Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Hood Valley OR Labor Day Festivities

Well here is what we ended up doing:

Got to Hood Valley around 4PM on Saturday due to our dog Finn running up the stairs to the back porch the day before, and cutting a nice gash into the elbow joint of his back leg. He did it on Friday, and we gave it until Saturday morning for it to at least start to heal. It did not. I took him to the vet and poor little Finn had to get about 4 stitches. He was much happier afterwards, though. I'm not sure if that was from not having his guts hanging out of his leg, or the fact that he was sedated. Probably the latter... So we got to Hood River and went straight to our room at the Mosier House, in Mosier OR., which is about 5 miles from Hood River. Cindy, the manager, was super nice and the house was just immaculate. We put our stuff in our rooms and got back on the road, to head back to Hood River. We stopped at Phelps Creek Winery, and tasted some "fine wine" as some might say. We ended up getting their dessert wine. We then moseyed over to Cathedral Ridge Vineyard. Their wines didn't taste as good as Phelps, but we were able to sample their Syrah 2005, and it was fine. It was a bit more than we wanted to spend so we continued on since we had dinner reservations at Celilo's Restaurant. I had some really good seafood pasta. We walked up and down Main St. or whatever they call their main street in that town and then made our way back to our room. We were bushed!

We got up about 7am, but Lisa didn't get out of bed until 8am and myself about 8:45am since I decided not to shower before breakfast. Cindy had made us a huge breakfast from scratch using mostly local produce. It was wonderful and included blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs from cage free chickens, nectarines, bacon. After breakfast we went back upstairs, got our pajamas back on, and promptly fell back asleep drunk on food. We slept for a glorious 2 hours and I got up and showered after that. We then got on the road and proceeded to the Hood River Fruit Loop. We made it to our first stop on our list, and the lady wasn't picking, but recommended that we drive right up the road and talk to her neighbor who grows organic pears. We did, and seemed to hit it off with her neighbor, who invited us up to the top of his property which looks out at Mount Hood. We sat down inside the house he is building and just got to know each other for a couple of hours. It was a blast, and he ended up taking us into his orchard and letting us pick some of his fruit. He said he had elk, deer, turkey, and bears that come through his orchards looking for food. Later, at another stop, we got zucchinis and Lisa picked flowers. We picked apples and more pears from another orchard as well. We closed the loop down that day. We went to dinner at The Sixth Street Bistro & Loft. We walked around Main St. for a few minutes then retired.

Cindy changed it up for breakfast on Monday by offering us huevos rancheros with sliced avocado, and a side of strawberries and yogurt. We packed up afterwards and said our goodbyes, and went back downtown to do a little shopping. Later, we headed back to Portland, but stopped on our way back and got out at Multnomah Falls. We hiked to the top, and then explored up there for awhile. It was a few hours hike, but a lot of fun and good exercise.

We got back home and are now worn out. I'm headed for a shower and am cross-eyed. Hope everyone had a great weekend. We sure did!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Those are beautiful pictures--love the turban head wrap!!!Had you been in the waterfall behind you?You WOULD know I love all the flowers too.Wow!!All of them look professionally done--kudos to the photographer!!!Enter a contest with the one with the clouds over the lake and the person windsurfing.BEAUTIFUL!!!