It rained heavily the entire drive to Portland (and the two days since). Fortunately most of the driving from Walla Walla was on a 4-lane freeway, so it was a bit safer. I don’t have any pictures of the darling B&B we stayed in, in Portland – you’ll just have to go online to check it out – the Rose Cottage B&B. Except for a one-hour delay because of an accident, our GPS drove us right to the door and we settled into our lovely suite.  The B&B, although described as “American Farmhouse,” is very up to date – comfortable furnishings, very comfortable bed, even a fireplace in our room, a jacuzzi tub, and fabulous breakfasts. Sally, the proprietor, outdoes herself making sure nobody leaves there hungry! We would definitely stay there again.

I did all the driving that day (getting to Portland), so was more than a bit tired by the time we got there about 6 pm. We had dinner at a local restaurant (not exceptional, but okay), slept well, and then the following day was “my day” to do Portland.

Because I’m a book lover, it’s almost like a pilgrimage to visit Powell’s Book Store in the Pearl District of downtown Portland. We’d been there before about 8 years ago, but that time I only got to spend about 2 hours there. Not nearly enough. This time the whole day was allocated, but after 4 hours my back was killing me from bending over, up, down, up down, scanning shelves and balancing books on my hip. I had a long list of books that I wanted to buy – all used if I could find them. I’d printed them up on a list, in alpha order by author (most were fiction). All the books were recommended by someone in one of my two book groups. After directing my DH to the section he wanted to see, and agreeing to meet in the coffee shop in 2 hours (the first time), I just went everywhere. After finding about 6 of the books from my list, I deposited them with Dave and I merrily went off for another 2 hours to the cookbook section.

My hope was that I’d find Lindsey Shere’s book of Desserts. I’d found it a few places online (used, as it’s no longer in print), but hoped maybe Powell’s would have it. And yes, indeed, they did, but would you believe the original price was $25.00 and the used copy at Powell’s was $35.00. Guess it’s become a collector’s item. Maybe one day I’ll discover a bookstore – an obscure one that doesn’t know better – and I’ll find a copy for $5.00 Maybe. The cookbook section at Powell’s is the largest I’ve ever seen in any bookstore – but then, Powell’s is one of the largest bookstores in the United States, so it stands to reason. Most of the cookbooks were new, and any that were used were not ones I desired to own. I must have found about 20 new cookbooks that I’d like to own. But no, I passed them up and just bought 7 used paperbacks.

That night we dined a 23Hoyt, a relatively new restaurant in the Nob Hill section of Portland. We didn’t eat lunch (if you could have seen what our hostess at the B&B served us for breakfast, you might go without lunch AND dinner), so we had made reservations early, at 5:30. Our food was fabulous, and I’d definitely recommend the restaurant. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but the food was excellent, so I always feel like the money is well spent if it’s really good food. I ordered grilled scallops on a bed of butternut squash puree that night and my DH ordered a steak served on a bed of roasted corn (I snagged a couple of forks full of the corn and pronounced it excellent too). I also ordered an arugula salad with Asian pear that was very tasty. And I had a Peach Fizz – a mixture of prosecco and fresh peach puree. Yummy. We didn’t have dessert.

So, yesterday morning we headed south to the Willamette (weh-lamm-ett) Valley, the home of most of the well-known Oregon wineries. Dave was in his element, going from one winery to another sampling this and that (mostly pinot noir). He started sampling at about 11am, so I was the designated driver. As for pinot, though, we/he need more pinot like we need a hole in the head, but that’s what this part of the West is known for. As of this morning (after more stops) we have 14 bottles in the back seat of the car. Some years ago when we were here we were fortunate to meet Matt Keene, the owner/winemaker at McKinlay. He’s an elusive kind of guy, but somehow we managed to get him to agree to let us see the winery (it’s not open to the public and apparently he rarely sees visitors). We had hoped to stop there again, but I was nursing a bit of a toothache by that afternoon, and some kind of allergy symptoms, so we went to the drug store for me rather than go to McKinlay. However, Dave was able to find a bottle of it at one of the group tasting rooms he visited this morning. There are so many new wineries here than 8 years ago. Our hostess at the Portland B&B recommended several wineries to us (Arcane, Methven, Bergstrom, Sincanne, among others. We made it to some of them, not all.

The rain has let up today some (more like all-day mist), but it’s still very cloudy. I was going to take a photo of our windshield (the rain) but forgot when it was pouring down. Just what you-all want to see is a windshield full of raindrops, right? So the pictures here are from 23Hoyt that we enjoyed so much.

We’re off now to the Oregon coast, so hope to post another something tomorrow if I can. I do have internet access, but it’s not a strong signal, so uploading is difficult. We spent last night at McMinnville, a really adorable town in the middle of Willamette Valley. Had a passable dinner at the Golden Valley Brewery. My tooth was still bothering me, so wanted something easy. I’ve apparently aggravated the nerve on a tooth (per a phone call to my dentist at home), so need to be careful for a few days, chewing on the other side of my mouth and eating sort of soft foods.

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– While we were in Idaho I snapped this photo in Sandpoint, the main town in that neck of the woods.

In our B&B room in Portland, we glanced at a book called The Two-Lane Gourmet: Fine Wine Trails, Superb Inns, and Exceptional Dining Through California, Oregon and Washington. In the chapter that talks about the development of wine through the ages, particularly the Etruscans (they were in Italy), it mentions:

By 300 C.E., the Romans were having limited success with corked ceramic bottles (amphora) designed by the Greeks, in which a heavy layer of olive oil – often more than half the container’s contents – was floated on top of the wine as a sealant. Still, you can imagine how that would taste after having been bounced around a bit in a storm, or hauled to market on a wooden cart. The Romans called it wine, but should have been sold as [an Etruscan] vinaigrette salad dressing.

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Well, I don’t think I had ever been there before. When I was planning this trip (I do all the trip planning in our marriage, plotting the days, towns, finding places to stay so we don’t end up at a Motel 6 because there’s nothing left, and researching sights to see as well as restaurants) my DH Dave said he wanted to do a little wine tasting in or around Walla Walla. Having never been to the town before I had to do some research. First up was finding a place to stay. There were the usual motel chains, none of which interested me. There is a big, lovely renovated historic hotel in town too, but we generally skip those kinds of accommodations and prefer B&Bs. Sure enough, I found one. The Inn at Blackberry Creek. Now let me just tell you, if you EVER have to be in WW, or are willing to take a short detour off the main highway, WW is one great little town. I measure great little towns in two ways – great place(s) to stay, and great place(s) to eat.

Lest you think that WW is a back horse town, let me dissuade you. It’s not a large town by any means, but if you measure the quality of a town by the quality of its B&Bs, WW is certainly up there in the top 10 of the west. We only stayed one night (a mistake we soon discovered), but that was because I didn’t know anything about this little berg, the wineries nearby, or the choice of restaurants to try. First, before we’d even found the B&B, we stopped at Amavi winery (that’s pronounced ah-mah-vee). The owner or winemaker there recommended we eat dinner at a local restaurant called CreekTown Café, on 2nd street at the far west end of town.

Our GPS has been a life-saver on this trip. It makes navigation such a breeze. We call her Trudi (the car itself, but particularly the GPS voice). The car (mine) is a BMW, and since we picked this car up in Munich when it was new (some years ago now) we decided she needed a German name, and Trudi it’s been. So even though we’re sensible people and know the GPS is nothing but a software program connected to satellite, we still think of the car and the GPS as Trudi/Her. We do talk to her now and then, and even raise our voices occasionally when her navigation commands override the Patricia Cornwell mystery-book-on-tape we were listening to yesterday, when she interrupted to tell us to “Exit the Highway at the Next Exit,” or the worst of all phrases “if possible, make a legal U-turn.”  And yes, she told us that a couple of times too. But, we were thankful Trudi was on duty when we got into the thick of traffic in Portland. And even though she didn’t know all the back streets of Walla Walla, her mapping told us how to find the B&B.

So, the Inn: it is beautifully situated on several acres of land, surrounded by trees, and even a large pond and a creek, of course. The house (a vintage Victorian) is roomy and not overly decorated in Victoriana, thankfully. Our room was large, with a small deck and Jacuzzi, on the ground floor. It’s been beautifully restored and brought up to date with modern bathrooms and fixtures. We had wi-fi too, which is how I posted one of my stories yesterday. More and more inns and B&Bs have wi-fi, and for that I’m grateful. They even have a computer that’s available for guests to use, but I couldn’t upload photos from there, so was glad I could connect up my laptop.

We had planned to visit several wineries, but after going to Amavi, my DH decided that he had already purchased enough wine (6 bottles of Cab), and wants to save room for more wines of the Willamette Valley (our next stop on Sunday). He wanted to stop at Abeja, but that winery must make some very special wine – they’re completely sold out. No wine tasting by appointment. Nope. My DH was very disappointed. So, we’re going to have to go back to WW on another trip to be sure we visit more of them.

So anyway, we made phone reservations at the CreekTown Café before we checked in. Washington, Oregon and Idaho are all casual places – even blue jeans are a go almost anywhere. The food was outstanding. I ordered a green salad with blackberries. Oh my. So very delicious. Dave ordered a locally grown beet salad that he thought was about the best beet salad he’d ever had, bar none. Now that’s high praise, as he orders them whenever he finds them on a menu. I didn’t taste it, nor did I get a photo of it, sorry to say. Dave ordered fresh halibut, which he said was fabulous. I ordered a vegetarian lasagna, and although it was good, it wasn’t off the charts. It contained plenty of veggies, and a nice fresh tomato sauce puddle around it, but it just didn’t have tons of flavor. So, since the entrees weren’t all that heavy, we decided to splurge on dessert. I ordered a banana caramel tart, and Dave had a huckleberry cheesecake. If men swooned, he did. My tart was exceptional, I must say. By dessert time, the ambient lighting had been turned down to an 8 pm romance setting in the restaurant, so my photos didn’t turn out. Even trying to enhance them was useless. But at least you get to see the blackberry salad. We also spent a bit of time with one of the owners talking wine. I had ordered a L’Ecole red, Dave ordered a chardonnay with his fish, but later the co-owner brought him a Syrah that he really liked a lot.

So, the bottom line is – make a side trip to Walla Walla, and be sure to book a room at the Inn at Blackberry Creek, and have dinner at the CreekTown Café. Okay? Got it?

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How could you ask for anything more beautiful than this? The other evening when we were having dinner with our friends from Cougar Gulch (SW Coeur d’Alene), they included friends of theirs, Mark & Alicia. Now Mark is an outdoorsman of the first order. So we were told, year around in these parts (where it snows and ices with regularity in the winter months), he used to bicycle to and from work, some 10 miles each way. He’s retired now,  but still does a lot of active sports. So, it came as no surprise that one day recently he bicycled and hiked up to the top of the one of the peaks around Hayden Lake. And he snapped this photo. Mark reads my blog, I discovered, so perhaps he’ll put in a comment and tell us which way is north, or where the town is in this picture. I don’t know the lake well enough, although most of the homes are around the north, west and south sides, closer to the town of Hayden. But is that shot not gorgeous? Thanks, Mark, for sharing your exquisite photo. (We’re way west of Idaho now, in Portland,  Oregon, to be exact, but I couldn’t leave Idaho without showing all of you this pretty photo.)

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A view of  Lake Pend Oreille in Northern Idaho, from our friends, Bob & Barbara’s boat  

Sorry I wasn’t able to post much in the last couple of days – no wireless network to connect to – and I know what a difference it makes to see photos rather than just some text – otherwise I would have just posted a short message with no photos. Our other friends, Bob & Barbara, live on Hayden Lake, a town about 15 miles north of Coeur d’Alene. And yes, Hayden has its own lake that is just gorgeous. When we arrived at our friend’s home, almost immediately we took a tram down their steep incline below their home and went out on their pontoon boat for a champagne cruise. The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful if we’d ordered it. Bright sunshine, sparkling water, surrounded by a bounty of trees (mostly pine, also some cedar, I think) and steep hills and mountains. I forgot to take any photos. So sorry! I was having just too much fun.

We went out to dinner that night to a place in Coeur d’Alene, then the next day they took us north to a town called Bayview. There is a lake further north of Hayden that is gigantic – huge – with 50 miles of shoreline. It’s called Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced pen-door-ray as in French). It’s a natural lake, over 1000 feet deep in places, and has a U.S. Navy research facility there where the government tests submarines. It’s off limits, of course, but we did spot one of the odd-looking ¾-size subs they use for the research. But, in Bayview there is a community of homes as well as “floating homes.” Our friends own one of these cute floating homes. You walk out on a dock and most of the homes are about 15 feet wide (that’s a guess), and about 30 feet deep (that’s also a guess). They sit on cedar logs, have no propulsion on them, and are either one or two stories high. Bob & Barbara own a 2-story one with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a “garage” that houses the little fishing boat that sits in the water year around. So, off we went on that little boat for another hour or so cruise on just that part of the lake. It was interesting to see the variety of floating homes (there are strict laws about these homes – they’re not permitting any new ones – period – and dock vs. floating home spaces are at a premium. These homes cost anywhere from $50,000 to over a million. Imagine that! We went into a beautiful cove at the very tip of one of the fingers of the lake, also spotted a variety of mountain goats munching away on grass on the steeper inclines.

That night I sort-of made dinner – I just made the entrée – my chicken with mustard crumb topping served on a bed of onions. Barbara made a green salad and some delicious green beans. Their house sits right on the water, and watching the sunset from their home, which faces west, was just beautiful. We had such a nice visit with them.  Thank you, Bob & Barbara! They also own a home in Palm Desert, like we do, so we will see them again in a few months when they come south for the winter. As beautiful as Idaho is, the winters up here are long and dreary. The snow and ice don’t make driving very easy either.

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My DH Dave and I both l-o-v-e- fish stews. They come in a variety of names and styles – fish stew of course, fish soup, or cioppino (Italian) or the French style of Bouillabaisse. They’re all quite similar – a tomato-based stock with a variety of fish contained within. It can be whatever kind of fish you can find from your local purveyors. It’s easy, actually. I don’t know why I don’t make it more often – likely because it’s about 15 miles to our local market that offers really good, fresh fish.

Ann has her own recipe – it’s a combination of about 3 different recipes she’s used over the years. I wanted to take a picture of it that night. But, you see, I was too embarrassed to ask Ann if I could take a photo of the soup before we sat down to dinner. It’s okay to get away with that kind of behavior when I’m at home, in my own kitchen, but not very polite if you’re at somebody else’s house. Plus, I didn’t know if she’s give me the recipe (I thought she would, but one never knows!).

Ann & Harry used to be in a gourmet group we had some years ago. I was the ringleader – the one who tried to set up the dates, decided on the menus (all of them) and mailed out the recipes for everyone to make and bring. We met for a number of years, probably about 5 or so. I finally got weary of doing all of the menu planning by myself, and asked if somebody else would help. There were no takers, so the group kind of fizzled out.

Anyway, Ann made this delicious bouillabaisse for dinner our first night in Coeur d’Alene. It, with a really tasty green salad made with some pumpkin seed oil she’d brought back from a trip to Germany a few months ago (which was really interesting – I liked it a lot), and some warm baguettes, and we were in for a treat. Ann had made the stock the day before, so the flavors had had time to meld. With halibut, cod, scallops and shrimp (oh yes, some clams too), it was good enough to lick the bowl. So the next morning Ann nicely said she’d give me the recipe and let me snap a photo of the leftovers. Here’s to the right is a photo of our friends who have been so gracious to let us stay with them for a couple of nights. Thanks again, Ann & Harry, for the wonderful visit!
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I sure hadn’t. We’re staying with our friends, Ann & Harry, who live in the country outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It’s absolutely gorgeous out here. They moved from our area in California, up here to Idaho about 16 years ago. They owned a darling bed & breakfast for about 10 of those years, then sold the B&B and built a new home that is on the west side of the lake, but faces east to the foothills surrounding Lake Coeur d’Alene. It’s almost a 200 degree view of pine trees with hills and valleys. We’ve been up here to visit them before, and always enjoy the outdoors, the clean, fresh air, and the pristine view.

Ann prepared a bouillabaisse dinner for us last night, which was scrumptious. Ann has given me her recipe which I’ll share with you tomorrow. And this morning we had eggs and chicken sausages for breakfast. And out of the refrigerator came this red plastic bottle of Curry Ketchup. Ann asked “have you ever had this before?” I never had. It was SO good – ketchup with a curry flair. They buy it at the U.S. military commissary near them, but surely it’s available other places. The label is in English. It looks like American catsup (ketchup) but it has a mild curry flavor. Really good if you happen to find it somewhere, like a German deli?

I’m posting from the lovely new public library in Coeur d’Alene. With free WiFi.

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Through much of yesterday we were looking at nothing very noteworthy. Dry, deserty kinds of views, lovely distant mountains both west and east. Then we got into Idaho. And actually lots of southern Idaho is more of the same. Then we got into the mountains north of Boise. You know – the kind of two-lane roads that, on the maps, have the little dotted lines alongside them, meaning they’re scenic. By the way, I’m feeling fine today, and so is Dave. We just needed some distance (descent) from those 10,000 foot altitudes. We stopped at a nondescript log cabin kind of place for lunch, and arrived in McCall (on Lake Payette) last night. Surprise – the little motel we stayed in actually had free wireless!

We had a delicious dinner in downtown McCall, at the McCall Brewery – lots of solid home made foods. I ordered soup (a delicious beer-cheese soup I may try to duplicate once I get home) and salad with a Parmesan vinaigrette dressing. The lighting wasn’t good enough to get a snapshot.

So, the picture you see above is one I snapped beside the highway yesterday. We saw hundreds of such scenes, just different rapids, different curves in the roads, different tree landscapes. All beautiful. There’s no sign of the bark beetle here in Idaho.

I may not have internet access for the next couple of days. Our friends we’re visiting near Coeur d’Alene don’t have high speed internet service. So, stand by and I’ll be back online as soon as I can.

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Photo from the Cedar City Review, October 2005, showing the devastation by bark beetles in Cedar Breaks National Monument.  

So, a couple of days ago we saw Zion, and headed right out afterwards, taking the circuitous highway east of the Park, over the Mt. Carmel Highway. Lots of tunnels – even had to wait in line at one spot as they only allowed single file in the longest of them. The scenery was spectacular, with small bits and pieces that looked more like Bryce Canyon than Zion. Then we headed north and went to Cedar Breaks. This isn’t a place most people visit – it’s a National Monument, not a National Park. I remembered it from a trip once before and knew it was beautiful. Well, that is, until the Bark Beetles came to town. Several years ago the bark beetle made a foray in the direction of Cedar Breaks. It looks almost like a forest fire had gone through, yet none of the trees were black. We couldn’t figure it out. There were a few aspens decorated in autumn finery, but not many. We headed up. And up. And up. Finally we got to over 10,000 feet and found the hotel I’d reserved. In the winter the area teems with skiers, but summer is slow, so there’s only one hotel open. The Cedar Breaks Lodge. Had a nice dinner – I wasn’t expecting much in a remote place like that – but it was exceptionally good. And it was there we heard the story about the bark beetle and how it has just devastated the forest around Cedar Breaks. The hotel staff shared that the environmentalists won out – to allow the bark beetle to do its thing – rather than use any kind of pesticide to eradicate them.

After a long day of driving we were tired and went to bed early. I didn’t sleep well, however. Actually got up and played games on my laptop from about 3 – 6 am. I mean it’s really bad when you play solitaire on your laptop in a hotel room. My DH was awake too some of the time, and we finally figured out we were suffering from altitude sickness. He ended up doing most of the driving the next day because I really didn’t feel all that great.

Here’s what we learned about altitude sickness:

• It’s a good idea for the first 24 hours to take it easy (well, we did, sort of)
• Exertion of any kind is not recommended, like carrying suitcases up a flight of stairs (oops)
• It’s a good idea to eat lightly (oops – it was so good, we cleaned our plates)
• It’s not a good idea to drink alcohol for the first 24 hours (oops, we both had wine with dinner)
• It’s a good idea to stay hydrated (oops – we couldn’t figure out why there were humidifiers in every room – finally at 2:30 am I filled it up and turned it on – that helped plus the tall glasses of water we both drank at about 3:00 am)
• Dizziness and headaches are common effects of altitude sickness (uh, yep, had both of those)
• Nausea is also a common effect (uh, yep, had that too, and the other one we won’t go into here)
• Sleeplessness, or other sleep disorders are also common (oh yea, had that big time)
• And maybe most important: it’s a good idea to take any pictures you want before you get sick because later – like the next day – you won’t feel like it.

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Traveling certainly is a mixed bag of internet service. I was supposed to have service at last night’s hotel, but my computer would not connect. Just wouldn’t. But, they charged me $9 anyway. I’ll have to phone THAT place and give them a little piece of my mind.

We did, finally, leave Las Vegas and headed northeast toward Zion National Park in Utah. Took longer to get there than planned, but made the afternoon tour bus in the Park. That place is just so awesome. The only word that comes to mind is majestic.

In case any of you haven’t been to Zion in awhile (yep, that’s me) you can no longer drive into Zion in your own car. For some years now they have been using propane powered buses to take visitors up the 6 miles in, and 6 miles back. There are lots of stops along the way where you can get off and hike (short, long, strenuous or not). We heard a really interesting story along one section. . . About halfway into the park there is a Lodge. If you have reservations, you get the coveted red pass that allows you to drive your car that far. (I tried to make such reservations several months ago, but they were booked up.) I don’t remember the year the incident happened, but during the night a rock slide occurred (not common, but it happens sometimes). It wasn’t until someone started up the narrow road did they discover it was completely obliterated. The river that runs alongside the two-lane road was dammed up too, although it post haste found another route to divert. There were 300 people at the Lodge that night (guests and employees). None of them could get out. Somehow, within about 24-48 hours they were able to get everyone evacuated. The only problem was, everyone there had cars. The cars stayed at the Lodge for six more weeks while they bulldozed and dynamited a new creek bed and road. Funny thing: most of the cars were rentals. Can you imagine the bills those tourists had to pay after that escapade?

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