Solstice Pizza in Hood River, Oregon
Gotta thank Trip Advisor for this one; told us it was a great choice and warned us to get there early. As a bonus for me, they had ginger beer, which I adore. Yummm! We had a fabulous waitress, sat at a group table outside near the wood pile for the wood-burning pizza oven, overlooking the Columbia River, it was a fabulous evening and the food was remarkable.
We split a Kale salad, which I forgot to photograph because we were really hungry, LOL.
AdventureMan’s Pizza (we are suckers for wood-fired ovens and thin crust pizzas)
My Dungeness Pasta (if it says Dungeness, I will order it!)
Little things make all the difference . . . it was a friendly crowd, we heard some fascinating conversations and just before we left, the waitress came up to me with a complimentary to-go cup full of ginger beer. I was utterly charmed. I wish we had Solstice Pizza in Pensacola.
Simon’s Cliff House in the Columbia Gorge Hotel
Not only was the Columbia Gorge Hotel gorgeous and nurturing and fabulous, it also had a really good restaurant, Simon’s Cliff House, where we had several meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Sadly, the very best meal we ate there, where I had Venison and AdventureMan had Steelhead Trout, I was so blown away by the food that we don’t even have any photos. I apologize.
Lunch with cream of broccoli soup and a Ceasar salad 🙂
We also had desserts! This WAS Creme Brûlée and Profiteroles!
Columbia River Gorge Hotel
This trip has been full of really happy surprises, and even the things that I had concerns about turned out well, much better than expected.
This is one of our shortest driving days of all, but the day is gorgeous, in spite of windy conditions as we are leaving Mount Hood. We had visited the historical exhibit in the hotel for the Roosevelt visit, and met a man about our age who, like my Mom, came for the skiing. He was disappointed; the conditions were so windy that skiing was dangerous. And, on our way out, we watched the ski patrol rescue two skiers who had ventured out but lost control in the gusting wind.
The skies are clear and crisp, and at the same time, it is spring and the valleys and mountain roads are full of wildflowers. On the way, on this very short drive, we take a detour; AdventureMan sees a sign saying Panorama Point. Who could resist?
Panorama indeed. You can’t even take a photo that would do justice. To the left is Mount Hood, and to the right is Mt. (something else) (Adams?) We take a short walk up to a higher viewpoint and meet a family doing devotions with two children, one a toddler playing and one a baby, sleeping. They are very kind, and very welcoming, and point out all that we are seeing, and it is glorious.
We are just minutes from the Columbia Gorge Hotel. We know we are way too early, but we stop in to ask for directions for a museum AdventureMan wants to see.
The Columbia Gorge Hotel was a really really happy surprise, and it is AdventureMan’s great coup. We used to watch a show, Grimm. We loved it because it was Portland, and all the characters who were mostly good guys were really good friends to one another, except when maybe they drank a hexes-poison and turned wicked for a while. Yeh, it was kind of silly, but we really enjoyed it. In the final season, there was a kind of Shakespearean episode where a bad guy poisoned the drinks and made people fall in love with people other than the ones they were already in love with, so it was this huge romantic comedy with players declaring their love for totally inappropriate people and for all the wrong reasons. The group had all gone to this resort for the weekend, and as we watched, AdventureMan said “Whoa! Where is that? I want us to stay there!”
So he made it a point to investigate all the places it might be, and narrowed it down to this hotel.
When we went inside, they were very kind, and, long story short, because we are retired military, gave us a better room at a reduced rate, AND the guy who checked us in was an extra in the Grimm episode, and had a bunch of materials, like the script and photos, and even a couple short videos that showed him doing his thing as an extra in the episode. It was so much fun, and this was all before we even got to our room.
Bellman, and Grimm extra Ricky Vaughan:
It’s been a long trip, and as much fun as it has been, we hoped for a lovely serene last few days before we returned to Pensacola. The Columbia Gorge Hotel was perfect.
Our room
The hotel lobby
The Valentino Lounge:
The grounds – this hotel has its own waterfall!
From beginning to end, we had a wonderful time at this hotel. The people were so kind to us, full of helpful information, and always wanting to go the extra mile to make us happy. We will stay there again in a heartbeat.
Timberline Lodge, Government Camp, Oregon
Just as AdventureMan had a yearning to visit Crater Lake, I’ve had a longing, lo these many years, to stay at Timberline Lodge. I remember going there when I was little, maybe for lunch, maybe for a soda and for my Mom to meet up with friends, I don’t know, I was really little. All I remember is how much I loved this timbered lodge, and I told her I wanted to stay there. She said we were going back to Portland; we were just visiting the Lodge.
I’m not a believer in bucket lists. I’m a believer in doing it along the way, if you can. When AdventureMan and I married, we had a lot not-in-common, but we shared a common way of outlining and attaining our objectives in life.
- Â Live within your income.
- Save for goals (retirement, education, property, etc).
- Have a great life along the way.
We’ve done well. When we first married, AdventureMan wanted to go to Africa and see the animals. We saved for a year and spent a month in Kenya and Tanzania before starting a family, then once we were living back overseas, we went back to various African countries on safari ten times. We worked hard, and we have a ball along the way.
But I had never had an opportunity to stay at Timberline Lodge. It’s TIME!
It was another case of not wanting to mention to AdventureMan that it might be a bit tricky getting up there, but although there is still a lot of snow, we didn’t have any problems on the roads. And, even though the parking lot, we are told, is full, AdventureMan, with his famous great luck, waited while I checked us in, and while he was waiting a beautiful parking spot opened up right in front of the Lodge. Woo HOOOOO!
This is our room, up on the third floor. All the beds have thick comforters and Pendleton blankets.
The view from our room is out over one of the ski trails 🙂
I am totally in heaven. A dream has come true, and we are having a lot of fun. AdventureMan asked if we should bring in our swim suits, and I looked at him like he was crazy. “It’s a SKI lodge,” I informed him, a little haughtily. Oh, Intlxpatr, woe! The registration clerk looked at me and said “We do! We have an outdoor pool down at the end of this hall” and pointed down the hall. I was humbled, and the pool was beautiful; a gorgeous contrast in hot and cold. Don’t you love the skiers skiing right by the pool?
We ate all our meals in the Lodge, the spaces were so beautiful. This is the downstairs lounge:
I am such a sucker for stone fireplaces, wood floors and leather furniture. I should live in Montana!
We ate in the Rams Head restaurant, looking out over the peak of Mount Hood:
I ordered the cassoulet, which, when it came, I said “I thought it had chicken in it!”
It did, it was hiding under the endive salad.
AdventureMan ordered the charcuterie platter, and loved every bite.
He couldn’t even finish his cheese platter, not could I finish my cassoulet, too much food and we can’t take it with us.
This is the Cascade Dining Room, where we had breakfast the next morning:
This trip has had so many highlights, and we both agree that staying at Timberline Lodge is a life-high experience. 🙂
When talking with my Mom, she said back in the day, she and a bunch of friends from university would head over to Timberline Lodge for the weekends, and that they stayed in large bunk-room dorms, because it was all about the skiing. 🙂
The High Desert Museum in Bend, OR
Today is a piece of cake. It is a very short driving day, we get up late, only to discover that the normally generous breakfast at the Best Western has been set-upon by all the martial arts participants and the gun show enthusiasts, and the crew is working valiantly but is unable to keep up with the hoards of folk interested in breakfast. We find enough – some hard boiled eggs, some milk, enough. We are on the road by 9:30 only to stop just outside of Bend at one of the most beautiful museums we have ever visited, the High Desert Museum.
Look at that gorgeous elk statue, look at the definition. Look at his relaxed posture. Isn’t he gorgeous?
That is not a real salmon jumping up a river to spawn, but another gorgeous piece of art work at the entrance to this museum. I am loving this place already. They’ve put some big bucks into making this a high end product.
I suppose I should be embarrassed waxing so enthusiastic over the materials and craftsmanship that have gone into the structure, but I’m not. It’s my blog; I get to be as enthusiastic as I want. I loved this museum before I even got in the front door.
This is the entrance. Look at that natural light invited in! Look at the stone walls, the wooden ceiling and the textured panels on the walls! It seems most of the people we encounter working in the museum are volunteers, and they love their work and take great pride in serving their museum.
I know you’ve been wondering (as I did) exactly what the High Desert is:
The entire states of Idaho and Utah? Most of Nevada? Extensive parts of Washington, Oregon and Wyoming, as well as segments of California and Montana? I had no idea!
There is SO much to see. There is a lot of history along with the natural sciences, and it is all beautifully displayed, with a lot of human context.
I learned a lot about ritual root digging, which I had never heard of, but since seeing this exhibit, it has come up in two books I’ve read by Louise Erdrich, The Future Home of the Living God and LaRose, so I’ve been able to integrate what I learned with more information. If we ever have a monumental natural disaster, or zombie apocalypse, we will need these survival skills.
A tule mat tee pee. The women also wove baskets so fine and so tight you could cook in them. They used fire heated round stones to bring food temperatures up even to a boil.
This wild cat sculpture is next to the real wild cat, resident at the museum for many years due to an injury that made it impossible to return her to the wild.
Panoramas from the historical displays.
The museum also has a really nice gift shop, lots of original art work, good cards, great children’s gifts. They also had a very nice cafe, with an outdoor terrace where you can sit, drink some excellent coffee, and listen to the birds.
We spent two or three hours here, and it was worth every minute. The volunteer guides do tours of the outdoor animal displays, including some very cute and cuddly otter, and all kinds of other themed 30 minute or so walks. Well worth a visit.
LaPine, Oregon and the Cinco de Mayo
The road from the turn off to Crater Lake to LaPine, Oregon is probably the most boring road we were on the entire trip. It was flat. It was forest, but not the thick natural forest like in Alaska, but the planted and harvested kind of forest. We were glad to get to LaPine, where they had a surprisingly comfortable Best Western, with a pool.
First, had I realized Bend was just such a short drive, I probably would have put us there, but somehow, I didn’t see Bend when I was planning the trip. Bend is one of those WAY cool places that west coast people head to if they are artistic, or want to live ecologically, or close to the earth. Bend is just WAY cool.
There is a children’s birthday party going on, and it looks like they are going to be in the pool, and we are hungry, so we go to find someplace to eat. The top rated places in town are Mexican, there seem to be a goodly number of Mexicans working in the area and we love authentic Mexican food, so we go to the nearest one, Cinco de Mayo, and as soon as we walk in, we are happy!
It’s an odd time, not lunch, not dinner, maybe around 4 in the afternoon, so we have our choice of where to sit, but almost as soon as we have ordered, a huge crowd starts to arrive. There is not only a gun show in town, but there is also a large martial arts competition, and this is one popular restaurant.
I took the interior shots before the food arrived, and once the food arrived, I forgot to take any photos at all. The chips were thin and crispy, with three different salsas, two of them lethal. I had carne asada, which came with a weird sauce. I asked the waitress and she said “oh lots of people don’t like that sauce, but it is the sauce Mexicans eat with Carne Asada” so I felt humbled and unworldly, because I am normally an adventurous eater, and I didn’t like the sauce. The meat was very good. AdventureMan had a big platter of tacos, and he could barely walk out of the restaurant. “I’m normally so self-disciplined,” he moaned, “But these were so good and I couldn’t stop!” All in all, this was one of the best restaurants on our trip, and one of the most authentically ethnic.
The hotel was packed. We had to share the pool with kids, which we normally don’t mind, but we mind when the parents aren’t paying attention – pools can be dangerous places. Parents need to pay attention. We left quickly, and had some fears about how well we would sleep; there were parties going on all over the hotel. Around ten o’clock, however, it all stopped, the hotel was quiet, really quiet, and we got a great night’s sleep.
Mt. Shasta and Crater Lake
We have a process, a road trip planning process. I come up with an idea, a route. I sketch it out and run it by AdventureMan. He gives me input like “Oh good, I’ve always wanted to see Crater Lake, can we fit that in?” and we build it into the trip.
The truth is, I love to plan trips. I spend hours looking for fun, unique, interesting little hotels to stay in, or if there is some destination, at least see if we can find a hotel with something interesting nearby, or the least uninteresting hotel in town.
We have discovered we do better as a couple if we don’t spend too much time on the road, driving, something it really took me a long time to figure out.
You know how you grow up in a culture, and it never occurs to you that there is another way of doing things? Like I grew up thinking that men always put the gas in cars, so it was a great shock to my husband when we got married and we would get close to running out of gas because it never occurred to me that I was supposed to fill the tank (I learned that one fairly quickly!) It has taken many years for me to figure out that not every family gets up before the crack of dawn to start a road trip, and drives hell-bent-for-leather for many hours to get somewhere, or to get as close as you can to somewhere. My poor husband! I thought a twelve hour day on the road was normal. His family never took road trips! We had some mutual adjusting and negotiating to go through. 🙂
So we added Crater Lake to the trip. I didn’t much care; I had been there years ago, well, close to fifty years ago, LOL, but OK, let’s go. I had no idea how cool this day was going to be.
First, I am going to bore you with several photos of Mt. Shasta. Starting from McCloud, we almost totally circled Mt. Shasta, stopping in Weed, California, to buy a T-shirt for our son, which he assures us he will never wear, that says in big letters “I LOVE WEED” and under it in small letters, “California.” I just thought as a prosecutor, he might find it humorously ironic. Sigh.
And then, we hit the snow. I keep hoping the roads are open all the way up to the Crater, and the snow keeps creeping higher, and into the road 😦
But we make it, and I am wearing my Florida sandals. I love the cold, and it doesn’t bother me one bit, but people can be rude, all dressed in their snow suits and boots, looking at my bare feet.
We stop at the lodge to buy post cards; it really is open, there is a temporary tunnel that you can take to get inside. Below is our rental car; you can see how high the snow level is.
As concerned as I was about being able to reach the lake, I am so glad we did this. It was a thrill to see Mt. Shasta from all different angles, and to see the huge crowds of people from everywhere visiting Crater Lake, even this early in the season. When I visited last time, about the same time of year, so many years ago . . . we were the only ones there!
The McCloud Hotel
If you know me from this blog, you will know that we love interesting hotels. The McCloud Hotel is a gem! We are really happy to be here in the Spring, lucky that the roads are open, no fresh snow, the sun is out, Mt. Shasta glistens from every angle.
When we get to the McCloud Hotel, we almost dance for joy. It is lovely! It is a very old hotel, beautifully renovated with a care to preserve many of the old features. The owners love the place, and it shows. We were lucky to reserve a place in the hotel restaurant for that evening, as it was a Friday and the dining room was packed. The food was exquisite, locally sourced, and we can tell that many of the people dining there are regulars.
See the old suitcases? There are pieces like that everywhere, original pieces. The hotel was at one time a hotel, then a boarding house with separate floors for women and men during the time when it was a major timber resource, with a railroad spur to transport the timber cut from the mountainside. They have renovated the first two floors, you will see our room later, but they say the third floor still has the original small rooms, now used for storage. She said three rooms are used for Christmas decor, and I just wish I could see this hotel at Christmas!
This is the lounge at the back entrance.
This is the dining room, although on a weekend night, the dining room actually stretches out into the lobby to accommodate all the people.
This is our bedroom, very spacious, high ceilings, wood trim, huge windows, I am in heaven.
This is the upstairs sitting room, again, a large assortment of very old, original pieces.
This is the downstairs lobby next to the registration desk, next to the dining room. It is beautiful and comfy.
This is the coffee, internet and tv lounge:
We would love to come back here again and again.
McCloud and the McCloud Mercantile, and the White Mountain Cafe
As we checked into our beautiful hotel, we asked if there were somewhere we could eat. It was a quarter of 2:00 and breakfast was wearing thin.
“You can eat at the White Mountain Cafe,” our hotelier replied, “but go now! They close at 2:00!”
We hurried down the street, where the waitress graciously welcomed us and told us we had plenty of time to eat, so not to hurry.
This is the White Mountain Cafe Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato. AdventureMan says it is one of the best BLT’s he has ever had; the bacon was especially tasty.
This is my grilled chicken salad, which also contained some of the fabulous bacon. This led to a long discussion with an equally enthusiastic waitress, and we all three agreed that life is too short to eat bad bacon, and that really really good bacon is one of the sweetest of life’s joys. She told us that anyone who doesn’t like bacon has never tasted really good bacon. As she works so closely with food every single day, I am inclined to give her a lot of credibility.
I also found myself thinking deeply about how difficult it would be for me to be a good Jew or a good Muslim if I could never eat good bacon or an occasional slice of Smithfield ham.
The White Mountain Cafe (walk out the door and you see a huge Mt. Shasta) is connected to the McCloud Mercantile, a winding old-timey store with all kinds of goodies, and a lot of original old store furnishings. McCloud is a historical timber town.
Beulah’s Kitchen for Breakfast
There was no breakfast included at the spa, which was fine, we got up and hit the road, knowing we would come across something. As we leave Calistoga, we are in the thick of wine country; it is Spring and the vines are still just waking up, but the world is lush and green and beautiful. We are on a small winding road, through hills and vineyards, inching towards Interstate 5 when we come across Middleton and Beulah’s Kitchen.
Beulah’s Kitchen is the exact kind of place we hope to find when we want to have breakfast. It isn’t a chain, real people are cooking real food, and it is not cookie cutter food, either.
This is AdventureMan’s Biscuits and Gravy – so much food! He did his manly best and finished some of it!
I had the breakfast burrito – again, a lot of food, and I was able to eat about half, but I enjoyed every bite. The coffee at Beulah’s Kitchen was exceptionally good.
This food was so filling that we were fine until about 2 in the afternoon, when we finally had lunch.
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