vino pinot fiesta

So we found heaven today...its in Oregon and its Pinot country. B and i woke up early after a late night for B, to head out to pinot country. We stopped at a place called Burgerville on the way. It is a local "fast food" chain and was awesome. All the beef, vegetables and dairy are organic and local, all paper and plastic is recycled and bio degradable. Very neat concept, and not that much more expensive than a traditional fast food restaurant.

We got lucky and showed up at Winters Hill winery on a day they were doing a big tasting of the 5 wineries that use their grapes, as well as their own wine. The owner came out and introduced himself and the winery had a 360 view of the Oregon country side. We met all the wine makers and winery owners of some delicious pinots. All the wines were small batch no more than 300 hundred cases which we bought a mixed case of our favorites for special ocasions. Much better experience than Napa, and better wine! We hit several others on the way out, Vista Hills, Duponte, then stopped as we had to drive. this day could have gone really wrong, but thank goodness B got to have a drink at 11am, really changed his perspective. can't wait to go back to Oregon, one of the neatest experiences so far. We eased thru the back roads to Corvallis and set up camp. Camping with wine is the only way to do it

A little piece of puppy paradise

So Carmel, CA is where we have decided to "camp out" for a few days. The novelty of the RV wore off and day nine in Mt. Shasta, CA at a dusty KOA. I needed a real shower and couldn't go another night without technology. B saved the day with a fabulous hotel called Cypress Inn, owned by Doris Day, legendary dog lover and I'm told some sort of an actress...

Carmel is ridiculous...

Rolex brand steet clocks, high end shops, candy shops, Bently's..super nice

this place was voted most dog friendly city in the country and that's putting it mildly.

we have had our dogs at every restaurant, even inside for the last 4 meals. there are water bowls and puppy treats outside of all the stores and dog menus at most restaurants, really kind of creepy and I'm a dog nut. the beach is gorgeous and leash free so we have been spending lots of time doing that.

We went to Big Sur today and had a picnic and played on the beach, gorgeous coast

i have seemed to develop a pretty substantial drinking problem, i forgot how much i love martinis, and have been having one a night before dinner...trouble

P-ort-land

We made a haul up to Portland for Bivens and I to see some old friends. We stayed with one of my oldest friends emy while there and had a great dinner. Brian met up with his college roommate Jesse who was in Oregon for a windsurfing competition. B stayed out late and i went back and had some wine with Emy and our other friend Prentiss who came in for the weekend. I haven't seen Emy in probably 10 years, but it was like i saw her last week, so much fun. We loved Portland, so did Pinot, back to a big city, so he was pleased(we now call him Big City Peens)

I put up some random pics from the trip, we are heading south back to Cali now so it will be a few days in the RV till we are back somewhere awesome. I loved loved loved Oregon, would love to go back.

Acting out

We continued up the coast today. Stopped in a cool city called Coos bay for lunch. We hogged a bunch of crab legs and local beer for lunch. We drove lots today to try and get near Portland so we can meet up with some friends of Friday night. We came across the Oregon Dunes ATV area and swerved off the road with excitement. For $50 and a 10 min “safety” class you are free to four wheel all over the dunes. It was AWESOME. I was petrified, it was very steep, but beautiful and hilarious. it should be illegal, it was very dangerous.

That evening we stayed in Lincoln City, OR at yet another KOA. Bivens wants to run a KOA now, he thinks he could do it better. I’m not sure that is something I’d be interested in. I “cooked” for the first time tonight in the camper. Mac & Cheese, canned peas, and hot dogs, and a bottle of red. Needless to say I’m not going to be bathing suit ready when we get home. We also came across the world tallest totem pole, in the parking lots of the Safeway in Oregon...not sure if it's true but we got a pic

Also a pic of us driving through some tree in the redwoods, out rv wouldn't make it so we walked

I tried to post a video of us on the dunes, hope it works

Oregon Trail

We cruised through the Redwoods today and headed to Oregon. Took the pups out on Pistol River Beach which is where there are lots of windsurfing competitions, and then off to Bandon, OR. The coast is beautiful, we are tired from moving around so much. Thanks god there is a KOA there, with good free hot showers. I haven’t showered in our sink/toilette/shower combination yet, and I don’t plan to…

Also we have a hard core gin rummy tournament going on, the winner is going to get something real big, not sure what it is yet!

Fancy RV Park

We headed to Sonoma this morning. Very cute town, had a great lunch at Basque Bakery and walked the town square. We found a great cheese shop called Vella and loaded up on meat, cheese, and bread for snacks and vino drinking. We went to only one vineyard in the Russian River Valley, it was great, bought a couple of bottles and decided to head up the coast and not stay the night in Sonoma. We got to Ft. Bragg, CA and check into the lovely and exclusive Fort Bragg, KOA. From our previous nights accommodations this KOA was a major step up and we then decided we would only stay at a KOA’s.(this KOA was on the beach and very high end at 65 bucks a night, very very expensive in the camper world)

There are very interesting people at these parks. We, in our cruise America moving billboard are the bottom of the food chain. There was a RV that was the size of our house in Nashville with a flat screen the size of our RV, and a brand new BMW convertible down from us. These people really go all out. In this first park I saw,

1. a couple who had a large bird cage full of cockatiels

2. a family that had a wooden totem pole with carved images of the dogs that were traveling with them.
3. A full indoor/outdoor kitchen with outdoor refrigerator, and flat surface griddle.

Holiday Road

We got to Oakland around noon to pick up our RV. Cruise America was packed with people, but we seemed to be the only customers who were speaking English. According to the folks at the desk, 90% of their business is with Europeans. Germans are the majority, then french, the dutch. I have no idea how they are able to navigate our country as no one in America speaks any of those languages and they aren't able to speak much English. I asked the front desk how that works out and they said, "we don't' care what happens to the RV's as long as we have their credit cards"

We loaded up and headed to Napa. We found our first RV Park of the trip and it was interesting. We were in a “different” part of town but it worked. We went into Yountville and had lunch at Bouchon, on of Tom Keller of French Laundry fame restaurants. Very good, but I don’t understand what all the fuss is over Napa. It looks like Brentwood surrounded by a bunch of wineries. We left and drove out to St. Helena, which was fabulous, and what I had thought Napa would look like. Drank some wine and looked around. We had dinner at Gott’s diner on the way back into Napa. It was a gourmet burger joint with picnic tables and good wine. After that we headed to Mimi’s friends Cayce and Lucia’s house for a drink. They are living out there for the summer working at Robert Mondovi. It was great to see them and nice to have a locals perspective of the city.