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| King Estate Winery |
Last weekend, March 11-13, we decided to stick around Cottage Grove and do a bit of sightseeing locally. On Saturday we spent several hours in the afternoon driving around to some local wineries. We went first to the
King Estate Winery, which is one of the largest and most well known wineries in the state of Oregon. The winery has 1,100 acres of land with 465 of them dedicated to their organic vineyards...it is actually recognized as the largest organic winery in the United States. Along with the vineyards it also has 30 acres of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
King Estate has a restaurant at the winery in which they serve all local and organic food...most of it grown right here on the property. There is also a bakery on the site in which they prepare all their own baked goods that are served in the restaurant. It was a very cool place to visit and walk around and do some tasting of their world renowned Pinot Gris wines.
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| Sweet Cheeks Winery |
After visiting the King Estate we went about three miles up the road to the
Sweet Cheeks Winery where we did some more sampling of the local wine scene. Sweet Cheeks has a great outdoor area where Katy and myself decided to sit and relax for a while enjoying the beautiful scenery.
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| McCredie Hot Springs |
On Sunday we drove up into the foothills of the Cascades to go to the McCredie Hot Springs. To get to the springs should be about a 45 minute drive for us...the key word..."SHOULD" as it took us over 2 and a half hours to get there! When we left it was raining pretty steadily, but as we've learned over the past two months living in Oregon, weather here is quite fickle and so can be pouring rain one minute and then be bright and sunny in the blink of an eye! So, we thought nothing of the rain and started driving fully expecting sunshine at the next turn. Well, as you can guess by the length of our trip we did not encounter any sunshine but rather the worst wind storm Oregon has seen in the past 15 years! We were heading up into the mountains on a twisting two lane highway bordered by the typical plethora of Oregon evergreens. The wind was whipping like crazy (we'd find out later that wind gusts were as strong as 65mph) and not long into our trip we were forced to slam on the brakes as the truck in front of us had a pine tree come crashing down in its path. The driver jumped out of his truck to try and move the tree and so I jumped out as well to give what help I could. Within just a couple minutes there were 10 of us lifting this tree together to move it off the highway. After this little adventure we kept pushing on towards the hot springs, but about another mile up the road we encountered another downed tree. At this point Katy raised the point that it might be a good idea to head back home and visit the springs another day...but I was set that we were going to make it and that no little gusts of wind would stop us. Well, after six more trees down, some Paul Bunyan like men who just happened to have chain saws in their trucks saving the day, and another two hours in the car, we finally made it to the springs.
There are no signs letting you know you're there, so we were not positive we were in the right spot. We parked on the side of the highway and found a beaten foot path that we assumed must lead us to the Hot Springs. We started walking through the rain down a muddy and uneven path along the Salt Creek River not sure if we were headed the right way, but just when we were ready to turn around we saw steam rising above the water and knew we had made it. There are certain Hot Springs in Oregon whose temperatures can reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit, but the springs we were at ranged anywhere from 95-130 degrees! There were definitely areas of the spring that were a little cooler then others, and areas that were a little too scalding to sit comfortably in. It was a very cool experience to soak in the springs and we hung out there for over an hour enjoying the warm water and the gorgeous mountain scenery of the running river and the huge pine trees.
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| Reading by flashlight |
Our trip home was much easier as the storm had passed, but we returned to bad news...the wind storm had knocked our power out! We ended up being without power for two and a half days and did not get it back on until Tuesday night! So...no water, no heat, no electricity! On Monday night we broke down and used bottled water to wash each other's hair and we ate dinner out three nights in a row as there was no cooking being done in our house. We were very thankful for the power to come back on Tuesday night...especially since the NCAA tournament was starting up on Thursday!
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| Washing each other's hair! |
This past weekend we were the laziest we've been since coming to Oregon...we took advantage of the weather and did a lot of playing outside with the dogs and we watched a lot of college basketball. On Sunday we returned to the King Estate Winery to eat lunch at their restaurant....it was very tasty! They informed us that all their meat comes from just a couple miles down the road at an organic farm, so Katy thought we should go tell the pigs thanks for allowing me to eat one of their brethren as I had a sausage with my meal!
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| King Estate Winery Restaurant |
On Sunday we drove up into the foothills of the Cascades to go to the McCredie Hot Springs. To get to the springs should be about a 45 minute drive for us...the key word..."SHOULD" as it took us over 2 and a half hours to get there! When we left it was raining pretty steadily, but as we've learned over the past two months living in Oregon, weather here is quite fickle and so can be pouring rain one minute and then be bright and sunny in the blink of an eye! So, we thought nothing of the rain and started driving fully expecting sunshine at the next turn. Well, as you can guess by the length of our trip we did not encounter any sunshine but rather the worst wind storm Oregon has seen in the past 15 years! We were heading up into the mountains on a twisting two lane highway bordered by the typical plethora of Oregon evergreens. The wind was whipping like crazy (we'd find out later that wind gusts were as strong as 65mph) and not long into our trip we were forced to slam on the brakes as the truck in front of us had a pine tree come crashing down in its path. The driver jumped out of his truck to try and move the tree and so I jumped out as well to give what help I could. Within just a couple minutes there were 10 of us lifting this tree together to move it off the highway. After this little adventure we kept pushing on towards the hot springs, but about another mile up the road we encountered another downed tree. At this point Katy raised the point that it might be a good idea to head back home and visit the springs another day...but I was set that we were going to make it and that no little gusts of wind would stop us. Well, after six more trees down, some Paul Bunyan like men who just happened to have chain saws in their trucks saving the day, and another two hours in the car, we finally made it to the springs.
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