Day 10: California Wine Country Tour

Posted on September 10, 2011 by kai

Partying takes its toll. Rising on the morning we were due to take a wine tour was not the most pleasant experience I’d had, but a cup of coffee on the go cured that. We were to be picked up from near Union Square by Terrific Tours with whom we had booked a drive through Sonoma County, and arrived with enough time to just about catch breakfast at an overprised tourist cafe. Should have known better, but there you go. At least we got to see the craziness that was cable car operators turning a one around by literally pushing it round on a turntable.

We were eventually picked up and introduced ourselves to our driver, Hampton, and the other passengers, a couple who lived in Georgia. Our route would take us through central San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and then into Sonoma. The morning was beautiful and sunny even in the city, and things were looking interesting and exciting.  Once we reached the bridge, it was perfect to stop for a photo, as patches of fog clung to the tops of the structure like clumps of cotton.

Our first stop was a biodynamic winery, Benziger. It was a great one to start with, as we were given a tour of the facilities and a lecture on the processes involved in making wine by a man who really knew his stuff and how to keep an audience entertained. The history of the estate is pretty nifty, having once been inhabited by a commune of hippies from San Francisco who cultivated another crop entirely, one nicknamed “Sonoma Coma”. The intensity and seriousness one can apply to winemaking was demonstrated well when our guide said that the winery plants specific grape varieties only on very defined patches of land, which they have analyzed for their mineral content to improve the quality of the fruit. Serious wine geekery.

We tasted a couple of Benziger wines, and I have to say that I wasn’t blown away by them. It may be that my palate is not developed for the kind of stuff they served (bottles starting at $40) and I was more used to cheaper wine. I don’t know. Hampton, our driver, mentioned that we would like the next place, and he was not kidding.

VJB Vineyards is a small family affair. They don’t distribute, and produce only a few thousand cases a year. I hate to say it, but I think that made them all the better. The lovely lady helping us through the tasting had us go through the entire list of mostly Italian varietals. I wasn’t keeping track (too busy tasting!) but apparently it ended up being a total of a dozen wines. I got to taste wines that I hadn’t known much about before, namely Primitivo and Barbera. I especially liked the Barbera at VJB, and their port was something else. At the end I was persuaded to try a white port, which I had never had before. That ended up being far too sweet especially with the growing heat outside.

Terrific Tours had provided us with crackers, and I had tried to drink water along the tasting, but lunch and a bit of a break from the booze was very welcome after VJB. The tour was already proving its worth, as you definitely need a designated driver when doing a wine tour, and clearly the picks were of a high standard. The cafe adjacent to VJB’s tasting room was brilliant. They did simple Italian cooking with fresh ingredients which suited the climate and viticulturally-enhanced mentality perfectly. If you do go here, grab a bite at the cafe. The guy taking our order at the restaurant noticed my t-shirt and called it “sick”. In a good way. That’s awesome.

After lunch it was time to pile back into the van and keep driving. The next place we stopped at, Imagery, was related to the Benziger family in that a younger brother made special wines at the place. Their wines have artwork on the labels and are very small batches. Having had the Barbera and Primitivo over at VJB I was excited to make a comparison. Turn out these were flatter, not as flavorsome on the nose. Still, a nice place and the guy serving us had an interesting history encompassing most of the “Left Coast“.

I had no idea, but the Jacuzzi family, famous for their pools and water jets these days, settled in California in the early years of the 20th Century. As Italian-Americans, one branch of the family ended up quite logically in the wine business. The winery is an opulent Italian-style villa in beautiful grounds. Inside it was wonderfully cool, and I was glad to be there as the valley sunshine beat down on us on the short hop from the car. This winery was the first one where we got ID’d as the person giving us our “flight” was German and no doubt wanted to do things by the book. Interestingly, the only sparkling wine we had had on the tour was to be found at Jacuzzi. While it was drinkable, it didn’t blow me away. In other words, I’ve had 5€ prosecco from a supermarket in France that beat it hands down.

That’s not to say that Jacuzzi wines were bad. In fact, I was glad to discover that they have a UK distributor (something the others uniformly lacked). I may well grab one of their varietal wines if I encounter it in a shop on the misty isle.

Terrific Tours end their trips from San Francisco with a ferry ride from Sausalito back to the city. It’s a cute and touristic way to end it and avoids being stuck in the afternoon traffic. Hampton gave us each a Clipper Card with enough money for the trip, as well as a $2 bill for the cable car back to Union Square. A bit silly, and a bit sweet. We didn’t end up needing the cable car, though it would have been nice to ride one, as we had a dinner date a train ride away, and the station was very near the ferry’s landing point.

If you go to San Francisco, do some research on the type of wine tour that would suit you the best. But definitely go on one. The prices seem high at first but with all that ours included it wasn’t bad at all.

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Day 9: San Francisco Day 1

Posted on September 9, 2011 by kai

My friend Jessica wasn’t due in from Burning Man until the evening, so it was a perfect day to explore San Francisco a bit.

I had to return our car to the airport, since it wasn’t much use to us anymore. I was going to be driving it alone, so took a bit of cash, my sunglasses and strapped the sat nav unit to the windshield. I had little idea of the direction I was headed to, so went with the flow. The morning was cool and the constant chatter of rush hour radio was comforting.

Turns out I made a good move with taking cash, as I found myself at the toll plaza for the Bay Bridge. The booth worker asked if I was from Europe and, hearing the affirmative, exclaimed that he liked Cameron, the English Prime Minister. Sure thing. The bridge itself was pretty amazing, curving round the Bay. Not a bad route to round off the overland portion of our trip.

Once the car was returned, I caught the BART train back East. It’s not a quick mode of transport, nor very cheap, the trip to Lafayette costing me $13 and 90 minutes. By the time I was back, I was starving as I’d left without breakfast. It was time to go in search of In-n-Out, the famed California burger chain.

They conveniently have a location on Fisherman’s Wharf, so we could combine that with other sightseeing. The walk from Embarcadero took us through streets quiet on the Sunday, until we hit the area of the Wharf and the massed multitudes of tourists. It wasn’t comfortable but I wasn’t leaving without my burger. Or, as it happens, two burgers. They were that good and I was that famished.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t feeling disgusted after pigging out, which could easily happen with a lesser burger chain. Must be the freshness of the ingredients they use, as the burgers were nothing short of hefty. Revitalised, I was more ready to face the crowds and noise of the area.

We wanted to see a bit of Haight-Ashbury before we had to be back in Lafayette, so opted for a cab to speed us up. Lucky, really, as the hills in San Francisco are more impressive than photos or stories can really convey. On a map, the distance was only a few miles, but in reality it encompassed a whole load of hill. You could certainly keep fit easily living there; they say San Francisco girls have amazing calves. I would not doubt it.

Toronado was a bar that sold Russian River Brewing beers. Remember those? We’d not managed to fit into their brewpub so had to try them elsewhere. They were worth it. Their IPA was delicious and strongly, but not overpoweringly hopped. Their other beer we tried tasted like a strong Belgian ale, but was paler in color and character. Interesting but also incredibly strong at around 11% abv.

The bar was loud with people, and dark, and I’d have loved to come back on a night out. For a quick daytime pint the place wasn’t entirely ideal. Still a nice place and not overly expensive, even with the $1 tip per drink I gave the typically hippie-dishevelled barman when ordering.

A friend I knew in London who had since moved to the Bay Area joined us for beers and dinner in Lafayette. Jessica had threatened to cook once back from the festival but in several text messages I had insisted she stop with the nonsense and that I would pay for dinner and drinks as thanks for her hospitality. Luckily, she obliged.

We all got along fabulously. So much so that we barely made it to the restaurant before they closed. Luckily the night didn’t have to end after that as the supermarket was open much later. It was a fabulous evening, and I feel lucky to know cool people around the world that I get to (re)connect with.

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Day 8: San Francisco Bound

Posted on September 9, 2011 by kai

California was, I have to say, proving to be pretty awesome. The climate is agreeable, the food is good, the variety of nature is vast. What more could I ask for?

Yes, my next meal after the previous night’s nachos was a burrito. Yes, it was good. And yes, it was my first California burrito. If you have committed the foolish act of following me on Twitter you may be aware that I like burritos a lot. There was no way I was missing out on the little taqueria in an unexpected location that was full even at 11am. The staff at Los Gallitos greeted us warmly, slapped tortilla chips and absolutely delicious salsa in front of us and asked us for our orders. I had a view to the kitchen and saw stuff being heaped onto the tortilla that was to be my burrito. Good stuff.

We were due to meet up with a girl who was housesitting and looking after the pets in the house we would be staying at in San Francisco while the owner was at Burning Man. Luckily, she was very accommodating and chilled out and didn’t mind us taking most of the day to drive the 200 or so miles down to the Bay. I was excited to head down to San Francisco even though it would mean the end of the main part of our road trip. I have some great friends who grew up there, and keep hearing good things about the place.

We took it at a leisurely place, enjoying the little detours that our GPS suggested when we searched for “brew”. Turns out that Brewed Awakening was not a brewery but a cafe chain, and that Healdsburg in Sonoma county is well-known for the well-heeled and wine, but Bear Republic (California represent!) brews there and turns a brisk trade, including some bottles to go for us. I’ve always had a bit of an issue with the American tipping culture, and while I don’t mind tipping for service I did leave out the tip when asking the girl behind the bar to grab a couple of bottles from the fridge behind her. Should I have tipped her? Who knows.

We still managed a stop in Santa Rosa to visit the Russian River Brewing Company. Turns out it was just as popular as it deserves to be. Even to buy beers to go would have required a wait in line of about an half hour. It seemed that a bunch of metal heads had converged on the place, too, as there were a lot of beards and black t-shirts in evidence in the line to the bar. I think in that sense I prefer the European bar culture where you’re not made to wait in line for a table, and can (usually) take a drink out to the street if the place is too full to fit you inside.

So, we had to turn around and get back onto the US101 south with the determination to gun it until San Francisco. I noticed grapevines all around us. This was wine country. The fact that we had come all the way from cool and humid seaside mountains in the Northwest to the warm, drier hills perfect for growing grapes struck me. We had done well over a thousand miles.

I hadn’t done much research on which bridges I’d need to take or what route to follow to reach our destination, which was away from San Francisco proper. I relied fully on our satellite navigator, which was all right if a little slow to catch up on the numerous exits that appeared both on the right as well as the left of the freeway we were on. We eventually crossed the Bay using the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge which must have been the longest (if not the prettiest) bridge I’ve ever taken. It’s weird seeing your odometer actually rack up several miles on a stretch of metal spanning some sea.

The house we were staying was in the East Bay, in Lafayette. I had to stifle a laugh when I saw that the main street running through the town is called Mt Diablo Boulevard. It seemed like a nice neighborhood as we slid up to the driveway, night falling around us. We met up with Michelle, who was housesitting, and she introduced us to the cats and dog, before we headed out for a wander to the local area in search of supper.

The night sounded and felt exactly like it does in movies.

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Day 7: Shelter Cove to Fort Bragg, CA

Posted on September 6, 2011 by kai

I don’t think Shelter Cove was for us, or at least not suited for the kind of trip we were on. We tend to wake up early, and this morning was no exception. The mist that had rolled in the previous night still lay over the land. Everywhere was quiet. We discovered why our room had a full kitchen: there seemed to be no place open to get breakfast. I drove around curving residential street after street, finding a couple of places that would be open for lunch. A few scattered golfers appeared, evidently engaged in a pre-lunch couple of holes. The town seemed to have little save for its airport (more like a stretch of tarmac), its golf and its admittedly beautiful desolate vistas.

We decided not to stay and paid up at the office. Packing up the car, starving by now, we strained the car up that same hill I’d nearly burned the brakes out on the previous night. Outside the town limits, the general store was open and we got something to placate our hunger. The mist had been burned away by the sun at higher elevations in a funny reversal of the conditions on Rainier where the fog increased with altitude.

We had a late breakfast at Garberville. Using the sat nav unit to locate amusingly-named places led us to the Branding Iron saloon, but coasting by it it didn’t look massively inviting. Just up the road, at the edge of this tiny town was the Water Wheel, where I parked the car. The food wasn’t brilliant but did its job. In hindsight I laughed at this review that describes the place as being BFE California.

Switching drivers, I was now sat in the passenger seat as we once again hit the Redwood Highway south. There seemed to be a lot of little breweries here in Mendocino county, including North Coast brewing over at a nearby town, Fort Bragg. That’s where we headed, determined to find a place that was more happening than Shelter Cove.

We ended up paying over the odds for a walk-in rate motel room, probably because it was Labor Day weekend and there was a lot going on in town. I always feel a bit weird asking staff “hey, what’s there to do in this here town?” but luckily I had someone braver with me.

The middle-aged motel manager immediately said that the fire department was holding a kind of water fight at 3pm, in about 10 minutes’ time. I decided on watching professionals getting soaked over the other option she suggested: the ugliest dog competition. Besides, that would have involved more travel.

The water fight proved to be popular indeed. It was actually hard to see what was going on with everyone crowding the sidewalks around where the teams from the local fire service along with the coast guard and other California fire services were preparing. Before they explained the rules, the firemen in charge of the event asked for a moment of silence for Jere Melo, whom they described as “a good friend to many here”. I assumed he had been a colleague of theirs, but as it turns out, it wasn’t quite like that. Regardless, after a solemn moment of silence for the murder victim Melo, the game got underway. Using their fire hoses, the opposing teams had to force a steel beer barrel to the opposing team’s side and keep it there until a two-minute time limit was reached. So kind of like a reverse tug-of-war with fire hoses. The organizer’s warnings of everyone anywhere near to the street getting wet as a result were absolutely true.

We stayed for a few rounds but had to get back to take care of some business. And eat. It seems on this trip we did nothing but drive, eat and drink beer. I swear there were other activities too!

We had both packed really light, and were running out of clothes. On a casual wander up Main Street, I had noticed a coin-op launderette on a side street, so headed over there with a week’s worth of two peoples’ laundry. I had never been to an American launderette so was thankful for the experienced help of my traveling companion. Turns out everything is bigger in America, even the washing machines. Our big bag of laundry filled just a hair over half of a “double loader” machine. I stuck around to write a blog update while the machine spun. I’d asked the laundry manager, whose name I didn’t get but it could not have been anything other than Frank going by how he looked, how long I would be waiting. That kind of got us talking, not that he was talking to anyone in particular when he ranted about this, that and the other.

When I’d pumped the dryer full of quarters, I asked about the Wanted poster on the wall of the place. It had a picture of Aaron Bassler who was wanted for the murder of Jere Melo, and I’d seen the poster at pretty much every commercial operation in town. In the laundry, though, the poster was accompanied by the text “placed by request of FBPD” as if whoever had accepted to put it up hadn’t done it entirely wholeheartedly. I didn’t ask exactly about that but did want to know about the circumstances of the killing and about whether the victim was a fireman as he had been praised over at the water event.

“Nah, he was a councilman. Used to be mayor. Used to be. But you know how these rich guys are,” he replied.

Who was Bassler, then? A local boy?

“He’s just a screwed-up kid. Yeah, I knew him. I mean, I knew his parents. My second son used to beat the crap out of him.”

So was this thing pre-meditated then? Did Bassler have a vendetta against Melo?

“Yeah, well,” Frank said around his chewing gum. “It was about as pre-meditated as waiting for the guy to get in position and shooting him in the back of the head.”

Chilling. But surely he would have skipped town by now, knowing that he would be connected to the murder?

“Oh yeah, Aaron is long-gone. That kid knows all the woods around here. There’s no way he woulda stayed after that. He’s gone, somewhere far up North. They’ll have one hell of a time tracking him down.”

I could sense that the manager really didn’t see much point in having the poster up. He then looked past me and waved outside. A woman was getting out of a car outside the launderette and waved her cigarette toward the neighboring property mouthing “going to eat over there” as she passed the door.

“That’s my daughter! Won’t even tell her old man hi! Some daughter! What do I get? That!” the manager started exclaiming in mock shock.

About a dollar and a half in quarters later, the load was pretty much dry. I thanked the manager and waved to the little girl that had been running back and forth bothering all the customers throughout my time in the launderette. On my way out I looked at the place where the manager’s daughter had gone for a meal. A taqueria, with a blackboard menu written in Spanish only, and absolutely heaving with people too! I decided that we should go there, only not tonight as we had a date with the brewpub. But first I got to relax in front of the TV for a bit. National Geographic TV was showing back-to-back Border Wars, which quickly became my favorite. On last year’s trip I enjoyed watching Gangland and What Would You Do, so getting into a show not available in Europe is pretty typical fun for me.

North Coast Brewing was a really positive experience, a short walk from our motel on Main Street. Because of our late lunch we weren’t really hungry so ended up going only at about 10pm. Turns out they were just about to stop serving food so we quickly opted for a plate of nachos and ordered our first beers. The range was pretty typical for an American micro, with a bunch of pales and IPAs. Their Rasputin Imperial Stout was exceptional, though, and I was a fan of the Red Seal too. I think we must have tasted most of their regular beers. One thing I find awesome about the brewpubs in the US is how they sell you bottles of their beers to go. That was more gifts for our host in San Francisco sorted, then!

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Day 6: California Crossing

Posted on September 6, 2011 by kai

The morning at Whispering Pines was freezing. Panes in our motel room windows were steamed up and stepping out from under the covers to take a shower was the least appealing thought possible. But we had to, it was time to get back on the road and cross into yet another state. California was calling. The sound of something a lot bigger than a
mouse (those I’m used to) rustling in the doublewide’s kitchen
cupboards sped us up too.

Once we rounded Crater Lake again, though this time at a lower altitude, we stopped in the middle of the giant woods for breakfast at Beckie’s. The cafe had clearly designed their dishes to actually be too big to finish. My omelette was so massive that even with my appetite I could only manage half. The server brought something, possibly pancakes, to the booth behind ours and said “now listen to this sound it’ll make as I put the plate down. It’s heavy.” The clunk of laden porcelain hitting the wood spoke as much. We got complimented for “doing a good job” on our portions when we conceded and called for our
check.

The cafe had been in the same location since the 1920s. Nearby was the site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. I hadn’t heard much about this New Deal program, but can totally see how important its existence was for the opening of roadways and the reforestation in the Pacific Northwest.

Our drive was scheduled to be a good seven hours even without stops. This was to be the longest leg on the road, and prior to actually hitting the road I had been a bit apprehensive of cramming a lot in.

Crossing into California was undramatic, though the scenery at that point was nothing but. We had stopped for gas and a toilet break just on the Oregon border, where they had a note on the shop counter that they would only accept bottle returns up to $2 in value (as I suspect Oregon bottles are not accepted in California) and that they would no longer be able to take food stamps as payment for energy drinks. Interesting place.

The only hiccup was being stopped at the border and being asked if we were carrying any fresh produce. Luckily, we were not. I suppose California takes its food production seriously and protectively.

The coast, now that we hit it, was gorgeous. The sun was shining but the breeze in Trinidad, where I pulled over at a residential area overlooking the Pacific was stiff. We dipped our toes in the sea after quickly changing into shorts and sandals in the car, but it was really cold! Still, I was glad to be by the sea again.

After lunch we resumed driving, taking in the vistas (Californians call them that on road signs) on our drive southward, toward Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The Redwoods were for me the thing I had been most excited about prior to the trip, so it was great to start to drive through alternating sunny coastal cliffs and darkened groves of
immense trees.

There aren’t really any good ways to verbally express the majesty and immensity of the California coastal redwoods. They were a manifestation of a recurring feature on the trip, namely the biggest things I had ever seen. I’d been on the biggest mountain I had yet seen, seen the immensity of a volcano and a lake in its ruins, walked into the largest body of water in the world and ate some of the biggest portions I’d seen. These trees were the biggest living things I had ever encountered.

I’m not ashamed (much) to say that being dwarfed by the grove towering around and above me almost made me cry. It was awesome.

For that reason I didn’t see the need to pay $6 to drive our car through a tree or see most of the inventive uses for the sheer volume of wood produced by them. I was happy seeing, smelling and walking through them.

We still had a ways to go and even once outside the trees the light was beginning to fade. We were going to spend the night in Shelter Cove, CA, on the Lost Coast. There was only one road leading down to that part of the coast, and it took a toll on the car. The mist hanging on lower ground closer to the sea made the quiet approach on the windy road full of hairpin turns even more eerie. By the time we had descended several hundred meters I could smell the brake pads overheating. That’s the thing with automatic drive cars, lack of engine braking. Sure, you can turn it to a lower gear but then the revs shoot up and I don’t know if that’s any better. In either case I was happy to be on relatively flat land when we came to the town itself, and hoped that by the morning the brakes had cooled off enough to actually stop me in time in case something did happen.

We stayed at the Beachcomber Inn, a collection of buildings managed by a family business right near the little airfield the town has. The air was full of mist and the smell of salt, and it was quiet in the night. I don’t even remember the sound of cicadas and crickets when I drifted off to sleep.

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Day 5: Bend, OR to Crater Lake, OR

Posted on September 5, 2011 by kai

Feeling decidedly tender from the previous night, our start on the drive South was a slow affair. Luckily the motel staff didn’t charge us for checking out late. Knowing the direction we needed to head, we drove South on the main drag of Bend. Spotting a chinese food place that would do more variety (and vegetables) than an Arby’s, we feasted to the best of our ability before hitting the road again toward Crater Lake.

The road was uneventful aside from a minor detour. Seeing a sign for a volcanic forest on the telltale orangey brown backing they use for sites of natural interest, I turned the car onto a narrow unpaved side road. That got narrower. And narrower. Herds of little chipmunks scurried out of our way. After about 4 miles I decided to turn the car around at a road that looked like only a tractor had ever used it, thinking we must have missed a turnoff sign or something.

Turns out I shouldn’t have, and that patience would have been a virtue. The road was the right one and would have revealed a site of strange geologic formations. Oh well, the day was wearing on, and we actually wanted to see Crater Lake.

Our housing was the interesting Whispering Pines motel, which was about as norman batesesque as the name suggests. In all seriousness it was absolutely fine and entirely comfortable, despite the creaky bed and burn stains on the kitchen counter and floor.

We dumped our bags and caught our breath before setting off on the drive toward crater lake. It was a glorious straight road for miles that were rapidly disappearing behind us. Pretty soon the road was climbing upward and trees getting thinner. Then they stopped entirely, as suddenly as if drawn with a ruler. The soil changed too, to a purple brown mottled with rocks and the occasional scrub. It pumice desert, a clear sign of recent volcano activity. The literature we’d received at the national park gate told us just how recent: less than 8000 years. Whatever had happened in the latest eruptions had been big, and scary for the population who probably lived in the area around the rumbling mountain.

Just how big was revealed when I decided to careen to a stop alongside a slew of other cars at an otherwise unremarkable pull-off. We got out of the car and the first thing I noticed was the chill in the air and its incredible stillness. The second thing was Crater Lake’s immensity. We had obviously seen an approaching big round splotch of blue on our sat nav unit on the drive over, but when you’re looking over a huge round lake completely hemmed by sheer cliffs on all sides, the opposite side almost too far to see, you realize the catastrophe of the eruption. It wiped a mile off the height of the existing mountain and scattered it all around. It left a gaping hole still high enough to keep snow year round, with enough melting to build up a perfectly clean lake over a few thousand years. It was, and I know I’m as guilty of overusing the word as anyone else, awesome.

In a funny way Crater Lake alone was worth the trip. Its serenity, beauty and harshness were not unrelated, though completely different, to those on Rainier, which of course is a volcano as well. Nothing short of awe-inspiring.

For dinner, we rounded the rim of the lake and descended to the visitor center to discover they were serving a buffet of home cooked food. I am not ashamed to say it was one of the best meals I’ve had on the trip so far. The food wasn’t oversalted, greasy or pretentious. Plus they served Rogue Brewery’s Dead Guy ale. Being a hiker and coming here after days in the wilderness surrounding the Lake must be heaven.

With night falling we had to make our way to meet our fate at the motel. It came near even before, as in the twilight deer and other animals come out to play. Lucky I wasn’t speeding too much, as I had to make a split-second braking swerve to avoid bambi wandering into the road. The guy tailing me must have been more frightened than me, but I guess it’ll teach you to keep a safe distance.

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Day 4: Bend Bender

Posted on September 4, 2011 by kai

Portland being a bit of a hippie town we knew we could get breakfast somewhere nice. We found the Bean and Tree on the waterfront, serving bagels with imaginative fillings as well as organic coffee. The girl serving us was dressed in that feisty rocker chick style and was super friendly with everyone, locals and new customers alike. Our drive that day would take us to the town of Bend. It should have been a straightforward drive down US 26 But wildfires burning in central oregon had shut that road. Not far after the little commuter town of Boring (yeah, we stopped there) we were diverted on a wide looping detour through an Indian reservation. Descending from the mountains was pretty amazing. The land changed in a flash as woods became parched yellow scrub, the horizon was filled with rocky buttes and the sun beamed down. I was pretty glad of the detour, doubly so after rounding a ridge and seeing the cloud of smoke rising in the distance. We passed a tent village I’d seen on the previous night’s news, housing firefighters during the battle against the wildfire. We drove past a casino on the edge of the reservation that was wreathed in the white cloud of smoke that was now covering everything.

Breakfast was wearing off so we stopped in a little town to eat at a diner. Never being one to turn down old fashioned cooking, I once again opted for a burger. When in Rome, right?

Bend is known for its outdoor activities as well as its prolific brewing. The town of 80k has just under 10 breweries, and a local thing to do is go through the Ale Trail of 8 brewpubs in the town as well as some in the neighboring town of Sisters. We were never going to manage all of them so got a cab to take us to the furthest one out, reasoning that we could come back and make a decision of whether to continue once closer to our motel.

Our taxi arrived, driven by a guy limping from his new all-leg tattoo. How convenient, he said after explaining that he really shouldn’t be driving that day, he was going to 10 Barrel brewing as well. He dropped us off saying he’d get us back downtown if we needed to go, and we went to ask for a table. 45 minutes’ wait, the hostess said! We said we’d wait, and that we’d have drinks outside in the meanwhile. Around the massive log fire cage I got talking to a family, a grandfather, his daughter and granddaughter. He’d worked on strategic air defence in England in the 50s so we had a really illuminating chat about rationing and the privileges enjoyed by U.S. Officers at the time. The granddaughter had been on a university exchange in Hull so we could talk beer, well, mostly cider.

10 Barrel does some very nice beers. Aside from the regulars and the seasonals, such as the blindingly brilliant Harvest Ale, they let their brewers go nuts with experimental recipes. A chocolate malt pale ale? Sure thing bub! That sort of thing. Needless to say I was wined and dined on American portions to a pretty good state.

No way were we going to just go to one, so in the absence of seeing tattoo-cabbie again in the din of a full brewhouse, We had to call another. I stammered something into the phone about needing a car from 10 barrel… In Bend… Oregon, not much thinking that a local cab company is unlikely to be driving from another state or even town to pick me up! Like I said, wined and dined. Since it was a brutally cold evening, the purchase of a hoodie with the brewery logo was a really good purchase, even for the $35 it cost.

Downtown, we hit another brewpub, the Silver Moon. This one was the mirror image of 10 barrel: where that was dark and full of people, this one had the lights on, and aside from a drunk couple with about 20 years’ age difference playing pool, very few others. The beer was still good though, and deserving of clientele more keen than those staring into their pints by the bar.

Suddenly, I found myself talking to a local kid whose friends were celebrating a birthday in the nextdoor bar. He’d come in and challenged people to a game of pool. We asked if we could join whatever party was going on, which was met with the most-uttered phrase of the night, “oh hell yeah”.

The kid, Forrest, introduced us to his friends as “these Europeans he’d found” and we started toward a bar up the road doing karaoke. Every bar in the town aside from the absolute dives seemed to do a bunch of good beers. A nerdy guy was belting his way through Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla. It was fun.

That place didn’t stay open much past our arrival so we moved across the street to a bar called the Astro lounge. It was too cold to sit for long on the sofas they had out back, so we moved in to where the dj was spinning in the corner. He ended up talking to us when the bar started emptying, revealing he did something unspecified for Apple for his day job. I still don’t quite know what the most common employers in the town are aside from the brewers. Bend is a bit disconnected geographically.

Bars in Bend close by 2:30am, which was just as well. Any longer and the next morning would have been even tougher. We called yet another cab, and got driven all of 4 blocks to our motel. There was no way for us to know where we were so I didn’t mind too much. Sleep was welcome.

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Day 3: Paradise, WA to Portland, OR

Posted on September 4, 2011 by kai

The disadvantage of road trips is the itinerary you have to make by the end me the day. When the place you start in as well as your destination are both interesting, it’s tough to divide the time. Case in point: Tuesday’s trip was from Mt Rainier to Portland, Or. After the really massive breakfast served to us at Paradise Inn, it was a shame to not be able to do more hiking. Doubly so because the fog just didn’t want to lift in the morning. The views to Snoqually Glacier promised to be breathtaking but sadly it looked more like the world simply ended in a haze of white after a sheer cliff drop. That’s not to say I think our trip up the mountain was wasted, far from it. I’m really glad to experience it and would gladly come again.

The trail itself was gorgeous, and it was neat to tread over snow in August, see how all the trees grew thin and tall, with downward pointing branches, because of the weight and persistence of the snow. After the short hike it was time to do the hairpin turns back down the mountain. This time it being daylight allowed us to see the Snoqually river and the devastation ice dams bursting can cause. Soon we were back on the State roads, heading South toward the state line. Portland was only a few hours away, but on the other hand it was a full few hours. Eventually, the huge breakfast did wear off, and we stopped for lunch at Castle Rock, ending up in a lovely little diner called C&L. It had a nice founding story and the burgers they served were brilliant. Couldn’t have asked for more.

Soon we were coming to the Columbia River and the Washington-Oregon border. The city of Vancouver on the washington side and Portland with its suburbs on the other form a conurbation that we drove through on Interstate 5. It wasn’t pretty, but the curving elevated roads crossing toward the bridges were impressive. After checking into our hotel we decided to start exploring the city on foot. We walked North through downtown toward Deschutes brewpub, passing groups of self-styled “hobos” hanging around on street corners begging. Coming face to face with the sometimes grim reality of American urban life was a bit jarring after the serenity of Rainier.

The brewpub was heaving, it clearly is a popular way to spend an evening. American beer-oriented bars do taster sets, in this case 6 small glasses for $6.50. Yes, we had a couple, trying every beer they had on. And many were better than the last. I was pretty wiped out from the drive so couldn’t make a massive night of it. The brewing town of Bend was our target for the next day, so I was going to get to try local beers anyway. Walking through night-time Portland, I think I could feel the autumn in the air a bit.

(I’m posting these as and when I can so do check back once the trip is over, I’ll add photos and links to the appropriate things.)

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Day 2: Seattle – Tukwila – North Bend – Snoqualmie – Paradise

Posted on August 31, 2011 by kai

I got up early on Monday, eager to do stuff, if not leave Seattle. It’d be good to be back on the road, if nothing else: I was looking forward to driving again.

The breakfast was mostly similar to the day before, with scarily uniform waffles and spacey-colored cereals. The hot dishes were sausages and French toast sticks which I had no chance of identifying as such, so I ate them with the sausages instead of the intended strawberries. Oh well, it’s not like I needed more sugar anyway.

The hotel’s free shuttle bus took us through a sunny Seattle (who’d have thought?) to the Amtrak station which was near the Link Light Rail toward the airport. I love how public transport in Seattle is usued by everyone and is actively being developed. There’s no stupid stigma of buses being for an underclass.

Seattle is an eminently livable city. Granted, I’ve only seen it in the warmth and relative sunshine of late summer, but the lifestyle is really appealing. There’s a ton of outdoor things to do, there’s a shared ethic of environmental responsibility and a culture of beer, wine, music and a good time. I could move here provided be a job for me to do (and plenty of holidays).

We picked up our car at SeaTac airport. Letting ourselves be talked into upgrading to the next class up (“you guys are going to be doing a lot of driving, and this one is a bit bigger and more comfortable. Still gets good gas mileage though”) we ended up with a Ford Fusion. Ironically, it’s got California plates, so we will be dropping it off on its home turf!

In my rush to pack for a road trip and a wedding in the middle of moving house, I foolishly forgot to pack my cufflinks. I’d asked my friends for shops where they’d sell them, so we drove to a mall that according to the Internet had a Mens Wearhouse. The sat nav unit didn’t want to work while I was driving out of the airport, so I got to navigate by hunch and good sense. They served me well.

The mall in Tukwila was apparently “a small town mall” but it was still a dressed-up temple of consumption. Not being able to find a Men’s Wearhouse (apparently now closed) I ended up wandering and eventually getting a clearance pair of simple cufflinks from JC Penney. First US mall and US department store, done.

Back on teh road after food court teriyaki, our destination was North Bend and its connection to Twin Peaks. A short commute from Seattle, the town is nestled in a valley with two mountains, Mt Si and Little Si towering right over it. Smack in the center is Twede’s cafe, the dine that served as the Double R diner in Twin Peaks. It’s different now, of course, having been painted on the outside and done up on the inside. Even so, I loved it. From the neon strips on the ceiling to the train models on the walls, it was pure Americana, and all the better for it. I don’t usually drink coffee but of course had to have some with cherry pie – and it was good. Damn good.

The place sold maps to Twin Peaks filming locations ($2.25 was steep for an A4 copy, but hey) so we took one and followed it toward Snoqualmie and the falls seen in the title sequence of the show. On the way, we drove past the enormous tree trunk mounted on display, also featured as a sight of Twin Peaks. It’s funny how a few locations in two adjacent towns can just be appropriated to be places in a fictional town, much more known than the real counterparts.

Snoqualmie falls are not especially high or big. But they are pretty, and small enough to not make it all disappear in a cloud of mist. They had a gift shop selling the usual regional tat as well as coffee, staffed by a really cute shy sales girl called Mikayla. It was precisely the sort of sweet little town I was hoping to come across - a main street with a milkshake bar and curiosity shop, a school with terrific sports fields and a dive bar with neon signs half-working in the window.

We were losing daylight and still had a while to go, so started heading South toward Mt Rainier and our lodgings, right at Paradise, one of two main outposts in the National Park. Taking smaller roads got interesting with nightfal, and as we got higher up the mountain, with extremely thick fog. By the time we arrived at the parking at Paradise, I had no idea where the road ended and which of the distantly-lighted buildings was the Paradise Inn. After the double-backs on the road up the mountainside, I just wanted to be indoors.

The area of Rainier is among the most heavily snowed-in places in the world. The Paradise Inn has been extensively rebuilt because it had been damaged by the dozens of meters of snow the mountain gets every year. That means it gets entirely buried!

The dining room had closed by the time we checked in, so we had to settle for $8 sandwiches for supper from the shop still open at the inn. Then it was time to retire for the night, with the window open to the mist in our tiny room with beams sunk into the walls.

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Day 1: Seattle

Posted on August 29, 2011 by kai

Seattle is a nice place. I can say that, having walked the length of downtown several times over in a single day. People are friendly and the city is manageable. I managed to catch the place on a good day, too, so I guess I am biased.

When I woke up (having made myself sleep after waking up right as rain at 4am thinking I’d slept in in European time), the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the gas station across the road from the hotel. The air smelled of coffee mixed with eycalyptus, which while not unpleasant, was a little bit weird. I knew I had to meet friends right after breakfast, so set to work on downing some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and other quintessentially American (and therefore exceedingly sweet) breakfast things.

I asked about the free shuttle bus to town at the reception but got told the slot I wanted was fully booked. When asking for other options, I was offered a ride share in a taxi. Nah, I knew they did buses, so when offered the #16 bus I jumped at the chance. Just like in Houston, the buses only took exact change which I luckily had, having woken up at 3am hungry as hell and needing to forage for snacks in the neighborhood.

I met my friend, whom I’d originally met in the UK a couple of years ago, at Pike Place Market. It was pretty much exactly how I expected – full of tourists gawping at loud shouting fishmongers and buying the biggest lobster tails and crabs I’d ever seen. From there we started walking, first past the gum wall (yuck!) and then through the various neighborhoods of central Seattle. A gentleman can have a drink after midday, so we had one (at 12:05) at Elysian Fields near the stadiums, and kept walking.

Eventually, we needed to refuel, so stopped at Dick’s Burgers, which literally hit the spot. I didn’t even know I was hungry for a burger, but this being the US, I guess I always am. If you’re ever in the Seattle area, I can heartily recommend it. My friends quietly told me that In ‘n Out in California is on the same level if not better, so I will have to try that too once down there. In any case, for $3, who can complain?

Part of what I liked about Seattle was the way that the American shopping “experience” was confined to a specific section of Downtown. There are green spaces and independent shops galore. The day was getting sunnier, as promised, and the fog was lifting. The shorts I had hastily changed into weren’t a bad idea. From what I understand, it was a relatively rare occurrence in the notoriously rain-soaked city. As we rounded the corner toward Puget Sound, I could glimpse the Olympic mountains in the distance over gloriously blue water that had previously been hidden by a solid gray wall of fog.

It was gloriously beautiful. This place is gorgeous. I can totally understand why huge cruise ships dock in Seattle on their way to summery Alaska. It was the same when we were banking over the Rockies once over British Columbia, and the brown tundra had given away to forested mountainsides capped with snow. As we approached Seattle to land, Mt Rainier rose above the lush green, a white diamond of a massive volcano. It made me happy and excited to be here.

The Fremont Troll is a community sculpture under a large road overpass that is very popular with tourists. Of course, we had to see it, so took a bus first through the University District toward it. The U District was full of cheap eateries and dive bars, just like you’d expect. Universities really look architecturally similar wherever you go, but we walked past a few of the rickety frat-house buildings with old sofas out front that no doubt are very popular with the beer-swigging pre-football game crowd. In a funny way, among all the tattooed and skateboarding university folk, I felt at home. I wanted to strike up conversations with people on our bus stop. That was weird, and they would have thought as much.

After taking silly photos with the troll (including me with a fist up its nose) we headed toward Fremont proper for dinner and some beers. We ended at the Brouwer thanks to my friend taking us. It was a Belgian-themed place with a great selection of local food and beers. Why would I go for a Belgian beer if I could have a semi-local pale ale called Nice Rack? Exactly. The only hitch in the ride was that they didn’t want to accept anything except for a passport as ID so I had to fetch mine from the hotel before they would actually let me sit in the place and get server either food or drink. Nonetheless, the night was a success, and the salad I had, though simple, was really nice. Goes without saying that the ales were great too.

Getting a cab out in Fremont isn’t easy. We got tired of waiting for one to show up so decided to cough up the international calling charge to a cab company. The guy they sent immediately asked us how we’d liked Fremont. Great, we said.
“Did you see the statue of our great communist leader?” he asked sarcastically. Yes, we’d seen the Lenin statue in Fremont. No, we didn’t get why there was one there.
“I don’t get why we have a statue of a goddamn communist. My dream is that someone would tie their SUV to it some night and tear it down, like they did with the Saddam statue.”

That set the tone for the conversation for the rest of the ride. He was all about nature, not nurture, though was dumbstruck about the nurture aspect of me being a non-native English speaker who nonetheless sounded native. I left it at that.

I still don’t quite know what time it is. The clock on this machine is still in European time, showing it’s 6am. I don’t feel like it is, but neither do I feel it’s late evening. Somewhere in between.

Tomorrow, checkout, some shopping, picking up the car for this roadtrip and heading towards Mount Rainier. Here’s hoping for good weather and non-sore legs.

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