the presents are stacked below a decorative cactus.  Also, the weather is playing its part by being cold and snowy, and vin choux and hot rum chocolate are regular evening beverages.  We have a reservation for an early dinner at Rene’s on Christmas Day, which has an awesome set menu, so basically all’s right with the world.  We of course miss our family and friends at this time of the year, but just think of all stuff we can bore them with when we next get together. Yo Ho Ho!!

December 1-5 we did a road trip to Palm Springs to stay with Wishart and Kathy Robson.  Wish had stayed with us in Sedona on his annual Clemson tour, so we had set a return match while they were in PS.  Also, we had decided to take the southern route out of AZ into CA rather than brave the northern route in winter, so this was a good chance to recce the first half of our route to Adelaida, CA.

It was out through the Village of Oak Creek on Rt 179 to 1-17 south, then across country on Rt 74 and Rt 60 to I-10, avoiding Phoenix and a big chunk of I-10.  74 and 60 go through some rugged country; mountain ranges, Yuma Proving Ground, and desert, interspersed with nothing but RV parks.  Yep, RV parks – we counted about 10 in a 50 mile stretch from Wickenburg to the CA border.  These places are not small – some had hundreds of RVs – many with added structures.  They are literally in a desert with road signs warning of dust storms, and miles from anywhere, or anything.  A couple had cafes and bars, but the nearest grocery store had to be 25-30 miles away!  Canadian flags and signs indicated some Canuks fleeing their winters, but to live in a desert?!  Anyway, it seems it’s also a lot of retirees on a budget as these RV parks are really cheap – well duh – living in a desert in the middle of nowhere!

Stopped just across the AZ/CA line in a small town called Blythe for lunch as it was the first town on our route that had a reasonable place to eat.  It was the A&R Bakery & Café whose bestselling item was a turkey sandwich on spiced cranberry bread.  It was a small place in the centre of Blythe with 6 tables, plus a little veranda, and orders taken at the counter.  Decided to experiment with the turkey sandwich – hey I’m an old fart on the road!  When I ordered I was hit with a barrage of did I want, avocado, jalapenos, and other stuff, to which I just answered yes – didn’t want to slow up the ordering process. Had sweet potato fries instead of potato salad as my side – yes!  My sandwich must have been 3-4 inches deep, and was delicious,  as were the fries!  One of the best sarnies I’ve had – that spiced cranberry bread really worked.  Ann had pastrami on a roll.  She said the meat was very good, but the sandwich had an overdose of mustard.   The bakery section looked really amazing so we loaded up with goodies for Wish and Kathy, which we would help with of course.

Main drag Palm Springs

Barrelled on into PS, which is actually just one of a series of villages/towns all running into each other along the San Jacinto Mountains.  Indio, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, La Quinta, Santa Rosa, so you probably have about 200,000 people all together in one suburban sprawl.  Wish and Kathy’s house is in a small gated enclave of 8 houses, just east of downtown Palm Springs.  Really nice – complete with pool and hot tub!  Wish cranked up the grill and we had some awesome rib eye steaks with lashings of red wine for our first dinner.  Rather disconcerting that it’s dark by 4:30pm when the sun goes down behind the mountains and the temperature plummets.  Played golf, wandered around down town, doing the museums and art museums.  The Palm Springs Art Museum is fabulous!  The Weiner Collection is a semi-permanent exhibition that is truly impressive; haven’t seen so many Henry Moore sculptures in one place in my life!  Then there are the Picasso vases, Modigliani, and Paolozzi busts – just amazing.  Also, in another gallery there is a small collection of pre-Colombian pieces that is staggeringly beautiful.  An impressive museum!  After our arty morning we walked round the corner to a Japanese restaurant and pigged out on Yakitori and sake.  They also had a fried oyster appetiser that was delicious – so delicious we had two lots!  Yep, still on the fried oyster trail.  In our wanderings we found a French/Belgium restaurant called Pomme Frite so took Wish and Kathy there for dinner.  9 different ways to have your Moule Frites – yes!  We immediately reverted to our Beijing days and had steak tartare followed by moule frites, with crepes Suzette to finish.  Had a rather nice bottle of Red Sancerre, followed by a Russian River Pinot as Wish and Kathy were eating pork and beef, rather than moule frites; can’t understand it!   After 4 days of doing Palm Springs and eating and drinking to excess, we headed back to Sedona.

Tahquitz Creek GC – Bob Hope’s house back in the hills.

We thought we would do a straight I-10 > I-17 route back home, but after an hour of fighting trucks and brain dead motorists, we went back to Rt 60 and Rt 74 through the RV desert!  Good run, and nice to be back home.  Home is a fluid term when you are on the road, and home is now where our stuff is and where we kick back in our jammies and watch TV!

As it is now snowing, and has been most of the day, thought I might as well try putting out another blog.  We have now been in Sedona for 6 weeks, so half way through our stay. Boy is time flying by!

Anyway, since my last missive we have settled in and done quite a lot of interesting stuff.  Joined a gym – SedonaFit – which is small, but has some unique Kinesis equipment so all our needs are covered. Membership seems to be predominately our age which is a little depressing, but it does make me look good on the free weights.  Ann found her water aerobics classes, which until day were held in an outdoor pool at Sedona High School.  Heated, but some of the mornings were a little chilly, but she toughed it out.  Today’s class was at an indoor facility at a resort just down the road, which was good as it was 38’F/3’C and snowing went she headed for class this morning!  Really helps her knees, which we have just found out have no cartilage, and will require knee replacement surgery in 2-5 years.  However, there are remedial procedures which can be done and we’ll explore that option once we are in Portland.  I have identified 3 golf courses – all in The Village of Oak Creek – 30 mins drive through the mountains on Rt 179, but the drive is quite spectacular winding its way through huge red mesas.  I’ve been playing about once a week, but rain and snow has been cutting into playing time recently.

We have covered most of the local wineries and tasting rooms and have been impressed with the standard of the wines.  So far we have not come across any wines that we didn’t think acceptable – I know we’ll drink anything, total winos, etc., etc.  Arizona is way above the average wines we found in the Texas Hill Country, which I must admit is surprising considering they have a much smaller wine industry than Texas and are at about the same stage of development.  Terroir is very similar, though the weather is probably a little better than the Hill Country, and the focus is on Old Country varietals just like Texas.  We have yet to visit a co-op of about 6 wine makers in Clarksville, plus 2 wineries and that’s it.  There are a lot more wineries down south in the Coronado Valley and Sanoita, where the bulk of the grapes are grown, but we won’t be doing those this trip.

Visited Jerome, an old mining town in the hills of the Verde Valley where gold and copper was mined in the 1800 and 1900s, but had become a virtual a ghost town until quite recently.  Now it has 4 tasting rooms and about 6 restaurants, plus of course all the tourist crap that comes with “development”.  It’s built on a steep hill side and the road through town is a series of S bends.  Tasted some good wine and had a very pleasant lunch overlooking the Verde Valley – fun trip.

Drove up to Flagstaff to buy hiking boots, day pack, etc. so we could start doing some of the Sedona trails that are literally just round the corner from where we are staying.  Flagstaff is 23 miles from Sedona but is an hour’s drive! Some serious hairpin bends on the route and you climb about 2000ft in those 20 odd miles!  Very scenic.  Spent a fortune in REI buying all sorts of cool outdoor stuff.  Visited the Museum of Northern Arizona which has a good collection of early Pueblo Indian artefacts and traces their history through to today’s Hopi and Apache Indians.  Fascinating stuff.  Found a great lunch spot – a brewery which served food from the butcher’s shop and deli next door.  Enjoyed great draft beer with fabulous charcuterie and sarnies – yes!  Hit the butchers shop and loaded up with meats before heading back to Sedona.

Wishart Robson came to stay on his trip from Vancouver to Clemson for the Clemson v Florida State Game.  I met Wish on my first Nigerian contract in Port Harcourt and we have stayed in touch over the years meeting in various spots around the world like London, Perth, and Charleston.  Great fun – played catch-up, played golf, and ate and drank to excess.  All Wish’s fault of course.  We are going to do a return match and visit Wish and Kathy in Palm Springs at the beginning of December, which will probably involve all the above mentioned stuff!

With our new hiking gear we have been doing a hike each week, and started with the Devil’s Bridge.  Classified as Easy by the Forest Service with great views, so off we went.  The first discovery was the “road” into the trail head could only be handled by high clearance 4x4s – did about 150 yards in the Pathfinder before we came across a rocky section that I couldn’t get through.  So parked the truck and set off on a trail that would loop round into the Devils Bridge path, which was lovely, but got seriously busy on the actual Devil’s Bridge track.  We climbed 500 feet in about ½ a mile and then came to the final section which was literally vertical rock steps going up another 100 odd feet.  Easy – yeh right!!  Once you make it on to the actual Devil’s Bridge it is quite something.  Mind you the brain dead young male balancing on the narrowest portion on one leg so his girlfriend could take photos rather marred the view.  I was waiting for that Darwin Awards moment, but the idiot survived this time.  During our hike we had one girl rescued by the EMS after slipping and tearing the tendons in her ankle, saw another girl go down and gash her leg, and met a young man who had spent 3 months at Stone Henge becoming a Druid!  Interesting hike.

Our next hike was the Court House and Bell Rock loop – a beautiful trek round these two imposing mesas of just under 4 miles.  It’s just amazing how the views change and other smaller rocks come into view as you move along the trail.  Came across 4 lady horse riders who were checking out a good lunch spot for a group of riders they were guiding through next week.  Seems they were part of a ladies only riding club that did regular treks through the red rock country.  Two of them were packing – 9mm Glocks – which I commented on, and their leader said it was stupid not to carry when riding the country they did.  Said it was good to see!  Felt a bit under gunned with my .380 auto.  Stopped and ate our sarnies on the edge of a stream gazing up at Court House Rock, after which we legged it back to the trail head.  Completed the loop in about 2 hours, which we thought was pretty good for two ancients.

Took a trip on the Verde Canyon Railroad – and old mining rail line that runs 20 miles from Clarkdale to Perkinsville and back following  the Verde River though the canyon.  We booked first class as this seemed the way to go, but all I can say is I hate to think what economy was like!  Sitting outside on the “viewing car”, a flatbed with benches, was preferable to sitting inside the cabin, even with the cash bar available. Spectacular views, and you see some really remote parts of the Verde Valley.  Very touristy and railway music is pumped out the whole time – that means every song that was ever written about trains is played!  Only switched off so the guide could point out rock formations of interest like Turtle Rock and Lincoln’s Nose – the man had a vivid imagination!

Drove over to Cottonwood – a small town 15 miles down into the Verde Valley – to do the Old Town Historical Society’s house tour.  Most of them were small 1900s cottages with no real historical features.  Makes you realise that this part of America wasn’t really settled until the 1900s, so apart from the Native American pueblos, and odd Spanish mission, nothing is that old.  The town was hopping as it was their “Saturday on Main.”  Main St was lined with vintage cars, and stalls selling all the normal stuff, complete with a country & western band belting out songs while some people danced in the street.  Anyway, we enjoyed a very pleasant amble through the old town, lunch at a Thai restaurant, a visit to Arizona’s oldest distillery’s tasting room where we found a good aged rum, and then it was back to Sedona. With the sun behind us, it’s always a spectacular trip into Sedona with the sun reflecting off the red mesa rock formations.

This part of northern Arizona is packed with Native American sites dating back thousands of years, and is one part of the country where Clovis Points have been discovered – large stone spear heads from the Paleoindian period 13,500 years ago.  Most of the sites we have visited were built by the Sinagua and Salado Indians about 1200-1500 years ago, though a lot of the sites were in use far earlier.  Most of them are cliff dwellings with a water source from springs or rivers, and arable land close by where they grew corn, squash, and beans. The dwellings housed anywhere from 20 or 30 people up to hundreds, and often in 2 or 3 story structures. These tribes had no written language, so what we know of their life and culture is determined by pottery and artefacts.  The settings of these pueblos are quite beautiful, with some of them in remote canyons that are quite awe inspiring.  So far we have visited five sites – Montezuma’s Castle, Montezuma’s Well, Tuzigoot, Palatki, and Honanki.  Montezuma’s Well is a huge sink hole full of water that never, ever, runs dry.  Not sure of the water source but it has high levels of CO2 so there are no fish, but it supports a type of leech and water scorpion that are not found anywhere else in the world.  There are pueblo structures around the walls of the well that can’t be seen until you climb down to water level – quite fascinating.

As you can tell we are enjoying Sedona and the Verde Valley – a truly beautiful and spectacular part of Arizona – and so different from the Texas Hill Country!  The climate is pretty good as well – dry and sunny with clear blue skies most of the time – plus the air always smells so fresh and clean with hints of pine and juniper.