Anne on Tap: Pacific Northwest Trip!!

Ok, I'm going to give you the same warning that I gave you in this blog, it's going to be a long one, so I suggest you go to the bathroom and grab a snack/drink before you settle in :)

After a crazy hectic half-day at work last Tuesday I headed to the airport to begin my trek to the pacific northwest. After minor delays I finally landed in SeaTac. Unfortunately, Mags' flight was delayed for SIX HOURS so I just went to the hotel and she arrived much later. (And due to her 6 hour delay in her arrival time, we were forced to rock a mini-van for the whole trip because all of the cars were rented out!)

Wednesday morning we headed out to Mt. Rainier. It went from a nice 72 degrees outside of Seattle to about 50 degrees at the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, it was so cloudy we couldn't even see the peak, only the base and the massive finger like expansions (that looked like a giant mountain to me).

We tried to drove to the east side of the mountain and come down around the east side of Mt. St. Helen's but both roads (on the east sides of each mountain) were closed due to massive amounts of snow and landslides. Apparently the month of June is still considered "Winter" on the mountain.

So we backtracked and drove down to Portland (in the kick-ass mini van). We had some time to kill before Dorothy got off work so we went to the Chinese House Tea Garden and enjoyed some tea and tranquility. I had "ginger peach" and Mags had "monkey king."

Then we met up with Dorothy and went to cheer on Juan in his bike race on Mt. Tabor (an extinct volcano)! They did laps on the mountain up giant hills at super fast speeds - it was crazy and I'm not sure why people do that for fun (I guess the same reason they run marathons!) After the race we grabbed some grub at Ken's Artisan Pizza. I even enjoyed a beer called "Double Mountain Volumizer IPA." The pizza was made in a wood-fired oven and tasted amazing.

Thursday morning we woke up early and headed for the Oregan coast. But not before we enjoyed a delicious (but ridiculously high calorie) breakfast at "The Old Hich'en Post" outside of town. Then we drove through the Tillamook National Forest and enjoyed the super fresh, green, clean air. Two and a half hours later we arrived in the little town of Tillamook and stopped at both the Blue Heron Cheese Company and the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Blue Heron was much smaller and had a lot of different kinds of dips and mustards to taste, but they only made Brie cheese. Tillamook was exactly what it says it was, a factory, and very touristy. But the cheese samples were yummy (not that I could enjoy them considering I was still stuffed from our monstrous breakfast).

Next up? The beach! But not a beach I have any desire to go back to! It was FREEZING!! And obviously overcast as you can tell from the pics. It did get sunnier as we made it further down the coast, thankfully, but I don't think it got above 70 the whole day! We stopped at the western most winery in the continental US, The Flying Dutchman. Here are some pics from various beaches/overlooks/stops along the coast.

Lincoln City-1st beach stop

Cape Foulweather

Devil's punch bowl

Espresso truck (these little trucks were ALL OVER!)

Yaquina Lighthouse

We stopped at the Rogue Ale House in Newport for a mid-afternoon beverage. Two free samples and one pint each (well, 3 samples for me since Mags didn't like her Dead Guy Ale) later we decided to do a little Newport Bay shopping. I finally found an apron that I really liked (I've been on a search for like 3 years now) and Yay for no tax in Oregon!

Our next stop was Strawberry Hill where we climbed out onto the rocks in the ocean to get closer to the seals that were "cloud-bathing" on a rock a little further out. One guy was swimming not too far away from us.

We couldn't get enough of the seals so our next stop was the Sea Lion caves and the world's largest sea cave. There were TONS of sea lions hanging out on this rock in the ocean at the bottom of the cliff.....they were so loud!! Then we took an elevator 200 feet down into the sea cave....where there were MORE sea lions hanging out on a rock!

By this time we were STARVING so we scoped out a good seafood restaurant off the beaten path. We passed the "Oregon Dunes" which were semi-impressive. I didn't get any good pictures because they would just kind of rise up from no where and all of the sudden there would be a giant sand dune on the side of the road. We ate a restaurant called "The Portside" in Charleston, OR. It was pretty good - except there was this drunk/high lady there with her family making a complete idiot out of herself and being loud/obnoxious (and there restaurant was not even 1/4 full so she stuck out like a sore thumb).

After dinner we tried to make it to this cool-sounding place in Bandon to see the sunset.......we kinda made it. I'm pretty sure we made it to the place that the tourbook was describing.........it just wasn't as cool as I imagined. Oh and the sun set at about 9:00 on the west coast so it was a little confusing getting used to that. We drove past Bandon where the cranberry bogs were supposed to be.........we saw them but apparently it's not cranberry season so they didn't look like anything special......there weren't even any cranberries (that we could see from the road at least)! By this point it was close to 10:00 so we were exhausted and just wanting to get to our motel in northern california. We drove past some pretty amazing views at dusk of the enormous rocks rising up out of the ocean.........I wish we had made it further south for the sunset because I think it would have been amazing with the giant sea rocks. It was still pretty cool at dusk (as we were flying by at 55 mph around crazy sharp edges with HUGE cliff drop-offs in the mini van). We finally made it to Crescent City and crashed for the night.

Friday morning we got up ready to head through a really cool, gravel, windy road through the redwoods only to find out that it was currently being "re-graveled." Seriously?! I mean, the avalanches and landslides they couldn't help but they had to re-gravel when we were coming to visit?! So we ended up taking a two-lane (paved) road through the forest and taking a minor dirt road detour to see some cool trees. The trees were huge and gorgeous but not as gorgeous as I remember when I went through a different area of the redwoods with my family many, many years ago.

The drive through the rest of northern california back to Oregon's main highway was pretty - through the mountains and along a river that was a deep green color. We stopped at Wild River Brewing and Pizza Co. for lunch in Grants Pass, OR. It must be a microbrew thing to give out free samples of beer with your pint order......which is kind of ingenious because I'm sure it leads people to sample and BUY different/more beers than they might have without the samples. Not us though.....we were on a strict agenda.

We happened to pass through Oregon Wine Country on the way back to Portland so we stopped at a couple wineries along the way. The first one, Spangler Vineyards, had these AMAZING dogs hanging out right when we walked in the door. The one was so sweet, he was my BFF, and he was HUGE and he was only a puppy - 6 months old. So well behaved and so big......kind of the exact opposite of Bailey ;) The second winery, Sienna Ridge had this fabulous slightly-older-than-middle-aged woman as their pourer. She was pretty cool - we sampled some fine wines and then got on the road back to Portland.

We were starving and tired by the time we got back to Dot and Juan's. But we quickly freshened up and headed out to dinner at Andina, a Portland peruvian favorite. It was family style with some Peruvian food that I wouldn't necesarily have ordered if I was by myself........but everything was so yummy! Mags and Dorothy got this ridiculously spicy drink called "SACSAYHUAMÁN" which is pronounced "sexy human." Here is what is in it: "habanero pepper infused vodka shaken with passion fruit puree and cane sugar, served up with a sugar rim and a cilantro leaf garnish" BARF! I tried the teeniest tiniest sip and it was so hot I could barely wash it down with my mojito. But apparently it's really, really good if you like really, really spicy things! After dinner we hung out on the porch and got to catch up with Dorothy and Juan.......and it made me realize even more how much I miss them!

Saturday morning after some full strength coffee we said our goodbye's and Mags and I headed into downtown Portland to conquer Voodoo Donuts (as seen on Man vs. Food). And yes, Mags actually got a BACON-MAPLE donut! Ewww! (For the record she said it was actually good - just needed more bacon!)

After Voodoo, we headed straight for Seattle. It ended up being a gorgeous day, mid-70's and SUNNY! We went to Pike Place Market, saw the world famous Fish Market, and enjoyed a delicious lunch with a view of the Puget Sound. After Pike Place we went back to the hotel to chillax for a little while and then headed to The Tap House.......where they had 160 beers on tap. Then we hopped the monorail to the Space Needle and enjoyed some great views of the city from the top. We were so exhausted from the entire trip that we broke our "no chain restaurant" pact and ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at 10:00 Saturday night (in all honesty, we tried to find something local, but everything was either too expensive, too touristy, or not what we were in the mood for). But it was a great way to top off the trip! Congratulations if you made it to the end of the post! Please collect your belongings and exit to the left.