Three Wineries

It was a no-sewing day yesterday, which was probably good. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from a large project. When I wrote yesterday's post, I had forgotten that we had wine to pick up at three different wineries. It was kind of a dark day with moments of sunshine, but rainy most of the time. The recent wind storm had blown many leaves from the trees, and they were already slippery on the roadway.

Our first stop was Sokol-Blosser. We've been members there for such a long time that we were identified as some of the "oldest members" in a recent telephone conversation. I think they were getting at the fact that we were among the longest standing members, but we picked up on the "oldest" part of that description just the same. It's probably not far off. They have a pretty view from their tasting room.

The vineyard extends far in the other direction from this picture. Where those golden grapevines are growing, there used to be a grassy amphitheater. We attended a few concerts there, including Dan Fogelberg. They used to hold a summer concert series, and it was a casual venue to see some big name entertainment. We were sorry to see it go, but the crowds got too large, and it became more than the owners could safely manage.

While I wouldn't have expected to see any blooming things this late in the year, there were a few.

From there, we headed a few miles down the road to Domaine Drouhin. They are a French winery and relative newcomers to Oregon. We are at a similar latitude to wine country in France, and so it isn't surprising they would set up shop here. They have a pretty view from their tasting room as well, and I shot this panorama. Remember that you can make the image larger by clicking on it.

If you look off in the distance, you can see rain falling. We were going to drive into it eventually, but up to this point, we'd managed to stay dry. They also had some blooming things leading up to the doors of the tasting room.

As we drove south, there was a brief sun break, and we noticed this RV "resort" off to the right. There was a conventional RV park there, but half of it was devoted to this:

The rows of vintage RV's caught our attention, and so we drove in to have a closer look. As it turns out, this is like a motel. You can go to their website, see the insides of the many vintage RVs there, and they are available for rent, just like a motel room. What a fun way to visit Oregon wine country!

There were 30 in all (if I'm remembering correctly), and each came with a pair of vintage bicycles as part of the deal.

If we didn't already live so close, we'd probably be seriously looking into this.

From there, we drove south to Salem and the Witness Tree Vineyards. I've written about the witness tree before. This isn't a very good image, and the picture is spoiled at least temporarily because they are clearing out old vines. You can see that the hillside below the witness tree has been cleared and there are large piles awaiting their turn to be torched. Nevertheless, this is one of our favorite wineries for it's size, simplicity, and folksiness.

Witness trees are surveyor's markers, and this one was designated as such way back in the mid-1800's. If you'd like to read more about the witness trees, you can read this article in the New York Times. Also, my previous blog post about this particular tree can be found right here.

After picking up our wine there, we headed for home. From there, we kind of lounged around the rest of the day. These dark, wet days make us kind of lazy.

Lazy or no, I've already climbed about halfway up Mt. Laundry today, and I've done some hand stitching. Today I want to get back to quilting the cats, and I'm going to put together an apple dessert. Gotta use up all that apple pie filling somehow. The dryer is beeping at me, and so it's time to get to it.