I hope those who are travelling with us missed yesterday's entry. We left Yreka and drove on to Portland with only a couple of stops. We had a great experience in Canyonville, finding a secondhand/antique store where I found the rice cooker I had been looking for and of course, Norm found a few more postcards. One request I made for the trip was to hit at least one outlet mall. Well we found one in Woodburn, Oregon. I now know why I am not a mall shopper, too many stores with things I don't really need. However . . . I did find a store selling only Le Creuset products! I now have a new cast-iron fry pan, crepes soon to follow! We were lucky finding accommodation in Portland but the Downtown "Value" Inn lacked high speed access and after 45 minutes of limited use, I gave up.
This morning we went to probably the best outdoor market I have ever seen. We bought fresh Ambrosia apples, hot organic oatmeal porridge with raisins, bagel with raspberry jam, a Mississippi hoho, Stumptown coffee, organic carrots and all before breakfast. Outstanding tastes and check out the displays, so colourful. The garbage cans are all covered over with a sign saying that today you can not use the garbage cans but instead you must recycle all waste products in bins properly labelled near by. Cool eh! And of course we did a quick visit to Powell Books. And now we are in Port Angeles heading home. Norm drove the last part of the trip and it poured the whole way. I guess the holiday is over.
What's a hoho, I can hear you ask? An eclair-sized little buttermilk chocolate cake with seven-minute icing on top. Breakfast of champions, yum. It's from a bakery and it's called a Mississippi hoho because the bakery is on Mississippi Street. OK, we had porridge too, from the Blue Gardenia cafe's booth in the market, made from organically-grown oats from Montana. Oh yes, and a cinnamon crown, we'd call it a small cinnamon bun. Portland is our new favourite Pacific northwest city. On the way to PA, we passed the wonderfully-named Hamma Hamma, Duckabush and Dosewallips. Exotic-sounding place names from the local Twana Indians, all rivers that rise in the very wet Olympic Mountains -- the first refers to local reeds, hab'hab, and the second is a reference to red face, describing cliffs in the area. The third is a man who was turned into a mountain near the mouth of the river with the same name.
And that's the last bit of local colour left on our 12-day trip to the south and back. See you soon. -- Norm
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Goodbye Golden Gate
We left San Francisco this morning and headed back to Sonoma in search of Norm's great-uncle Tom Gidney and we found him, well we found his grave site. Also, we couldn't resist a couple more wineries since we were back in the area. Wow, Mondavi's is really high end, sculptures (note the Welcoming Muse -- how one might be after a few glasses of wine :), paintings, tours (most don't do tours, Norm figures once you taste the wine you'll buy, tours just aren't needed to get you in the wineries any more). Since we have more than our limit of wine already, we only walked about taking in the classy atmosphere. We drove to St. Helena for a walkabout and snack and on to one more winery Norm remembered from 30+ years before -- Charles Krug, part of the Mondavi empire. Another brother, Peter M., broke off from the Mondavis and his sons still run this one. That was goodbye to wine country, and we headed north through winding roads and rolling hills to connect with I-5. And here we are in Yreka, California. Not high on your travel itinerary but it is known as the county's oldest settlement and the busiest stage stop in California back in 1857. Yes, they had a gold rush back then. Can't think of any other reason to come here.
Norman writes: We had to stop at Vista Point for a last look at the Golden Gate bridge (designed by Joseph Strauss, same engineer behind the Blue Bridge in Victoria) and the look back at the city, even on a crappy gray day, is striking. Look down at the rock wall around the lookout, and the scene is less lovely. Somebody started the custom of autographing the stones -- here's "Steph + Pablo 4-ever" felt-penned onto the rock. How lovely for the couple. Wonder if they're still together? If you plan to do this yourself, hurry, not many spaces are left on the stones.
Breakfast was in Sonoma, then a visit to Mountain Cemetery, where one of my relatives is buried. He's Thomas W. Gidney, my grandmother's brother, who lived down here for about 50 years, and died in 1965, aged 87, a retired real estate salesman whose last address was in Healdsburg, farther north in the Sonoma Valley. I guess there wasn't much of an estate left: his "headstone" is a small bronze plaque on a rod stuck in the ground, beside two other guys who died the same year and were buried from the same funeral home. It's a long way from London, via army service on the Northwest Frontier in India with the Gordon Highlanders in the late-1890s, to this plain hillside cemetery where he lies with other Californians of Italian and Spanish and Irish origins. He visited us once up in Canada and I have vague memories of him and his car with the running board. Or maybe it's just the old snapshot I remember. And the fact he lived for a time in Joshua Tree, Calif., out in the desert east of Los Angeles. His English wife had died a couple of years before him in Santa Monica, and there's a note on one of those geneaological websites that she sewed for Queen Victoria as a young woman. No one in the family knows if it's true, and we don't have an old pair of the royal bloomers to prove it. More research to come and it means another trip to California, wonderful.
Norman writes: We had to stop at Vista Point for a last look at the Golden Gate bridge (designed by Joseph Strauss, same engineer behind the Blue Bridge in Victoria) and the look back at the city, even on a crappy gray day, is striking. Look down at the rock wall around the lookout, and the scene is less lovely. Somebody started the custom of autographing the stones -- here's "Steph + Pablo 4-ever" felt-penned onto the rock. How lovely for the couple. Wonder if they're still together? If you plan to do this yourself, hurry, not many spaces are left on the stones.
Breakfast was in Sonoma, then a visit to Mountain Cemetery, where one of my relatives is buried. He's Thomas W. Gidney, my grandmother's brother, who lived down here for about 50 years, and died in 1965, aged 87, a retired real estate salesman whose last address was in Healdsburg, farther north in the Sonoma Valley. I guess there wasn't much of an estate left: his "headstone" is a small bronze plaque on a rod stuck in the ground, beside two other guys who died the same year and were buried from the same funeral home. It's a long way from London, via army service on the Northwest Frontier in India with the Gordon Highlanders in the late-1890s, to this plain hillside cemetery where he lies with other Californians of Italian and Spanish and Irish origins. He visited us once up in Canada and I have vague memories of him and his car with the running board. Or maybe it's just the old snapshot I remember. And the fact he lived for a time in Joshua Tree, Calif., out in the desert east of Los Angeles. His English wife had died a couple of years before him in Santa Monica, and there's a note on one of those geneaological websites that she sewed for Queen Victoria as a young woman. No one in the family knows if it's true, and we don't have an old pair of the royal bloomers to prove it. More research to come and it means another trip to California, wonderful.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
We have covered the city
I think we have done an excellent job at covering San Francisco by walking (lots), bus, BART, car and cable car. And to top it off we are watching the San Francisco Giants play the Phillies.....top of the ninth and it is tied!! (They just won, 6-5 and now are ahead three games to one, a game away from heading to the world series.)
This morning started with a bus trip to the DeYoung Museum in the Golden Gate Park and reserved tickets for the Impressionist exhibit, from the Musee d'Orsay where we were this summer in Paris. Lots of Van Gogh, Renoirs, Cezannes and Gaugin. The Orsay is sending a lot of its collection on tour while they renovate, so we get to see some of their masterpieces. Wild! Then we took a bus ride to Cliff House and a romantic lunch of clam chowder and shrimp Louis with views of the ocean. Pelicans kept flying by, and surfers popped up in the waves. Returned to downtown by bus and we walked from Union Square to City Lights Bookstore. And finally one more bus ride part way home to relax, snack and watch the ball game. Ahhh. Tomorrow we head north.
This morning started with a bus trip to the DeYoung Museum in the Golden Gate Park and reserved tickets for the Impressionist exhibit, from the Musee d'Orsay where we were this summer in Paris. Lots of Van Gogh, Renoirs, Cezannes and Gaugin. The Orsay is sending a lot of its collection on tour while they renovate, so we get to see some of their masterpieces. Wild! Then we took a bus ride to Cliff House and a romantic lunch of clam chowder and shrimp Louis with views of the ocean. Pelicans kept flying by, and surfers popped up in the waves. Returned to downtown by bus and we walked from Union Square to City Lights Bookstore. And finally one more bus ride part way home to relax, snack and watch the ball game. Ahhh. Tomorrow we head north.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
A day of eating ice cream
Today was one of those days that your mother would not approve of . . . as far as eating goes. We started again with an hour's walk, this time to the Palace Hotel downtown. Since we were taking a tour at 10 we thought why not treat ourselves to a really classy breakfast at one of the fanciest hotels in San Francisco? It was not to be. The grand garden court (note picture) was not open to the public -- private function only. So instead we ate at the Pied Piper Bar, where they really push the $29 buffet. The service is so slack they must hope you get up in frustration and serve your own meal, rather than wait for porridge or eggs from the kitchen. The blueberry pancakes and oatmeal that eventually showed up were good, but cost $40!! And we never got to dine under the high glass roof of the courtyard.
The tour, however, was excellent, given by a retired law professor. These City Guides free tours, organized under the SF public library with volunteers taking you around, are wonderful. The hotel we toured was rebuilt in 1909, as the replacement for the original from 1875 that didn't survive the great earthquake. Well, the building did OK, but the SF fire department tapped the hotels' own water supplies to try to put out flames on Market Street and when the fire jumped to the hotel, the hydrants were dry. The hotel was reduced to a burnt-out shell. The owner put up a new Palace, the one still standing today.
After, we headed for the Mission district--a lot different than the Palace Hotel. Taking the BART was another lesson in patience. A street woman helped us figure out (at a cost) the system. Boy do they need better signage, better lighting, better public address system, non-baffling ticket machines, and more. But we made it to the right spot, Omnivore Books, all about cookbooks and food. Ladies, get your old Irma Rombauer out of storage: there was a 1953 hardcover of The Joy of Cooking on the shelf for $200! You can never have too many books especially cookbooks. I will leave to Norm to explain our eating extravaganza.
It's me, Norm here: Did I say before it's still summer down here? Bougainvillea blooms are spotted on the streets in our Marina district, and it's warm enough for eating ice cream cones to cool off, as part of a small culinary research project: where was the ice cream better, Mitchell's or Bi Rite, both in the Mission district and each recommended. The icy award has to go to Bi Rite, on 18th and Dolores, but Mitchell's tropical flavours like jackfruit and mango sorbet were pretty good. Bi Rite gets our taste test awards -- at least for the scoops of brown sugar and coffee-toffee I had. Mary's cone of toasted coconut and butter pecan she placed ahead of Mitchell's black walnut and coconut-pineapple.There's a lovely bakery cafe nearby, Tartine, which also gets two thumbs up. We had lots of dessert already, so here it was tea, coffee and a croque monsieur of heirloom tomato, ham and cheese broiled on an open slice of their really crusty bread. (Mary also has a new sourdough bread cookbook acquired this day, so homemade bread is coming to Metchosin again. Mmmm.)
This was all a starter for dinner at Cafe Panisse in Berkeley, the famous restaurant started by Alice Waters that serves local California produce in a craftsman-style house along Shattuck Avenue, a few blocks from UC Berkeley. The meal was delicious: a thin crust pizza for Mary and rigatoni alla Norma (honest, that's what the menu said) for me. Dessert was . . . more ice cream. I know, there's sometimes too much of a good thing, but this wasn't one of those times. It was passionfruit ice cream and it tasted like a healthy glass of fruit juice at breakfast. If Dairy Queen could duplicate the recipe, I'd never eat ice cream anywhere else.
The tour, however, was excellent, given by a retired law professor. These City Guides free tours, organized under the SF public library with volunteers taking you around, are wonderful. The hotel we toured was rebuilt in 1909, as the replacement for the original from 1875 that didn't survive the great earthquake. Well, the building did OK, but the SF fire department tapped the hotels' own water supplies to try to put out flames on Market Street and when the fire jumped to the hotel, the hydrants were dry. The hotel was reduced to a burnt-out shell. The owner put up a new Palace, the one still standing today.
After, we headed for the Mission district--a lot different than the Palace Hotel. Taking the BART was another lesson in patience. A street woman helped us figure out (at a cost) the system. Boy do they need better signage, better lighting, better public address system, non-baffling ticket machines, and more. But we made it to the right spot, Omnivore Books, all about cookbooks and food. Ladies, get your old Irma Rombauer out of storage: there was a 1953 hardcover of The Joy of Cooking on the shelf for $200! You can never have too many books especially cookbooks. I will leave to Norm to explain our eating extravaganza.
It's me, Norm here: Did I say before it's still summer down here? Bougainvillea blooms are spotted on the streets in our Marina district, and it's warm enough for eating ice cream cones to cool off, as part of a small culinary research project: where was the ice cream better, Mitchell's or Bi Rite, both in the Mission district and each recommended. The icy award has to go to Bi Rite, on 18th and Dolores, but Mitchell's tropical flavours like jackfruit and mango sorbet were pretty good. Bi Rite gets our taste test awards -- at least for the scoops of brown sugar and coffee-toffee I had. Mary's cone of toasted coconut and butter pecan she placed ahead of Mitchell's black walnut and coconut-pineapple.There's a lovely bakery cafe nearby, Tartine, which also gets two thumbs up. We had lots of dessert already, so here it was tea, coffee and a croque monsieur of heirloom tomato, ham and cheese broiled on an open slice of their really crusty bread. (Mary also has a new sourdough bread cookbook acquired this day, so homemade bread is coming to Metchosin again. Mmmm.)
This was all a starter for dinner at Cafe Panisse in Berkeley, the famous restaurant started by Alice Waters that serves local California produce in a craftsman-style house along Shattuck Avenue, a few blocks from UC Berkeley. The meal was delicious: a thin crust pizza for Mary and rigatoni alla Norma (honest, that's what the menu said) for me. Dessert was . . . more ice cream. I know, there's sometimes too much of a good thing, but this wasn't one of those times. It was passionfruit ice cream and it tasted like a healthy glass of fruit juice at breakfast. If Dairy Queen could duplicate the recipe, I'd never eat ice cream anywhere else.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Chinatown and back
As I sit here sipping one of our fine bottles of Merlot from Markham wineries in Napa, I am truly enjoying San Francisco. Up early this morning, Norm had me walking for an hour up and down hills to reach Chinatown and the free city tour (OK we made a donation at the end like everyone else). It was very good and I learned things about Chinatown I didn't know, like the paper items Chinese people buy to burn for those who have died. Do you know that you can get a six pack of Coke (or Heineken -- NG) made of paper for such occasions. Remember that when I "pass on". Next we had lunch at the Ferry building, sharing a baguette and cinnamon loaf (bigger than a bun :). From there we hiked over to the Jewish Contemporary Art Museum to see the exhibit of Maria Kalman illustrations. Now there is one definitely abstract random person! She's done covers for the New Yorker magazine, book illustrations online things for the New York Times, and more. Did you know she was a cofounder of the Rubber Band Society, commmorating the invention of the rubber band in England in 1845? Next was tea at the Samovar for only $25, (smoky lapsang souchang for Norm and black tea for Mary) but it was on a sunny afternoon in the Yerba Buena Gardens, viewing the lovely bougainvillea blossoms. Remember we are on holidays. I promised to do some subbing when we get home to pay for the holiday :)
NG now (well, I added a few phrases above too):we had dinner in the Marina district, which is not far from SF Bay, where they dumped a lot of 1906 earthquake rubble, then built new apartment houses atop the debris. The restaurant was an organic vegeterian place called The Plant and we had burgers, with lots of shredded beets to give it colour, and a side of mango spring rolls. Cabbage seems to be the predominant ingredient here. But we feel we've had a healthy dinner of vegetables. I had a beer too, Pinkus pilsner from Germany, unfiltered, so it was cloudy. Not t-o-o bad. I don't know what it's doing on top of the lapsang souchang and Markham merlot -- tell you tomorrow.
NG now (well, I added a few phrases above too):we had dinner in the Marina district, which is not far from SF Bay, where they dumped a lot of 1906 earthquake rubble, then built new apartment houses atop the debris. The restaurant was an organic vegeterian place called The Plant and we had burgers, with lots of shredded beets to give it colour, and a side of mango spring rolls. Cabbage seems to be the predominant ingredient here. But we feel we've had a healthy dinner of vegetables. I had a beer too, Pinkus pilsner from Germany, unfiltered, so it was cloudy. Not t-o-o bad. I don't know what it's doing on top of the lapsang souchang and Markham merlot -- tell you tomorrow.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Over the Golden Gate
OK, I will confess: This morning I put on my scarf, wool sweater, hiking boots, wool gloves and my own wool knitted socks. Summer weather is so over in the Bay Area. As we left Napa and headed for San Francisco a cold front came along too. We met up with Susan Chung (she used to be a reporter at the Times Colonist in Victoria), husband Robert Bennett and their nine-year-old daughter Ling for brunch at a cool place called Le Garage on Liberty Ship Way, in Sausalito, where in fact, Norm's uncle Fred helped to build Liberty ships during the Second World War. Probably it wasn't such a trendy place back then. Next we ventured out in the rain for a hike in Marin Headlands. A great way to work off the meal and get fresh air. See Norm for details :) And now we are happily in our room at the Golden Harvest Inn on Lombard after a good walk to Fisherman's Wharf for the traditional sour dough bowl of clam chowder.
Hi from Norman: what a place San Francisco is. Where else would the Sunday newspaper include the weekly earthquake count (they had 18 here, 13 the week before) and a nice colour weather map covering two pages and showing the location of every major earthquake fault line around the Bay -- San Andreas, Hayward, Calaveras, Rodgers Creek. And that's just in a 25-mile-wide slice of California. Haven't felt any jiggling yet, but we'll be attuned.
The headlands Mary mentions are an area of former military fortifications that guarded the northern side of the Golden Gate. Even had a battery Nike missiles here during Cold War years. Now, it's a recreation area and you're free to wander the hills, look at the newts filling a round depression where big guns once sat, and try to identify the wild plants. We saw sticky monkey flowers, thanks to Susan remembering a nature walk out here with a guide. School kids can come and spend a couple of days in old barracks, a nice conversion from military use.
An amazing amount of of San Francisco's waterfront has some military history. Our little motel on Lombard Street (we're at the non-crooked end of this long street) is next door to the Presido, which started out as a Spanish fort. Under the Golden Gate bridge at the south end are the ruins of Fort Winfield Scott, dating from pre-Civil War days. Fort Mason is farther along, a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf, where 1.5 million men and 25 million tons of equipment were shipped out to the Pacific during four years of the Second World War. In between is Crissy Field, formerly a military airfield that parallels the Bay. Now it's all parkland.
Tomorrow Chinatown, one of the largest in North America and we are going on a free tour! Stay tuned for details.
Hi from Norman: what a place San Francisco is. Where else would the Sunday newspaper include the weekly earthquake count (they had 18 here, 13 the week before) and a nice colour weather map covering two pages and showing the location of every major earthquake fault line around the Bay -- San Andreas, Hayward, Calaveras, Rodgers Creek. And that's just in a 25-mile-wide slice of California. Haven't felt any jiggling yet, but we'll be attuned.
The headlands Mary mentions are an area of former military fortifications that guarded the northern side of the Golden Gate. Even had a battery Nike missiles here during Cold War years. Now, it's a recreation area and you're free to wander the hills, look at the newts filling a round depression where big guns once sat, and try to identify the wild plants. We saw sticky monkey flowers, thanks to Susan remembering a nature walk out here with a guide. School kids can come and spend a couple of days in old barracks, a nice conversion from military use.
An amazing amount of of San Francisco's waterfront has some military history. Our little motel on Lombard Street (we're at the non-crooked end of this long street) is next door to the Presido, which started out as a Spanish fort. Under the Golden Gate bridge at the south end are the ruins of Fort Winfield Scott, dating from pre-Civil War days. Fort Mason is farther along, a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf, where 1.5 million men and 25 million tons of equipment were shipped out to the Pacific during four years of the Second World War. In between is Crissy Field, formerly a military airfield that parallels the Bay. Now it's all parkland.
Tomorrow Chinatown, one of the largest in North America and we are going on a free tour! Stay tuned for details.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Ahhhh what a difference a day makes. And this day saw us visit 4 wineries. We were lucky that the jack hammering stopped by midnight so we got a decent amount of sleep. We walked to town to the farmer's market, a great way to start your day. There were wonderful vendors selling lots of local produce, breads and food products. The "coolest" one was the "Worm Endings Unlimited". She's been doing markets for four years and finally in the last couple of years people are catching on. Note pictures. For breakfast I had one pluot (apricot/plum); many sweet green, purple and really dark purple grapes; a mouthful of Norm's bacon and egg slider, hot black tea (must say that in the US), an almond biscotti, half a salty pretzel and a sample or two of Brazian pesto bread and Italian pesto flat bread -- not bad and it was only 9:30! (My tummy felt fine too). Now we decided to check out Napa, a rather classy but not too busy California town. Can you believe it that we immediately found a postcard/stamp store and right next door an antique shop? What fun! We headed back to our Inn (see photo; you may notice it's more like a 1930s auto court, although renovated) and headed up the Silverado Trail on th east side of the Napa Valley looking for wineries. There are hundreds -- the hardest part is trying to decide which ones to stop at. Being the driver, I picked some of the classiest ones. We started with the Black Stallion. Probably not the best way to begin because the wine was so good, everything else might pale in comparison but we took the chance.
The descriptions of wines we tried are amazing, you don't know whether to nod seriously or break out laughing. There are "hints of dusty cocoa" aromas of creosote and most red wines have blackberry, strawberry or cherry notes. Maybe the writers had more sophisticated tastebuds than ours. Norm did most of the tasting, while Mary the driver had some little swallows along the way. One winery stood out for the bits of chocolate served at the end of several red wines. Mmmm. The drive back down the valley was on Highway 29, connecting all the main towns, and we must have hit rush hour, ie 5 p.m. when most tasting rooms close. It was slow going most of the way back to Napa through St. Helena and Rutherford, even though the last 10 or 12 miles are on a four-lane divided highway. Sunday we leave winy Napa for brunch in Sausalito with Susan Chung, a friend from TC days, her husband Robert Bennett and their daughter Ling. They've been living south of San Francisco since the 1990s. Ling now is nine years old. Pix promised.
The descriptions of wines we tried are amazing, you don't know whether to nod seriously or break out laughing. There are "hints of dusty cocoa" aromas of creosote and most red wines have blackberry, strawberry or cherry notes. Maybe the writers had more sophisticated tastebuds than ours. Norm did most of the tasting, while Mary the driver had some little swallows along the way. One winery stood out for the bits of chocolate served at the end of several red wines. Mmmm. The drive back down the valley was on Highway 29, connecting all the main towns, and we must have hit rush hour, ie 5 p.m. when most tasting rooms close. It was slow going most of the way back to Napa through St. Helena and Rutherford, even though the last 10 or 12 miles are on a four-lane divided highway. Sunday we leave winy Napa for brunch in Sausalito with Susan Chung, a friend from TC days, her husband Robert Bennett and their daughter Ling. They've been living south of San Francisco since the 1990s. Ling now is nine years old. Pix promised.
Friday, October 15, 2010
They're jackhammering ouside our window tonight
It is hard to explain the feeling when you arrive in a new place (Napa in this case) and you can't remember where you have booked the two nights accommodation. Norm has forgotten to write it down, has no phone record, no email and no clear memory of it except it is in Napa. It is 5 pm and the visitor info center has just closed but I have begged them to please let me have any list of places to stay in the city so we can figure out something. As she hands me the information she adds.....there is nothing available this weekend in Napa. I am not daunted, Norm less so but a nice wine tasting mellows him a little and I begin phoning the list of accommodations to see if any of them have a registration for Gidney. You got to laugh cuz what else can you do. Well guess what.....after only a half dozen calls Norm thinks the Discovery Inn sounds a bit familiar. YEAH!! we hit the right one, such a feeling of relief. Now here we are in Napa back at our Inn having just walked to town and watched Red at the movies having coke and popcorn for dinner. And guess what, there is construction on the street. Norm's comment, "I don't think I have ever had the sound of a jackhammer right outside my room." It could make for an interesting evening.
The day did start off with a delicious breakfast at the famous Woodrose Organic Cafe in Garberville. Pam from Cleveland came here in 1977 to start the place, and the food is pretty good. Norm's organic pumpkin pancake filled the entire plate. We headed south along 101 passing through some less than prosperous towns--Leggatt, Laytonville, and Willits, all places I had never heard of. Once we got to Sonoma the temperature must have been in the mid 80's. Awesome! Loved my Ben and Jerry chocolate brownie ice cream cone:)
NG here: so I forgot the motel, who's perfect? Lucky I have a persistent wife, and we got here in the end. I treated her to Coke and popcorn and a movie, a fluffy explosion-filled confection, with Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis and John Malkovich as retired spies who still like to keep a hand in. As good as a Napa sparkling brut any day. Now, what was it about?
Travel notes for the day: did you know they have Sasquatch in the redwoods? Here they call him Bigfoot. Didn't see him, though. Also passed by the One Log House, yes a house inside a horizontal piece of redwood log; and the Tree House, which is a small dwelling built into the base of a live redwood. Confusion Hill, we gave a pass to, and the Elfin Glen attraction. You know, not that I'm a fan of Ronald Reagan or anything, but there is a grain of truth to his saying that once you've seen a redwood tree, you've seen them all. The old logging and sawmill towns along the highway remind me of the Fraser canyon in B.C., a place that never saw much economic good times since the main industry declined. But stop in Willits if you come this way, there's a superb used bookstore on the main street where I loaded up on Nicolas Freeling mysteries. Laytonville had a tie-die emporium and two quilt shops, a biodiesel filling station and a school in a geodesic dome. I think all the hippies moved up here from San Francisco.
Willits also has a cool sign, the one that used to proclaim "the biggest little city" over the main drag of Reno, Nev. It's repainted now for Willits' motto: Heart of Mendocino County. Give them time, maybe it will start beating. Just south of Ukiah we saw the first palm trees and then prickly pear cactus. It's getting warmer and drier -- they told us in Sonoma it hasn't rained worth noticing here for the last nine months. OK, they need water, but I love those golden hills and dark green oak trees.
The day did start off with a delicious breakfast at the famous Woodrose Organic Cafe in Garberville. Pam from Cleveland came here in 1977 to start the place, and the food is pretty good. Norm's organic pumpkin pancake filled the entire plate. We headed south along 101 passing through some less than prosperous towns--Leggatt, Laytonville, and Willits, all places I had never heard of. Once we got to Sonoma the temperature must have been in the mid 80's. Awesome! Loved my Ben and Jerry chocolate brownie ice cream cone:)
NG here: so I forgot the motel, who's perfect? Lucky I have a persistent wife, and we got here in the end. I treated her to Coke and popcorn and a movie, a fluffy explosion-filled confection, with Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis and John Malkovich as retired spies who still like to keep a hand in. As good as a Napa sparkling brut any day. Now, what was it about?
Travel notes for the day: did you know they have Sasquatch in the redwoods? Here they call him Bigfoot. Didn't see him, though. Also passed by the One Log House, yes a house inside a horizontal piece of redwood log; and the Tree House, which is a small dwelling built into the base of a live redwood. Confusion Hill, we gave a pass to, and the Elfin Glen attraction. You know, not that I'm a fan of Ronald Reagan or anything, but there is a grain of truth to his saying that once you've seen a redwood tree, you've seen them all. The old logging and sawmill towns along the highway remind me of the Fraser canyon in B.C., a place that never saw much economic good times since the main industry declined. But stop in Willits if you come this way, there's a superb used bookstore on the main street where I loaded up on Nicolas Freeling mysteries. Laytonville had a tie-die emporium and two quilt shops, a biodiesel filling station and a school in a geodesic dome. I think all the hippies moved up here from San Francisco.
Willits also has a cool sign, the one that used to proclaim "the biggest little city" over the main drag of Reno, Nev. It's repainted now for Willits' motto: Heart of Mendocino County. Give them time, maybe it will start beating. Just south of Ukiah we saw the first palm trees and then prickly pear cactus. It's getting warmer and drier -- they told us in Sonoma it hasn't rained worth noticing here for the last nine months. OK, they need water, but I love those golden hills and dark green oak trees.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tall trees on the lost coast
Eureka at 8.30 in the morning has very little open. I think they start the day a little later here on the west coast. So we settled for bagels at Los Bagels, kind of a Spanish-Jewish bakery. Seder plates for sale along with muffins and bagels with scrambled eggs. We then stocked up on food at the organic food co-op -- even bought organic amber ale from the Eel River brewery in Scotia, Calif. and headed south on highway 101. What a glorious day -- not a cloud and Norm in shorts and sandals. The day was looking good! We decided to head off 101 and travel along the coast. First stop, Ferndale. It was quaint, worn, old and at the place we stopped for coffee, they had no tea. Not a good sign when you are a tourist. So off we headed out of Ferndale up and over some coastal mountains. Norm was behind the wheel now. What a road! I will leave it to Norm to tell about the adventure, tall trees, dead sea lion and more. Tonight we are in Garberville at the Best Western. I think he will also better explain the town than I ever could. Let's just say the smells lofting in our window are not from the fresh country air. -- Mary
We turned off at Ferndale, a bit of kitschy Victoriana -- claim to fame, they made a Jim Carrey movie here where the old local cinema features in the story -- but the real excitement started at the edge of town where state highway 211 climbs up and out of town, and winds down to the California coast about 30 miles later, past a few cows and ranches among the hills. They actually call this stretch the Lost Coast and its the right label. It's rugged and isolated, a few houses along a road that makes Highway 1 farther south look like a freeway. We passed several Slow To 10 signs, honest. We stopped to walk a bit of the beach, and noticed a strange smell -- which emanated from something resembling an old brown rug. A few steps closer, and we realized this was a former sea lion. Still had the lovely fur coat though.
The road turned inland and twisted towards Petrolia where they drilled oil successfully in 1861, but not enough dribbled out of the holes to make this Texas. Careful readers of this blog will remember mention of Honeydew, which we drove through (quickly) after Petrolia. More twisting and turning and climbing the coastal hills brought us down to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and we walked through the Rockefeller forest. John D. III bought the trees to save them from loggers back in the 1960s. One of them is the Giant Tree, some 370 feet high. Also walked around the Flat Iron tree, which is so named because the cross-section of the tree is in the shape of an iron. Didn't see it myself, but the tree was definitely flat -- horizontal, since it fell over in 1991. What a crash that must have been!
Tonight we're writing from Garberville, population about 1,000, including many old stoners with ponytails, young backpackers with multiple piercings hanging around the main street who seem to have been just dropped off after working in the bush. Treeplanting? Grow ops? Not so farfetched -- the daily paper at Eureka had a front page story this morning about a group called Humboldt Growers Association getting started, and they weren't talking about lettuce or grapes. Medical marijuana is a growing business in California, and they claim the north coast grows the best crops.
Dinner was a bowl of soup in an Italian sandwich joint, while a guy played his violin from the balcony (see older ponytailed guys reference above). It was odd to hear him sawing away at Ode to Joy then a segue to My Old Kentucky Home and Over There. A century of favourites! -- Norm
We turned off at Ferndale, a bit of kitschy Victoriana -- claim to fame, they made a Jim Carrey movie here where the old local cinema features in the story -- but the real excitement started at the edge of town where state highway 211 climbs up and out of town, and winds down to the California coast about 30 miles later, past a few cows and ranches among the hills. They actually call this stretch the Lost Coast and its the right label. It's rugged and isolated, a few houses along a road that makes Highway 1 farther south look like a freeway. We passed several Slow To 10 signs, honest. We stopped to walk a bit of the beach, and noticed a strange smell -- which emanated from something resembling an old brown rug. A few steps closer, and we realized this was a former sea lion. Still had the lovely fur coat though.
The road turned inland and twisted towards Petrolia where they drilled oil successfully in 1861, but not enough dribbled out of the holes to make this Texas. Careful readers of this blog will remember mention of Honeydew, which we drove through (quickly) after Petrolia. More twisting and turning and climbing the coastal hills brought us down to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and we walked through the Rockefeller forest. John D. III bought the trees to save them from loggers back in the 1960s. One of them is the Giant Tree, some 370 feet high. Also walked around the Flat Iron tree, which is so named because the cross-section of the tree is in the shape of an iron. Didn't see it myself, but the tree was definitely flat -- horizontal, since it fell over in 1991. What a crash that must have been!
Tonight we're writing from Garberville, population about 1,000, including many old stoners with ponytails, young backpackers with multiple piercings hanging around the main street who seem to have been just dropped off after working in the bush. Treeplanting? Grow ops? Not so farfetched -- the daily paper at Eureka had a front page story this morning about a group called Humboldt Growers Association getting started, and they weren't talking about lettuce or grapes. Medical marijuana is a growing business in California, and they claim the north coast grows the best crops.
Dinner was a bowl of soup in an Italian sandwich joint, while a guy played his violin from the balcony (see older ponytailed guys reference above). It was odd to hear him sawing away at Ode to Joy then a segue to My Old Kentucky Home and Over There. A century of favourites! -- Norm
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Eureka! We found the Pacific.
The foodies out there will not be impressed with our dietary adventures today. Breakfast included in the price of the room at the Grand Hotel in Salem was actually not bad -- porridge, cereal, scrambled eggs (although somewhat overcooked), sausages, lots of bread products, fresh fruit and yogurt and the usual tea, coffee and juice. I stuck to porridge, fresh fruit and a bagel. Off we went to check out the antique stores in Salem. Norm found postcards (surprise) and I had fun looking. So much stuff that we probably don't need. Today then saw us making our way to the coast. We headed down I-5 and had great fun listening to Nick Hornby's, "Juliet, Naked" about a reclusive American rock singer who hasn't written a song in 25 years, the Internet groupies who obsess over him and the (many) women (and children) in his life. We're hooked on the story. (Maureen: can we say we actually "read" the book?) Thank you GVPL Juan de Fuca branch. A great way to pass the time travelling. By the time we got to Roseburg and needed gas we also needed to use the laptop so McDonald's seemed like the best spot. I read that there are only 380 calories in the fries I ate. God knows what is in the chicken burger :( but it(sure tasted good. Anyone playing Monopoly, we have St. Charles -- it's yours. But we're keeping the one for free medium fries. It was an amazing 81 F. in Grants Pass.
Once we hit the ocean (note photo), we stretched our legs and saw the most beautiful sunset. Great to be back on the Pacific Ocean. We decided to push on to Eureka, California. Now it is past dinner hour and too late to find a restaurant so.......dinner is rice cakes with Holland's apple butter (very tasty), somewhat warm yogurt with muesli and a Toblerone. Not totally balanced, but I think we got a couple of food groups.
Norman's Notes and News: I like shopping as much as the next traveller, so we targeted Target in Keizer, Ore. Our goal: find the Maira Kalman-designed (spoiler alert: mothers of infants we know, skip to the next sentence) baby sleepers and onesies. You could Google her -- she makes lovely children's books, and some for grownups. Mary found some stylish black denims and a striped white and grey top, suitable for our next meal out in Napa in the next day or two. Photo promised.
Today was a long drive south through the Willamette Valley, kind of a really wide and much longer Fraser Valley. Lovely flat farmland, even sheep just like Metchosin. Then we hit the hills and mountains in the less-populated southern part of Oregon, which looks more like California, actually, with lots of oak trees and grassy meadows. The first arbutus (OK, they call them madrona) trees showed up along the South Umpqua River near Riddle, Ore., a long way inland. I thought they grew only a short distance from the ocean?
Some favourite names: town of Drain, Ore., and the Spores Bridge over the McKenzie River. The town of Scio was another catchy highway sign. Little did we know of the wonderful place names coming up in the southwestern corner of the Beaver State and the adjacent piece of California. (Did you know that Oregon's motto is She Flies With Her Own Wings?) Calapooya Creek was a good one and Jumpoff Joe Creek. Then it was a right turn at Grants Pass and down the Smith River Scenic Byway (slow to 20 in spots) into the Golden State. Amazing redwoods right beside the road.
Places and attractions we drove right by without stopping: Patrick Creek Lodge -- Food Booze Snooze; "Bowls Tables Clocks Slabs" near Crescent City, Calif. (flooded by the tsunami in 1964, no surprise for a town whose elevation above sea level is 29 feet); Trees of Mystery with the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. They have Tsunami Lanes bowling alley right downtown in CC.
No inclination to drive into the wonderfully-named Holland, Ore. or Happy Camp, Calif. about 45 miles away. We're saving Honeydew and Hoopa too for a future California road trip. And Peanut.
Special for Katherine Marie: if all fails, there's a Kate's Bar & Grill on Highway 199 south of Grants Pass, not far from Eight Dollar Mountain. I bet they're open to offers.
Once we hit the ocean (note photo), we stretched our legs and saw the most beautiful sunset. Great to be back on the Pacific Ocean. We decided to push on to Eureka, California. Now it is past dinner hour and too late to find a restaurant so.......dinner is rice cakes with Holland's apple butter (very tasty), somewhat warm yogurt with muesli and a Toblerone. Not totally balanced, but I think we got a couple of food groups.
Norman's Notes and News: I like shopping as much as the next traveller, so we targeted Target in Keizer, Ore. Our goal: find the Maira Kalman-designed (spoiler alert: mothers of infants we know, skip to the next sentence) baby sleepers and onesies. You could Google her -- she makes lovely children's books, and some for grownups. Mary found some stylish black denims and a striped white and grey top, suitable for our next meal out in Napa in the next day or two. Photo promised.
Today was a long drive south through the Willamette Valley, kind of a really wide and much longer Fraser Valley. Lovely flat farmland, even sheep just like Metchosin. Then we hit the hills and mountains in the less-populated southern part of Oregon, which looks more like California, actually, with lots of oak trees and grassy meadows. The first arbutus (OK, they call them madrona) trees showed up along the South Umpqua River near Riddle, Ore., a long way inland. I thought they grew only a short distance from the ocean?
Some favourite names: town of Drain, Ore., and the Spores Bridge over the McKenzie River. The town of Scio was another catchy highway sign. Little did we know of the wonderful place names coming up in the southwestern corner of the Beaver State and the adjacent piece of California. (Did you know that Oregon's motto is She Flies With Her Own Wings?) Calapooya Creek was a good one and Jumpoff Joe Creek. Then it was a right turn at Grants Pass and down the Smith River Scenic Byway (slow to 20 in spots) into the Golden State. Amazing redwoods right beside the road.
Places and attractions we drove right by without stopping: Patrick Creek Lodge -- Food Booze Snooze; "Bowls Tables Clocks Slabs" near Crescent City, Calif. (flooded by the tsunami in 1964, no surprise for a town whose elevation above sea level is 29 feet); Trees of Mystery with the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. They have Tsunami Lanes bowling alley right downtown in CC.
No inclination to drive into the wonderfully-named Holland, Ore. or Happy Camp, Calif. about 45 miles away. We're saving Honeydew and Hoopa too for a future California road trip. And Peanut.
Special for Katherine Marie: if all fails, there's a Kate's Bar & Grill on Highway 199 south of Grants Pass, not far from Eight Dollar Mountain. I bet they're open to offers.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
A state and a half in one day.
Day 1 started at 6 am! But here we are in Salem, Oregon in the Grand Hotel ( 445 km). After catching the 10:30 Coho and giving up our home grown apples to save the USA from Metchosin apple blight we headed south to Oregon. Awesome weather. It is getting hotter the further south we go. So much for the extra sweaters I packed. We checked in and then walked about the historical district of Salem this evening. For those history buffs, Salem was founded in 1841 by Jason Lee, a Methodist missionary. We ate dinner at the Reed Opera House (1870) at La Perla Tapatia - Mexican. Norman even found POSTCARDS in the window of an antique mall (opens tomorrow at 9:30am). Tomorrow California!! (after the antique mall). Mary
On the road with Normy: You see the strangest things along the highway. Like the signs along Washington state roads warning you not to throw stuff out the window. "Litter and it will hurt." I wonder what punishment they perform? Maybe twist the wrist that flipped the butt into the slipstream? Then there was "yappy hour" at the Working Girl Winery east of Port Angeles. Guess what? A fundraiser for the humane society. Don't Drug and Drive was another memorable official highway sign.
They're voting soon down here, and they elect everybody, it seems -- state representative, county treasurer, U.S. senator, director of community development for Clallam Co. I liked Deb Kelly's poster for prosecutor: "Always Faithful." There was one "Elect Nobody" sign at Bremerton too. Maybe he's foreign born. More signs on the byways of Washington: Kitchen-Dick Road, very close to Chicken Coop Road, near Jimmycomelately Creek. Best road sign: End Shoulder Driving. Might try that on the way back. (That sign followed Slow Vehicles May Use Shoulder.) Best law in Washington: Delay of Five Vehicles Must Use Turnout. Maybe the slow ones can use their shoulders on the steering wheel. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Saw that one just once, near the Washington Women's Correctional Facility.
Best Weird Sight: Big rocks poised on top of tall stumps in a clearcut by the highway on the Olympic Peninsula. Really big ones. We saw three of them. Very sculptural. Bremerton also has the Elandan Gardens, which consists of stumps piled artistically beside Highway 16. Best Town Name (though we didn't actually pass through it): Yelm. And I liked the Nalley Valley, a strange little neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tacoma with freeway ramps and warehouses, soon to have a bigger and better freeway interchange.
On the road with Normy: You see the strangest things along the highway. Like the signs along Washington state roads warning you not to throw stuff out the window. "Litter and it will hurt." I wonder what punishment they perform? Maybe twist the wrist that flipped the butt into the slipstream? Then there was "yappy hour" at the Working Girl Winery east of Port Angeles. Guess what? A fundraiser for the humane society. Don't Drug and Drive was another memorable official highway sign.
They're voting soon down here, and they elect everybody, it seems -- state representative, county treasurer, U.S. senator, director of community development for Clallam Co. I liked Deb Kelly's poster for prosecutor: "Always Faithful." There was one "Elect Nobody" sign at Bremerton too. Maybe he's foreign born. More signs on the byways of Washington: Kitchen-Dick Road, very close to Chicken Coop Road, near Jimmycomelately Creek. Best road sign: End Shoulder Driving. Might try that on the way back. (That sign followed Slow Vehicles May Use Shoulder.) Best law in Washington: Delay of Five Vehicles Must Use Turnout. Maybe the slow ones can use their shoulders on the steering wheel. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Saw that one just once, near the Washington Women's Correctional Facility.
Best Weird Sight: Big rocks poised on top of tall stumps in a clearcut by the highway on the Olympic Peninsula. Really big ones. We saw three of them. Very sculptural. Bremerton also has the Elandan Gardens, which consists of stumps piled artistically beside Highway 16. Best Town Name (though we didn't actually pass through it): Yelm. And I liked the Nalley Valley, a strange little neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tacoma with freeway ramps and warehouses, soon to have a bigger and better freeway interchange.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Learning to blog
The hardest part of learning to blog is to come up with a title that hasn't been used by anyone else. Who knew that Travels with Norman was so popular. So welcome to Norman and Mary's Road Trip. We will keep you posted on all the wonderful treats we experience on the road and other adventures too. Might even start with Thanksgiving dinner before we leave town. Stay tuned!
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