My Inside Passage Cruise, Part 1: Bellingham to Nanaimo

Posted on June 2, 2019 by Maria Langer

A summary, with photos, of my spring vacation.

Greetings, Cruisers!

If you’ve found this blog post while Googling for information about big cruise ships in the inside passage, I’m sorry to disappoint you. My cruise was on a 65-foot historic wooden boat. But don’t click away! Read a little more about it or at least look at the photos. And then consider a trip on the David B or another small ship like it instead of an impersonal floating city. It’ll be a trip you remember for the rest of your life.

The past nine or so months has been a crazy travel time for me. A 4-day trip to the Washington coast and Tacoma for a jewelry class in September. An 18-day trip to New York, Washington DC, and Vermont in September and October to visit family and friends and see the sights. A 3+-month trip to Arizona and California in December through March. And then a real vacation: 12 days aboard a small, historic ship called the David B as it cruised slowly up the Inside Passage from Bellingham, WA to Ketchikan, AK at the end of April and into May.

(A side note here: all this travel would not be possible if I were still married. Once again, I have to thank my wasband for freeing me from a boring life in his rut, waiting for him to get his shit together and start enjoying life. Thanks, honey!)

I’ve mentioned elsewhere why I booked Northwest Navigation‘s “Learn to Cruise – The Canadian Inside Passage to Alaska” trip late last year for this spring. It would be a learning experience, and I’ve come to realize that learning experiences are the best experiences because they stay with you the longest and can change your life.

And this trip did not disappoint me in the least. I learned a ton about navigation, small boat cruising, tidal impacts, salt water boat maintenance, customs requirements, and “camping” on the water — which is basically what we did. I see small boats like the David B and the Ranger Tug R-27 I’m considering for my own use to be seaworthy RVs — recreational vehicles for use on the water. Like a motorhome, a boat with living space is a vehicle you can use to travel from place to place with a degree of flexibility, privacy, and comfort. What makes the boat I want different from the David B (other than size: 65 feet vs. 27 feet) is that mine can be easily trailered from place to place giving it almost unlimited options for exploration in fresh and salt water. What I learned on the David B can easily be applied to any serious boating I do in the future.

Anyway, although I brought my old laptop with me on that trip with the idea of blogging daily, that didn’t happen. Who wants to bury their head in a computer when there’s so much going on outside and around you? So I’ll try to share some of my experiences now, along with photos and charts of where we went.

And don’t worry; I’ve split this into multiple parts. I hope you read them all. Lots of photos!

Getting to Bellingham

I won’t bore you with details of my pre-trip travel. The short version is that it involved a flight from Wenatchee to Seattle to Bellingham. I saw no reason to make the 4-hour drive to Bellingham when the trip wasn’t going to finish there. Instead, I bought plane tickets from Wenatchee to my starting point in Bellingham with return flights from my ending point in Ketchikan to Wenatchee.

I spent the night in an AirBnB room that was cheap and walking distance (barely) from the marina where I’d get the boat the next day. It was also the smallest room I’d ever slept in (which turned out to be good preparation for my cabin on the David B). I did a lot of walking on that Tuesday, making the trek down to Anthony’s restaurant where I ate oysters two ways and had wine and dessert — entirely too much food. I then walked along the marina until I found where the David B was parked before walking back to my lodging.

Bellingham’s marina was absolutely gorgeous that late April day.

Day 1: Bellingham to San Juan Island

The David B when I arrived on Wednesday morning.

The next day, I took a Lyft to Bellingham’s art district with my giant rolling bag, had coffee in one restaurant, and breakfast in another. I then took a short walk, dragging the bag behind me, visiting a few antique stores to buy old sterling silver and silver plate tableware that I thought might be turned into nice rings. Finally, as the time to board got closer, I called another Lyft to take me the mile or so to the pier. If my bag wasn’t so damn big, I probably would have walked.

I was a half hour early but they let me board anyway. I wasn’t the first passenger to arrive. I met Sarah, who is in charge of reservations and other office stuff in Bellingham briefly before she left. Captain Jeffrey introduced himself and helped me wrestle my bag down the stairs to where the cabins were. There were five of them, including a crew cabin, and they were tiny. Mine had a queen sized bed, a head with toilet and sink, two portholes (one of which was in the head), and enough space for me to stand next to the bed. There was space under the bed for my bag, but about a third of it was occupied with manufactured logs, which I later learned were for the wood burning stove in the galley. They bring up a whole summer’s supply of logs and one of the other cabins was full of them. I had enough space, but it would have been challenging if I was a very large person or was traveling with a friend. Other cabins had different configurations and were better suited to couples. Mine was fine for me.

My cabin on the David B, as seen from the doorway with a panoramic photo. It was cosy!

The stairs were steep and winding. The first door at the bottom was a spacious bathroom (head) with shower that we shared. My tiny head was so small that when I sat on the toilet seat, I had to put my left arm on the sink counter.

I went back upstairs to the saloon (not salon, as we later learned) and met co-captain/cook Christine, who was Jeffrey’s wife. We chatted for a while in the saloon and I told them about the boat I wanted to buy and what I hoped to learn. (They must have thought I was nuts.) Then I learned about the David B and a little about our trip.

The saloon was our central gathering and lounging place on the David B. The snacks set out on that first afternoon should have warned me of the food to come.

Before long, I met my fellow passengers: Graeme from Australia and David and Leslie from Kettle Falls. Graeme was a wooden boat fan who had made the trip the centerpiece of a visit to the American northwest and Alaska. David and Leslie had just purchased a C-Dory 22 — coincidentally, the same boat my ex-friend at Lopez Island had that got me interested in small boat cruising two years before — and David was very interested in learning more about navigation since they’d just bought a home in Bellingham and I suspect he planned to move the boat there.

And that was it: only four passengers and two crew. I expected to be one of seven passengers, so this was a pleasant surprise.

We left port that afternoon.

I followed Captain Jeffrey down a ladder to the engine room and stood out of the way while he squirted oil into more places than I could count before doing a bunch of other things and then finally bringing the engine to life. I had questions but didn’t want to ask. He reminded me of a pilot preflighting an aircraft and if there’s one thing a serious pilot hates, it’s being interrupted doing a preflight. Then we both climbed back up and I told him I’d watch again, which I did the next morning.

The David B’s three-cylinder engine.

Backing the David B out of its slip was probably the most challenging job; those of us who wanted to help were given big bumpers to separate the boat from other boats or dock parts if we drifted too close to something. But Captain Jeffrey had it covered. Backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, he inched the 65 feet of wooden boat out and into the space between the slips. Then we were on our way while various friends and family members waved us off from the dock.

The Washington Iron Works logo adorns the David B’s smokestack atop the ship. The boat was built in 1929 and had just celebrated its 90th birthday.

The day had started to cloud over and get a bit chilly, but there wasn’t much wind and the San Juan Islands area we wound through was only a bit choppy. (I had my Sea Bands on for a while, just in case.) We were all excited about starting off and, after a lunch of hearty chicken soup and salad, spent a lot of time out on the deck or in the pilot house watching the San Juan Islands drift by and chatting about the homes we saw on shore. The David B literally chugged along under the power of its 90-year-old 3 cylinder engine, averaging about 6 to 7 knots of speed. We saw a few other boats, including some large tankers and freighters when we crossed the Rosario Strait. And there were ferry boats, of course.

The pilot house is a neat compilation of early 20th century and 21st century technology. For example, the computer ran a navigation application that actually turned the big wooden steering wheel. We all spent a lot of time in this room, which had enough seating for all four passengers.

I’d prepared for the trip by downloading, installing, and subscribing to an iPad app called Time Zero (TZ) iBoat. Throughout the trip, I had tracking turned on so it kept track of our exact route. (Yes, I know I’m a geek.) Looking back at that track now, I can tell you that we passed south of Eliza, Lummi, and Sinclair Islands; between Obstruction and Cypress Island through Peavine Pass; between Orcas and Shaw Islands in Harney Channel; north of Crane Island; south of Jones Island; and then into Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. We passed the main harbor and wound through some channels before finally settling for the night at the mouth of Garrison Bay, which was named for nearby English Camp.

Here’s the view of our first day’s track as it appeared zoom-to-view on my iPad.

Captain Jeffrey slowed the boat until it was almost stopped and Christine worked some equipment on the bow to drop one of the two large anchors with enough chain to hold us in place. Then he shut down the engine and the sound we’d been listening to for the past few hours stopped.

A fully-functional replica wood-burning stove was the centerpiece of Christine’s galley.

By this time, Christine was cooking dinner in the amazing galley. I say “amazing” because she was using a wood-fired stove and I personally can’t imagine dealing with the intricacies of such a device after a lifetime of gas, electric, and microwave cooking power. Because the boat had a generator and inverter, she had all the usual appliances — mixer, blender, ice cream maker. There were several refrigerators and freezers. The only thing she didn’t have was a dishwasher, but we all took turns washing the dishes after meals.

David B’s galley.

Here’s where we sat for meals. Although Christine plated dinners, breakfast and lunch was usually family style.

We had baked salmon, asparagus, and black rice for dinner. The “bread course” — which became a sort of running joke because every meal had some kind of freshly baked bread — was sourdough. I ate more bread on that trip than I had eaten in the previous year but I simply couldn’t resist.

After dinner, we spent some time discussing the next day’s cruise, which would take us into Canada. Part of the trip was a passage through Dodd Narrows, a narrow space between Mudge and Vancouver Islands that was well known for dangerous eddies during tidal flows. We had to plan our arrival at slack tide, a narrow window when the eddies were minimized. If we arrived too early or late, we’d have to wait on the south side of the narrows. An early arrival wasn’t a big deal but a late one would have us waiting for hours until the next safe time to pass through. This was my first introduction to the concept of tidal currents and it came with a lesson on how to use various reference guides to calculate when slack tide would occur.

Not long afterward, we all turned in for the night. I quickly realized that the walls were paper thin and I could hear everything Leslie and David said to each other. They didn’t say anything embarrassing, but I made some noise so they knew how thin the walls were. I suspect they figured it out — probably from hearing me snore! — because they didn’t talk much on subsequent nights.

Day 2: Bellingham to Nanaimo

I woke up early, as I usually do, but with a very sore throat that got me very worried. I’ve been on two vacations where I was sick with a cold and it really sucks. If I was taken down with a cold on this trip, I’d be very upset.

I spent some time lounging in bed with my iPad, which is what I do at home, too. I still had Internet access — heck, we were in the San Juan Islands. Around 5:30, I heard movement upstairs and went up in my pajamas to see what was going on. Christine had stoked up the stove and made coffee. I hung around in the kitchen for a while with my coffee, then went down to put real clothes on. The other passengers appeared one by one. Christine made us a frittata with asparagus (leftover from the previous night), fruit, granola, and yogurt. (The last three would be at every breakfast.) She didn’t have any orange juice, but I did have an orange to start pumping Vitamin C into my system.

The day was beautiful and the water was glassy smooth. I launched my drone for the first time to get some aerial views of the boat. I was a little skittish about flying it over water after my Lopez Island crash, but I faced my fears. There was a big clear area on the roof of the saloon and that’s where I launched from. I did not rely on auto-land to bring it back.

The David B at anchor in Garrison Bay.

Curious about what a 3 cylinder, 90-year-old ship’s engine looks like when starting up? Check this out. pic.twitter.com/hCZu7nU761
— Maria Langer 🚁 (@mlanger) April 26, 2019

Afterwards, I went back down into the engine room to get a narrated view of the engine start. I tweeted it.

Captain Jeffrey engaged the windlass and Christine started pulling up the anchor. Once it was stowed, we were ready to go. It was about 9 AM.

We left San Juan Island behind and headed out into Haro Strait. Somewhere northwest of Stuart Island, we crossed into Canada. I spent some time trying to find a good place to sit outside while cruising. The two lounge chairs above the pilot house were windy and chilly. I finally settled — at least for a while — into one of the back facing seats on the stern which was sheltered and in the sun.

It wasn’t long before I realized that the David B was cruising slowly because the David B cruises slow. The engine, which required oiling and other attention every two hours while it was running, was set to a six knot cruise speed. We were going to cruise over 700 nautical miles at 6 knots.

No wonder the trip took 12 days.

My notes for the second day mention a lot of boats on the water in Canada, including a Canadian Coast Guard boat, tug boats, and a tug boat pulling a barge of oddly loaded logs. I took some pictures, but not many. Everything was big and far away and didn’t look very impressive in photos.

I guess this is one way to load logs on a barge. What’s interesting to me is that in the Pacific Northwest they use chain to attach the tug to the barge and the chain dips way down into the water. This is very different from the barges I remember on the Hudson River when I was a kid; they used cables that were taught when the barge was being towed.

The chart for Dodd Narrows. The red line is our path through it.

We arrived at Dodd Narrows about 30 minutes early. During our slow approach, we could see several boats waiting to enter the narrows, including a tugboat towing a bunch of floating logs tied together. Captain Jeffrey liked the way it looked so he didn’t wait and kept going. A sailboat under engine power pulled in behind us. There was current in there, but it wasn’t bad enough to cause any problems for us. I was glad there weren’t any boats coming through from the opposite direction.

We got into Nanaimo, a port city that’s commonly used by American on private boats to clear Customs into Canada, at about 4 PM. Captain Jeffrey went to shore to deal with the paperwork for himself, Christine, and their four passengers.

Day 2’s track from San Juan Island to Nanaimo in British Columbia.

When in Canada, drink Canadian Club.

I was told that there was a supermarket nearby, so I set off alone in search of orange juice and vitamin C tablets. I had $40 in Canadian money with me and the goal of not being identified as an American. I found the supermarket and accomplished my mission with a credit card so I could save the cash for someplace that didn’t take credit cards, also returning to the boat with a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey and a reusable shopping bag.

Christine made us another amazing dinner with fresh bread. She was feeding us very well. Too well, I think. I’d brought along some snacks in case I got hungry between meals but (1) I didn’t get hungry and (2) there were always snacks available (which is probably why I didn’t get hungry).

Mother nature treated us to an amazing sunset.

Day 3: Nanaimo

The wind kicked up overnight and was blowing hard by 8 AM. Captain Jeffrey decided to delay departure by 2 hours. When that time had gone by, he delayed departure again. After lunch, he announced another delay.

I really couldn’t blame him. The wind was howling and the seas that we could see through a gap in the islands nearby was full of whitecaps. A big cargo ship anchored there drifted 90° or more at anchor. Even the seaplanes based near us at the harbor weren’t flying most of the day.

I spent most of the day reading and wasting time on Twitter. I wanted to go see Avengers Endgame at a theater in town, but the only showing I could see was at 3 PM and we might leave.

In the afternoon there was some excitement when a kayaker capsized about 30 feet from the boat. He couldn’t right the boat and he was hanging on in water that had to be icy cold. We got a line to throw to him while Christine called the coast guard. One of his companions paddled back and helped him to the dock in front of the boat. Fortunately, he’d been wearing a wet suit so he wasn’t that cold. But they went into a panic when they realized another kayaker was missing. They later found him back at their starting point at a nearby island; he’d turned around when he realized the seas were too rough for him.

At 4 PM, Captain Jeffrey announced that we’d be spending another night. He went ashore to pay for our space on the dock.

I walked into town with Leslie. We stopped at a tea shop where she had him make a custom blend of Earl Grey and lavender. We also went into a very nice gift shop. I would have visited more shops — including a chart shop Jeffrey had told us about — but I think Leslie was done so I walked back with her.

Back at the boat, we did more waiting. Then dinner. I think all of us were ready to move on.

The wind started to let up before bedtime.

(More to come…)

How I Spent My Autumn Vacation, Part 6: In Vermont

Posted on November 27, 2018 by Maria Langer

Comment

Not the peak color I was hoping for, but still a great time.

(Continued from Part 5: On the Road to Vermont)

My friends Tom and Tammy are among my oldest friends and that’s who I stayed with in Vermont.

But first, as you might expect, some back story.

The BBS Days and Beyond

I met Tom back in my BBS days — yes, I ran a multi-line networked bulletin board system (think prehistoric Internet) out of my home starting in 1989 when I bought the computer that changed my life. (I thought I’d blogged about the computer changing my life and hoped to link to that post, but a quick search yielded no results. I’ll have to blog about it in the future.)

At the time, Tom was working in a family owned business selling tombstones in a greenhouse just a few miles away. He ran a multiline BBS out of his office there. I honestly don’t remember how we met, but when I left my full-time job to become a freelance writer and computer trainer/consultant, I’d often spend free time visiting with him and talking about computers. Back then, I had an Apple Macintosh IIcx and I think he had a IIci. (I’d later run my BBS on a Mac SE/30, which was perfect for the task.

Through Tom, I became part of a computer “super user” network that included him and other BBS SysOps: Mike, Ralph, and Zeke. Mike was especially well connected. He worked for a design firm that did a lot of cutting edge things with computers and, thus, had access to all the latest and greatest hardware and software. We’d occasionally drive down to his office to gawk at his new toys and play with the latest offerings from Adobe and other companies, many of which no longer exist. (Aldus comes to mind.)

I was self-taught on computers and had managed to get a per diem gig teaching computer applications: Mac OS, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Lotus 1-2-3. I think being so well connected with other computer superusers helped make that possible.

Anyway, time went on. Tom married Tammy. My future wasband and I went to the wedding. They sat us at the same table as Mike, who was so white he could be albino and another guy I didn’t know who happened to be the blackest black guy I’ve ever seen. Of course, he and Mike sat side by side. I wish I had a picture. (Isn’t it funny the things you remember?)

Tom and Tammy moved to Vermont not long after that. Tom was into winter sports and I think he was as fed up as I was becoming with the traffic, congestion, and expense of living in the New York City Metro area. He telecommuted to a new job with a big company. He’d gone beyond mere “superuser” status and was a networking expert. He could work from home with a fast Internet connection and he did, making occasional trips down to New Jersey when he needed to.

I didn’t see him at all after his move, but we kept in touch via email and a little Twitter and later text messaging.

Meanwhile, they had kids. Three boys, all named with the initial T.

I moved to Arizona and invited them to visit. But I could understand why they didn’t. Airfare isn’t cheap when you have to buy five tickets. And then there’s that school thing. They like winter sports so they couldn’t come in the winter. And who wants to go to Arizona on summer vacation?

We continued to keep in touch throughout my crazy divorce. He was extremely supportive, providing me with a lot of useful computer information when I needed it.

It was around then that Tom kept suggesting that I come stay with them for a while in Vermont. The boys were away at college (already!) and he had plenty of room in his big, old farmhouse. It was definitely an inviting idea. I hadn’t been to Vermont in years and I remembered how amazing the fall colors had been on my last trip. I envisioned another trip with my camera. We have a nice autumn here, but no autumn compares to Vermont’s.

Still, I couldn’t get a trip together. There was always something else I had to do in the autumn. But this year, I decided to go for it. After playing around with a calendar and his schedule, we decided I’d come during the first week in October.

At the T’s

I rolled up to Tom and Tammy’s house in the Maserati in late afternoon on October 1. It was overcast and wet. Tom came right out to greet me and Penny. It was really good to see him — for the first time in at least 20 years.

After chatting a bit and unwinding from my drive, he gave me the tour of the three-story wood frame house that dates back to the 1800s. They’d put me in Penny in one of two dedicated guest rooms on the second floor with the shared bathroom right outside my door. How nice!

Tammy was busy with something that evening, so Tom and I went out to get some dinner. Along the way, he showed me a few local highlights, including Singleton’s General Store, which features “guns and liquor.” (I had to buy a tee shirt.) We ate dinner at Mr. Darcy’s Bar and Grill. It was good.

Afterwards, back at the house, we just relaxed in the living room with his two big chocolate labs stretched out on the sofa with us. I was pooped and went to bed early.

Not all rural areas have crappy Internet. The Ts access is three times faster than mine — and mine is nothing to be ashamed of.

The weather was kind of crappy the next day — overcast and rainy — and I had no problem amusing myself indoors while Tammy, a lawyer, and Tom worked in their offices. I’d brought a handful of stones and some jewelry-making supplies and tools. I sat at the kitchen table and made two pendants while Tom and Tammy occasionally stopped by to see what I was up to. I used Periscope to broadcast me creating a piece of jewelry and, although it didn’t have many viewers, I kept it running until the end. The Ts have excellent high speed internet, so I know I wasn’t straining anything.

I took a photo of the Lego candies to share it on Twitter for my friend Andy, who is a real Lego fan.

Sometime during the day, we went to The Vermont Country Store, which exists to showcase Vermont products and sell tourists stuff they really don’t need. Yeah, I know I sound critical/cynical, but when you’ve spent enough time in tourist destinations, you really get a feel for that kind of shop. There was a lot of merchandise, including more candy and old-fashioned toys — like the ones we played with when I was a kid! — than I’d every seen under one roof. There was also clothes and linens, and kitchen stuff. And maple syrup, of course. One of the nice things was being able to taste three different colors of maple syrup, side by side — there really is a noticeable difference! It was a neat place to browse.

Tammy made dinner and we had a relaxing evening sitting around with the dogs and chatting. I didn’t feel guilty for doing almost nothing all day because I knew the weather would be better later in the week. Besides, it was nice to just take it easy in a comfortable place. I’d been on the move almost non stop since arriving in the New York area the previous Saturday.

Exploring the Forest on ATVs

Penny wrapped in a blanket in a milk crate attached to the front of the ATV I rode. She wasn’t happy about it, but it was the only solution to bring her with us on the very bumpy roads.

Tom took Wednesday off. He pulled two ATVs out of his shed and fired them up. We mounted up, with Penny wrapped in blankets in a basket in front of mine, and headed out on back roads and trails into the adjacent national forest. The trails were very rough in parts, forcing me to slow down and remember my ATV training from about 20 years ago. I was able to follow Tom, but a few times he got way in front of me. It was a lot of fun to be challenged (for a change); my ATV riding in Washington is limited and local.

He showed me the foundations of an old farmhouse long gone and nearly forgotten in the forest and a lake his boys like to camp at, and an old irrigation setup with a dam. Everything was accessible only via narrow forest trails surrounded by relatively new growth trees showing their early autumn colors.

One trail ended at this old cement dam that holds back a small pond for feeding an irrigation pipe.

It wasn’t raining but the forest was pretty wet and the trail was muddy in spots. I kept a sharp lookout for mushrooms — I was hoping to find some chanterelles — and I actually found some that could be edible. But “could be” isn’t the same as “are definitely” so I left them behind, not wanting to potentially poison my hosts or myself.

After asking me if I was up for a ride on a really rugged road, Tom led me back the way we’d come and then up a different road and trail. It started out the same as the others and then got very rough, with lots of big rocks, tree roots, and fallen branches across the trail. I followed as closely as I could without slipping out of my comfort zone. Suddenly, the trail ended at the edge of someone’s grassy yard and I admit I was a little surprised when Tom continued across it, hugging the edge of the grass. Then more trail and finally a turn with a climb up a short hill.

There was a log cabin there and we walked up the steps to sit on the porch. Tom and his family had been there many times; he knew the three men who had built it by hand. We looked out over the hillside, into a bank of clouds, and Tom assured me that there was usually an excellent view down into the valley and mountains beyond.

We were still sitting there when a small SUV drove up from the other direction and an older couple got out. One of the builder/owners. It felt awkward for only a few minutes; they quickly realized who Tom was. We were soon chatting with them about the place and when they unlocked it, they invited me in for a tour. It was a really basic place with two big rooms and a sleeping loft. Completely off the grid, it didn’t have any electric appliances.

As we chatted, the clouds lifted a bit to give us glimpses of the valley beyond. But they never lifted enough to give us a good view of the valley.

The clouds lifted just enough to give us an idea of how amazing the view from the cabin’s porch might be on a clear day.

We headed back not long after that, taking it easy at the house. Tammy, who’d gone out for a meeting, returned with barbecue takeout from their favorite place. It was good.

Day Trip to Manchester

I was on my own the next day and that was fine. I decided to drive down to Manchester, with a stop for breakfast along the way. I also wanted to check out the Dorset Quarry, which I’d read a little about online.

So I headed out, dropping down off the mountain into Wallingford, where I picked up Route 140. A Google search before departing had me aiming for a little restaurant called Dorset Rising, but I soon reached a section of road work where the detours put me on progressively more rugged roads. Worried about the Maserati, I made my way back to the main roads and somehow wound up on Route 7. So I took that all the way down to Manchester and then came back up Route 30 to Dorset. I passed the quarry along the way, but my primary goal was breakfast so I kept going.

Although Dorset Rising had a nice outdoor dining area where I could have eaten with Penny, it was kind of nasty out — too cool to enjoy a meal outdoors. So I left her in the car and went inside alone. A while later, I was seated at a comfy table with a latte and a breakfast burrito in front of me. They had a nice selection of baked goods but I resisted the urge to take some with me. (We — well, mostly I — had been picking away at those Italian pastries since my arrival. They weren’t nearly as good after two days in a cooler as they had been fresh. Lesson learned.) Instead, I got an iced tea to go and got back on the road.

Dorset Quarry was right down the road and I pulled into the parking lot. The quarry has an impressive place in history: when it first opened in 1785, it was America’s first marble quarry. It supplied marble to there New York Public Library and other buildings in New York City and Washington DC.

I grabbed Penny’s leash and she and I left the car for a walk around what had become a popular local swimming hole. Of course, it was nearly deserted that day — certainly no swimmers — but I could imagine it being a fun spot on a hot day if it wasn’t too crowded.

Dorset Quarry is a popular swimming hole — but not in early October.

The south side of Dorset Quarry’s big pond. Can you see Penny running towards me?

We tried to walk around the north side of the quarry but the trail soon wandered off into the woods in a direction I didn’t want to go. So we backtracked to the road and walked over to the south side, past huge marble blocks left behind from operations long ago.

As I walked, I looked down at the ground along the path. I was looking for stones — small pieces of marble that I might be able to polish into cabochons. I wound up with about a dozen of them, all smaller than my two thumbs held side-to-side. I filled my jacket pocket.

We reached the place where a creek fed the pond. There was a bridge over the creek and a ladder coming out of the water. I don’t know how deep the water was; I couldn’t see the bottom.

I wandered around and took pictures. Then we wandered back to the car.

We continued on to Manchester, with a quick stop at the Kitchen Store at JK Adams. I was looking for a gift for my house sitter, who really likes to cook. Nothing struck me so I kept going.

A short while later, I was pulling back into Manchester Center and parking in the lot behind Northshire Bookstore, which Tom had recommended. That was, of course, my first stop and I, of course, left with books in hand. Penny and I walked up one side of Main Street and down the other. I wound up buying a maple syrup sampler for my house sitter. (I later kicked myself for not buying myself syrup; I erroneously thought I still had some at home.)

We walked back to the car and stowed my rather heavy purchases in the trunk, then headed down Depot Street, where there were a handful of outlet stores. I was looking for the “wood shop” Tom had told me about. Before I found it, I stopped in at Eddie Bauer, where they had a storewide sale, and bought myself a few shirts and a scarf. I also bought a scarf with pictures of a pug dog on it for my friend Janet, who travels with her aging pug, Lulu. Then Manchester Woodcraft, where they had a huge selection of reasonably priced items made of wood. Try as I might, however, I didn’t find anything I couldn’t go home without.

Then it was back to the car again, stopping only a moment to read the Thomas Jefferson quotes under a Jefferson monument. One of them really stuck with me and I took a photo to share it on Twitter:

Men by their nature are divided into two parties: those who fear and distrust the people, and those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe depository of the public interest.

You might be able to guess which party I’m in.

We continued south on route 7A, past the Orvis company headquarters and the American Museum of Fly Fishing. That got me thinking of Janet again — she’s really into fishing — but I didn’t stop.

Tom had suggested going to the top of Equinox Mountain to take in the views from up there, but when I arrived at the turn, I discovered that it was a toll road. Not willing to spend $20 for the privilege of driving up a mountain road to take in the view on a cloudy day, I skipped it.

I did stop, however, at the Arlington Dairy Bar where I took a photo and tweeted “Will brake for ice cream.” I had a shake and Penny had a small dish of vanilla ice cream. Then we were on our way again.

Will brake for ice cream.

We kept going, eventually reaching Bennington. By then, the weather had turned bad and I wasn’t interested in dealing with traffic to maybe find a place to get out and walk around. So I followed the signs for Route 9, which cut across the national forest on a scenic road that climbed up one side of the mountain and down the other. There wasn’t much to see in Wilmington, which was on the other side of the mountain, so I hopped on Route 100 and headed north. More pleasant driving, although the weather was either gray or drizzling rain the whole time.

By that time, it was late afternoon and I felt done exploring. I think the weather had a lot to do with it. But I did make one more stop: the Crowley Cheese Company, which was a few miles off the main road west of Okemo Mountain Resort. I tasted a bunch of cheeses and wound up buying two for my brother.

From there, it was back to the T’s.

Another guest joined us late that evening and, true to form, I’ve forgotten his name. He came up from New Jersey to do a photography job on Saturday. The four of us spent the evening watching a few episodes of a weird show on Netflix, sitting on the sofas with the dogs lying all over us. The newcomer wound up in the guest room next to mine.

Rutland, Okemo Mountain, and an Old Cemetery

The next day, I went with Tammy into Rutland, VT. She had a yoga class there and I had to visit the post office.

My big piece of luggage was already pretty heavy and I knew that if I added the books and rocks, it would likely weigh more than the 50 pounds allowed by the airline. The solution was to cram all that stuff into a flat rate box and send it home via Priority Mail. So after dropping Tammy off at yoga, I went in search of the post office and took care of that. I also sent Janet her scarf.

With a little time before I had to pick up Tammy, I found a car wash. I had a moment of fright when I saw brushes in the wash tunnel in front of me, but the guys working the controls flipped a few switching and nothing other than water touched the car. I could have made it look a lot better if I had a rag to dry it off afterwards, but I didn’t. Still, it was better than before I’d had it washed. I figured I’d wash it again in New Jersey before handing it off to my brother.

When I picked up Tammy, we weren’t in a rush to get back so we drove into town for some breakfast at one of the coffee shops there. I left Penny parked outside near the car. I had a great breakfast sandwich and managed to muster enough willpower to skip the pastry I wanted for dessert.

We drove back and Tammy got back to work. Tom was already working up in his office. The day had turned nice and I was ready for another day trip. This time, my destination was the Okemo Mountain Resort. Tom had told me that I could drive almost all the way up to the top of the mountain, hike a little more, and visit a fire tower at the summit. The weather looked good enough for a hike so I headed out around noon with Penny.

The drive up the mountain was mostly smooth with just one big pothole I almost didn’t avoid. At the top was a gravel parking lot with about ten other cars and space to back in the Maserati. I grabbed Penny’s leash and got out with her. Together, we walked through an open car gate and up a gravel road. Up is the appropriate word. The road climbed, sometimes steeply.

Tom had told me that the fire tower wasn’t visible from the road, but if I walked to the ski lift I’d be able to see it in the forest from there. But when I got closer, I found a small marked trail. I followed the sign onto a narrow trail into the woods.

The fire tower atop Okemo Mountain.

Penny ran ahead, as she does. Some hikers coming back thought she was a stray and tried unsuccessfully to catch her. Then they saw me and told me what they’d thought and done. We all laughed. It was that kind of mellow, pleasant day.

We reached the fire tower and, because the stairs looked so iffy, I picked Penny up and carried up with me. It was only five flights and each flight was narrower than the one before it. I came up through the trap door and found myself in a small area with a wooden floor and glassless windows all around. I put Penny down and took in the views in all directions. It really was a gorgeous day.

Here’s the view to the east, toward Ludlow. As you can see, it wasn’t quite peak color yet, although I think the cold rain that had been coming through Vermont may have spoiled the autumn leaf season.

I took photos in most directions, including down toward the ski lifts. Then, hearing some people coming through the woods toward the tower, I picked up Penny and headed back down.

In the forest, a couple was stopped on the trail. The husband pointed out a cool looking little snake escaping into the underbrush while his wife absolutely freaked out. I tried not to laugh as I passed them and headed back to the road.

We walked around for a while by the ski lifts. I took some more photos.

View from the top of one ski lift.

I went into the woods looking for mushrooms and found a bunch — but not the ones I hoped to find. I played with the portrait mode on my iPhone and found myself disappointed again at how limited it was for subjects other than people’s faces.

The obligatory mushroom photos. I took more than a dozen but I’ll only bore you with two.

After poking around in the woods for a while, we went back the car and headed down the mountain. I stopped along the way at a view point where a couple were having some wine and cheese at a picnic table. We chatted for a while (of course) and I discovered that they were from New Jersey. They tried to talk me into have lunch at the restaurant near the bottom of the road, but when I drove past a few minutes later, I knew it wasn’t for me. Instead, I drove into Ludlow, parked, and had lunch with a hard cider outside Mojo Cafe, which I highly recommend.

After a quick walk in town, we got back into the car and headed back to the T’s.

I did make one other short trip before day’s end: to that old cemetery down the road. It was full of wonderful old tombstones, many of them very ornate. The oldest one I saw dated back to 1809, making the cemetery over 200 years old. I walked among the stones, taking photos and thinking about the people who had lived and died — sometimes quite young — in the area. There was one row of stones with the same last name repeated over and over. You could follow the history of the family as you walked in one direction or the other.

Two of the dozens of interesting old tombstones in this 200+ year old cemetery.

Later that evening, we were back in Ludlow for dinner. The plan had been to have dinner at Homestyle Hostel, but the place was mobbed and we couldn’t get a table. After a few craft cocktails across the street at Main and Mountain Bar, we wound up at another restaurant a bit farther down the road. I honestly can’t remember what it was called — maybe I had too many cocktails? We had a good dinner and I picked up the tab, mostly because I really appreciated having such a great week with my friends in Vermont.

Last Day

The whole time I was in Vermont, I was pretty vague about when I would leave. Originally, I was going to leave on Thursday; I had some friends in New York State I was hoping to visit for a day or two on my way back to New Jersey. But I was enjoying myself so much that when Tom and Tammy told me to stay through the weekend and my brother reported that he had to work on Saturday and go to a match on Sunday, I agreed to stay until Saturday. I figured I’d spend Saturday evening and Sunday with my friends in New York.

Saturday was the day of the farmer’s market in Rutland. Tom, Tammy, and I headed out together in the morning to see what they had that we wanted. It was a nice farmers market, even that late in the season, with plenty of produce and baked goods and other items. I wound up buying a package of frozen spaetzle, a German pasta that my grandfather and dad used to make when I was a kid. (And no, it wasn’t nearly as good as theirs was.) We wound up walking into town and having breakfast at the same place Tammy and I had eaten the day before. I had the same breakfast sandwich since it had been so good.

We headed back to the T’s after that. I’d already repacked my bags, setting aside enough clothes in a smaller bag for my overnight stay in New York. I packed everything into the car’s trunk, loaded Penny on board, and said goodbye to my hosts.

It had been a great six-day stay in Vermont, despite the less than perfect weather and the disappointing foliage. There’s nothing like reconnecting with old friends in person. I just hope I have the opportunity one day to return the favor and host them on a trip out west.

It was a little after noon when I finally left. I had a long drive ahead of me, but it felt good to be heading toward my next destination.

(Continued)

How I Spent My Autumn Vacation, Part 5: On the Road to Vermont

Posted on November 20, 2018 by Maria Langer

I revisit my past (again) and reveal a bit more about me than most people know.

(Continued from Part 4: Killing Time in New Jersey)

Overnight, trains rumbled by the historic Port Jervis Erie Hotel where I may have been the only guest. It only woke me once or twice and each time I was able to get right back to sleep. So when I pulled myself to a vertical position around 6 AM, I felt refreshed and ready for the long drive ahead of me.

I showered, dressed, and pulled together the few things I’d taken out. Then Penny and I made our exit, heading out to stow my bags in the Maserati before taking her for a walk to do her business.

Breakfast First

Town was pretty much dead at that hour of a Monday morning. The restaurant on the lower level of the hotel was closed. All restaurants that might have provided breakfast and coffee were closed on Mondays. No problem. I used Google Maps to find a place to eat and get a dose of caffeine. It directed me to Stewie’s Restaurant in nearby Matamoras, PA. We headed out.

(It wasn’t until much later in the day that I realized I left Penny’s brown fleece blanket behind in the hotel. It was a shame because the $5 blanket perfectly matched the brown of the leather sofa in my bedroom. I usually kept it draped over the back of the sofa to protect the leather from the afternoon sun and give Penny a place to sit and look out the window.)

Stewie’s turned out to be a diner-type place, which was fine with me. There were a few locals there when I came in. I ordered a breakfast special and a glass of iced tea. I don’t drink diner coffee. It’s not because I’m a coffee snob as much as the fact that I simply can’t drink the swill that comes out of commercial coffee makers and sits on a burner for hours. (Okay, so maybe I am a coffee snob.)

While I sat there, I used my iPad and Google Maps to plan my drive. I’d go northeast on Route 209, which would take me near several places that loomed large in my childhood. A few side trips might be nice. I wasn’t in a hurry to get to my destination; I just needed to arrive before dark. I had the whole day ahead of me.

Revisiting My Past

When I was a kid in the early 1970s, before my parents split, we owned a 22-foot Prowler pull trailer. Bought originally for vacationing after my dad caught a very bad cold on a tent camping trip, my parents decided that it might make a good summer home when based at a full hookup campground in the Catskills. (My family lived in northeastern New Jersey at the time.) It wound up at a place called Rondout Valley Campground in Accord, NY.

Those were great times — some of the last great times of a mostly good childhood. We lived up there all summer and made friends with other families who also lived up there every summer. The Murrays were a good Catholic family from Brooklyn with four kids in an even smaller Prowler trailer and the Smalls were a Jewish (I think) family from somewhere in Westchester county (I think) with two kids packed into a tiny Shasta trailer. We’d spend our days fishing in the creek, exploring the woods, and riding on the running boards of the pickup that doubled as a garbage truck as it made its rounds around the campground. We made and said goodbye to new friends that came for a weekend or a week. At night, we’d either play flashlight tag in the huge field studded with a handful of tiny pine trees or we’d retreat to the Rec Hall where there was a jukebox, pool tables, and pinball machines. I can’t tell you how many times we listened and danced to The Hollies’ Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress) and Sly and the Family Stone’s Dance to the Music. One night a week, they’d play a movie in the open sided “Pavilion” — that’s where I saw The Graduate and I clearly remember Mrs. Murray pulling her kids out after the strip club scene. (Oops.)

Two things brought those days to an end. First, after two summers at Rondout Valley my parents found another campground slightly closer to home. It was brand new and cheaper and I think that’s what convinced us all — including the Murrays and Smalls — to make the move. I was excited because our new campsite would be in the woods, rather than on the edge of a big field. I have a clear memory of walking through the deserted campground on an autumn day, past what would be our new site with our big German shepherd.

But the thing that really shut down my childhood was my parents divorce. You see, while we were away and my dad was working, he was also playing. I remember the fights, I remember the screaming and cursing, and I remember the evening my dad came up to the attic room I shared with my sister to tell us he was leaving. I was sitting on the floor next to a low table he’d made for us, carefully pencilling in the irregularly shaped pavers around the courtyard swimming pool of a dream home I’d designed. (I was really into drawing floor plans back then and still like to do it.) I remember my tears hitting the pencil drawing, soaking into the paper, and creating tiny bumps.

Things got bad and then got worse and then got much better when my mom remarried and we moved to Long Island. All that took about three years, which is an eternity when you’re in your very early teens. The trailer got sold to my mother’s cousin (who married a Nazi — really, but that’s another story) and there were no more vacations for quite a while. My dad moved into an apartment with his girlfriend, who he’d later marry, and adopted her daughter from another relationship so I gained a half sister. For a while, I worked two kid jobs: a paper route and a summer job I qualified for because we were so poor. (I was one of a team of four poverty-stricken teens scraping rust off a chain link fence along a railroad track. You don’t know blisters until you’ve done this kind of work.) I got free lunch in junior high school; I’d pick up 65¢ in a small manila envelope in the school office every day and spend only what I had to on lunch in the cafeteria so I could save the change. I also became responsible for watching my brother, who was about five, and my sister, who is 16 months younger than me, while my mother went to work to put food on the table. She’d made the nearly fatal error of dropping out of high school in her senior year to get married and [six and a half months] later give birth to me. Her struggle to get a job without a high school diploma wasn’t lost on 14-year-old me. Actually, none of our struggle was lost on me and it helped make me the strong, independent, financially stable, cynical, and happily childless person I am today.

I don’t mean to play on your heart strings, dear reader. I’m just laying down the facts. Rondout Valley Campground is a sort of touchstone in my life — something I didn’t realize until today as I put down this summary as yet another lengthy backstory for a blog post.

Anyway, part of my drive that overcast Monday morning was along Route 209 that eventually brought me to Wurtsboro, which we’d pass on our way from home to the trailer. Wurtsboro was where we exited Route 17 after coming over some mountains and descending into a valley. It was memorable mostly because the airport there had gliders and we’d often see them flying overhead as we came down the hill. There were no gliders that morning; the ceilings were much too low for anything to fly and thermals that gliders rely on for flight were not possible.

Now I was tracing roads that I’d been on many, many times — more than 40 years before. I remembered numerous signs for a place called Ice Caves Mountain that I think we finally did visit once way back then and looked for them as I drove but came up empty. The place might be part of a state park now. I did pass Custer’s Last Stand, which is a soft-serve ice cream place that still exists (!), although I remember its name being Custard’s Last Stand.

Of course, there wasn’t much else familiar to me. Places change in 40 years. New York State is one of those weird old places that is constantly mixing old and new. There are homes there dating back to before the Revolutionary War near a brand new Starbuck’s or Dollar General. There are ratty old farm buildings tucked away in dense overgrown thickets, seemingly forgotten, near new condos or subdivisions.

I continued along 209 to Ellenville, which was “the big town” near the trailer. I turned right and drove through. It looked depressed and there seemed to be a lot of homeless-looking people around. But I also saw a bakery and, since real bakeries are a treat after so many years out west, I stopped and went in. Cohen’s Bakery, “Home of the Famous Raisin Pumpernickel,” had quite a selection of fresh baked goods. I bought a danish, despite the fact that I had Italian pastries in a cooler in the trunk, and hit the road again.

Google Maps had Rondout Valley RV Campground listed and I used it to home in on Accord and the campground. I admit that I didn’t find much along the way very familiar. I did remember the left hand turn just before the town of Accord. I passed the entrance to the campground, looking for familiar sights beyond: the Rec Hall and the waterfall where the creek that runs through the campground continues its journey east, merging with numerous small creeks along the way. The Rec Hall was gone and apparently had been for some time — there was nothing more than a grassy field in its place. But Mother Nature takes better care of what she builds and the waterfall was still there.

It might not look like much, but when you’re 12 years old, a “waterfall” like this is a big thing.

I circled back and pulled into the driveway for the campground. There was a gate with a little guard house, but the gate opened before I even had time to stop. (I guess I must have looked trustworthy in the Maserati.) There was a big building with an office and shop on the right — the old office had been on the left and was now a lounge. I pulled into a parking spot, put Penny on a leash, and walked up to the entrance. I left Penny out on the porch and went inside.

Soon I was chatting with a woman only a little younger than me about the campground. It had gone through a bunch of changes in the past 40+ years. For while, it was called Jellystone Campground — think Yogi Bear — and I dimly recall driving past with my wasband years and years ago on one of our trips in the Catskills. Now the place was part of a chain and associated with one those “RV resort” time share places. The gimmick is that you pay a fee to join and get “free” camping at member resorts. But I think this campground was also available to non-members. I didn’t ask. I didn’t have any plans to camp there with my camper nearly 3000 away.

After a trip down memory lane with her, she gave me a map and told me to drive through. I told her I’d rather walk since we’d been in the car for a few hours already. Then I went back outside to fetch Penny. Together, we crossed the one-lane bridge and walked into the campground.

The rickety bridge over the creek is the only way in and out of the campground. Once, during a summer flood, the campground had to be evacuated in the middle of the night because they thought they might lose the bridge.

As I walked along the road, I found myself walking the same way as a man about my age. Of course, we got into a conversation. He was traveling with his wife in their fifth wheel from someplace in the south — I can’t remember where. We went our different ways at the intersection where my family’s trailer had been parked that first year. Behind us had been a big, empty field. Now that field had trees and roads and campsites that hadn’t existed. The place had really grown.

This is the corner where we’d camped all those years ago. (At least I think it was on the corner; it may have been one site to the right.) The trees were newly planted back then, the site was in full sun, and there was nothing but an old cow pasture behind the trailer.

I don’t need to revisit all my memories of this place. What you got above was enough. Let’s just say that a lot of the place was the same but a lot was different. There was a playground I didn’t remember. The Pavilion is now enclosed and has a snack bar. There was a new pool in the big field where we used to play flashlight tag. All the trees that had been around our campsites where huge, giving campers the shade I wished we’d had 40+ years before.

The Pavilion, which had been built when we were there, is now enclosed.

As I stood on the corner in front of what had been my summer home back in 1972, I suddenly got tired of my trip down memory lane. Although I’d originally wanted to walk through the wooded area of the campground that had been limited to tent campers back then, I found myself just wanting to get back in the car and continue my drive. This had been one stop on what I’d begun thinking of as my farewell tour of the New York area. I think I suddenly realized that I’d said goodbye a long time ago. I didn’t belong there. I didn’t want to see the place as it was today. I wanted to keep my memories pure.

So I turned around and walked back to the car.

Woodstock

It was still early in the day and I had plenty of time to get to my destination in Vermont, so I took a detour up to Woodstock, NY. I had a vague idea of trying to get a local shop to take a few pieces of the jewelry I make on consignment, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m rather shy about trying to work deals like that. In any case, Woodstock was one of the places I used to come with my wasband and friends back in the day and it was definitely appropriate for my farewell tour.

I took back roads, following the guidance of Google Maps. I wound through farmland, most of which looked neglected. There were more decrepit old farm buildings and some silos, which I rarely see out west, and lots of weeds and brambles covering stuff up. There were also lots of creeks and plenty of trees just starting to turn into their autumn colors. It was a pleasant drive with few other cars on the road.

Eventually, I reached the bridge over the huge Ashokan reservoir, crossed it, and turned east on Route 28. Another turn onto 375 took me into the outskirts of Woodstock.

There was road construction in town. They’d torn up one of the lanes of the road and were using pilot cars to shuttle traffic through a stretch of about a half mile. They had us drive on the compressed gravel side, past pavers working on the other side. I drove carefully, mindful of raised manhole covers and the like. The Maserati rides very low and I had already been warned about potholes.

Town wasn’t anything like I remembered. It had more shops and, try as I might, I could not identify the house a friend’s sister had bought and used as a photo gallery years before. (She’s long gone from the area now, supposedly living near Tucson, AZ.) I drove through town, turned around, and drove back. I parked, put Penny on a leash, and got out for a walk.

A young guy immediately tried to hit me up for a dollar. I said I was sorry but I didn’t have anything for him and I kept walking. Panhandlers in Woodstock? Really?

I went into a few shops, always asking permission to take Penny in. I got into a good conversation with a woman in one shop that I really thought would be a good match for my jewelry, but never got up the nerve to talk to her about it. That was probably a good thing, since she turned to talk about retirement and not being able to afford health care and having to keep the business open just to get by. Maybe not such a good match after all.

I left Penny outside when I went into a bookstore. I spent some time browsing and, as I always do when I go into a local bookstore, I bought a book.

We continued down almost to where the construction began, crossed the street, and walked back. I realized that my trip to Woodstock wasn’t doing anything for me. I found myself eager to continue on my way. So we went back to the car, climbed in, and headed back out of town.

The only other place I was hoping to visit was Smoke House of the Catskills, which still exists. I remember stopping there with my wasband a few times on our way home from visiting friends in Elka Park. But just my luck: it was closed.

The Long Drive

I hopped on the New York Thruway and headed north. I really prefer staying off highways on a road trip, but I had a lot of miles to cover before dark and there wasn’t much else I needed to revisit.

So I took the Thruway north, through Albany. It brought to mind the day 1985 or 1986 when my future wasband and I were part of a convoy of brand new cars heading to Montreal for a Mets game. We were in a Nissan Maxima and our companions drove a Nissan 300ZX, a Mazda RX7, and some other sporty Japanese thing. We were flying at 95 miles per hour most of the way and made it from New York City to Albany in less than 2 hours.

I never thought of the Thruway as Memory Lane, but I guess it can be.

I got off at Troy, dealt with traffic, and finally escaped onto Route 7. Although the day had gotten brighter for a while and even a little sunny, it was overcast again and would stay that way for the rest of the drive. It made things kind of dreary and unremarkable, so even though I was off the highway, I didn’t really enjoy the drive as much as I should have.

Before I hit the Vermont border, I stopped for lunch at a place called Man of Kent Tavern. I’d been passing a bunch of what seemed like British themed restaurants and figured I’d give one a try. The place was absolutely packed, but I got a table near the bar and had the most amazing hearty beef stew — perfect for a damp, overcast day of driving.

Once in Vermont, I continued north on Route 7 into the Green Mountain National Forest. My destination was a friend’s house in East Wallingford, at the northeast corner of the forest. I let Google Maps guide me. Things were fine until I reached the last turn to my friend’s house and Google put me on an unpaved road.

Google had done this once before to me, putting me on an extremely rugged road in Colorado when I was driving south with my camper and boat in tow last autumn. Not knowing how bad the road was up ahead, I’d turned around and found another route, adding about an hour to the total time of my drive that day. Although I didn’t have a boat in tow this time, I also wasn’t in a high clearance 4WD pickup. I’d promised my brother I’d be careful in his car and driving three miles on gravel wasn’t something I wanted to do.

But the road was smooth enough, with a fine, nicely graded gravel surface. I continued up the hill, driving very slowly. The road wound into a thick forest with few homes along the way. There was an old cemetery about a mile and half in that I would have stopped to explore if I wasn’t so road weary. (I’d get to it later in the week.) Then there were more houses and lots of clearings and finally my friend’s 160-year-old farm house, sitting at an intersection.

I pulled into the driveway, parked beside some other cars there, and got out, feeling good to be done driving for the day.

(Continued in Part 6: In Vermont.)

The Eclipse Trip Days 5-7: The Palouse, Spokane, and Lake Roosevelt

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Maria Langer

I finish up the trip in an uneventful way.

Posts in this series:
– Day 1: Packing and Heading Out
– Day 2: Finding the Perfect Spot
– Day 3: The Eclipse and More
– Day 4: The Travel and Wine Tasting Day
– Days 5-7: The Palouse, Spokane, and Lake Roosevelt

Although I tried hard to blog about each day of this trip shortly after it happened, I ran out of steam after my trip to Walla Walla. I think there are two reasons for this:

The rest of the trip wasn’t very interesting.
I spent a lot of time driving.

So I’ll just sum up here.

Day 5: Walla Walla to Palouse Falls

In the morning, I went down to the motel breakfast room for coffee, eggs, and sausage. They were all horrible. Honestly: I’d rather have a cold and stale Egg McMuffin than just about anything served up at a motel’s “free” breakfast. The eggs and sausage were so bad that even Penny wouldn’t eat them.

Later, after packing up and stowing my things back in the camper, we went for a walk on Main Street. I stopped at an outside cafe for a good cup of coffee. They sold fresh figs by the pound inside so I bought a pound to munch on later in my trip. I love figs so, as you might imagine, they didn’t last long.

I wanted to get some wine tasting in before I left town and to do that I had to wait until 11 AM. That’s when I hit Trust Cellars on 2nd Street. The hostess from the restaurant where I’d had dinner the night before had recommended it. I chatted with her father, the wine maker. I soon began to realize that very few Walla Walla area wineries grew their own grapes. The wine was pretty good, so I bought three bottles.

From there I went to lunch at a “southern comfort food” restaurant on Main Street called Whoopemup Hollow Cafe. I had a gumbo that was good but took half of it to go. I also had a peach cobbler for dessert that was excellent.

Then on to Walla Walla Airport. Yes, the airport. Believe it or not, quite a few of Walla Walla’s wineries have tasting rooms at the airport. It used to be an air force facility and there are lots of barracks and other buildings there dating back to the World War II era. Wineries have set up shop in these buildings. Although most are simply tasting rooms, a few also do production and/or bottling. I visited two tasting rooms next to each other, Buty Winery and Adamant Cellars. Buty had been recommended by the winemaker at Trust. Neither impressed me, but I bought a bottle from each because I always buy wine when I go tasting unless it’s simply undrinkable.

I’d wanted to hit a third winery at the airport but since I was so unimpressed with the first two and had drunk enough before 2 PM, I headed out instead.

My destination was Palouse Falls, where I hoped to spend the night. The drive would take me through much of the Palouse, a sort of mecca for photographers.

The Palouse is an area of Washington State with rolling hills covered with wheat. At a certain time of the year — July and early August, I expect — it’s an amazing place to photograph — well, rolling hills covered with green (July) or golden (August) wheat. Google Palouse Image and see what I mean.

I’ve always wanted to get out there in just the right season, but that season happens to be my cherry drying season when I’m pretty much stuck in the Wenatchee area. So I can’t see it until the wheat has already been harvested and it isn’t nearly as attractive.

The drive was a lot longer than I expected but was pleasant and scenic without the least bit of traffic. Honestly, I think that my road trips have spoiled me because of often travel to places on routes that no one else seems to use. The only time I experience traffic these days is when I’m driving through Wenatchee and have to deal with traffic lights.

Palouse Falls is a 200-foot waterfall on a place along the Palouse River where it cuts through a canyon and drops into a crack in the terrain. The visitor parking area is on a hillside overlooking the falls so most of the photos you see of the place look like aerial shots.

I shot this photo of Palouse Falls from the parking area not long after our arrival. The light was flat and never did get interesting during my stay.

Permit me to vent a little about No Fly zones for drones.

First of all, the No Drone rule at Palouse Falls is a Washington State law. It prevents people from launching a drone from within any State Park. Palouse Falls is a State Park.

What it doesn’t prevent is launching a drone from outside a State Park and flying it into that park. You see, the state doesn’t control the airspace. That’s the FAA’s jurisdiction. As I pilot, I know a lot about airspace and where it’s legal to fly. I also wrote a whole book about FAA Part 107, which lays out regulations for commercial drone flight that include regulations for non-commercial drone flight.

So there would be nothing stopping me from launching the drone from outside the park and flying it into the park as long as I didn’t fly over any people, kept it below 400 feet above ground level, and somehow — this is the tricky part — managed to keep it within sight at all times.

But do you want to know what’s really crazy? I could fly my helicopter into the park, which I guarantee would get a lot more notice than a half-pound drone, and maneuver it down into the canyon to get the shot I wanted. Legally. Again, the state does not control airspace and as long as my skids didn’t touch the ground inside the park I wouldn’t be breaking any laws.

Would I do that? What do you think?

It’s just an example of how absurd the rules can be — prohibiting one activity that could be a minor annoyance to a few people while allowing another activity that would definitely be a major annoyance to everyone within the park.

In reality, a better view of the falls would be from a drone hovering below the operator inside the canyon. In fact, it would be a perfect shot. But although I had my Mavic Pro with me, there were enough No Drone signs and other visitors to prevent a launch.

It was a gray day. Beyond the smoke-induced haze were clouds spreading rain in the area. I had a cell signal and could track a few rainstorms on radar. It rained a little on us, but not enough to get wet.

Tired from driving and still hoping to do some nighttime photography there, I paid for a campsite and parked next to it. This was apparently a no-no, as I learned from a ranger in the morning. He didn’t cite me but he did lecture me until I pretended to understand and agree with the absurd rule. Yes, tent campers are allowed to park in the lot and then pitch a tent on the grass and sleep in that. But no, people without tents can’t just park a car or truck in the lot and sleep in their car or truck. The rule had nothing to do with parking but everything to do with where you actually slept. If I had pitched a tent and slept in that, there would have been no problem. Next time, that’s what I’ll do.

I think the view down the river from the falls is far more interesting than the falls themselves. Look at those layers of basalt!

In the meantime, the girl who’d parked near me and slept in her car, slipped away while I was being lectured. I didn’t turn her in. Heck, not everyone can afford camping gear. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to spend the night in a safe place, sheltered by her own vehicle? The rule was absurd and I certainly had no intention of helping them enforce it.

Of course, the sky never did clear up that night so I didn’t get the opportunity to do any night photography.

All in all, I consider my trip to Palouse Falls a disappointing bust.

Day 6: Palouse Falls to Lake Roosevelt via Spokane

My Palouse Falls experience left a bad taste in my mouth that I was eager to wash away. I figured that a trip to Trader Joe’s in Spokane to stock up on a few pantry goods followed up with lunch in my favorite Ethiopian restaurant — okay, so the only Ethiopian restaurant I know — would fix me right up.

But I did make one interesting stop along the way: Steptoe Butte.

Steptoe Butte is a granite outcropping that juts up out of those rolling hills. It’s tall so, as you might expect, they put antennas on it. There’s a road that spirals up to the top and offers unobstructed views in every direction.

The view from Steptoe Butte. I think this was north, but it could have been any direction. The view is pretty much the same no matter where you look: lots of rolling wheat fields.

When I say the road spirals, I’m not kidding. Here’s how it looked on Google Maps on the way down.

On the day of my visit, it was still hazy with smoke. It was mid afternoon and the light was flat. In other words, not the best conditions for landscape photography. Of course, camping isn’t allowed up there so anyone with the thought of spending the night after a golden hour evening shoot or before a golden hour morning shoot (or both) would be disappointed. No camping anywhere near there at all. Still, photographers make the long drive out there pretty regularly before dawn or back after sunset to be there at the right time. That wasn’t going to be me, at least not that day.

I came back down and continued on to Spokane. A little over an hour later, I was battling local traffic to maneuver my rig into a Trader Joe’s parking lot (which, fortunately, was part of a strip mall parking lot), shopping for things I can only get at TJ’s (if you like sardines, their sardines in olive oil are the best), and then making my way to Queen of Sheeba Ethiopian Cuisine on the Spokane River (great food).

Then I faced the option of ending my trip by making the 3-1/2 hour drive home or staying on the road one more day and finding an interesting campsite to spend the night. Not really fully decided either way, I found a few potential overnight destinations on the map that were also on the way home. If I found a spot I liked, I’d stop. Otherwise, I’d drive home.

I wound up along Lake Roosevelt, a very large lake on the Columbia River created by the Grand Coulee Dam. I’ve flown over it a few times and it’s the kind of place I’d really like to spend more time exploring, preferably with a boat or even a houseboat.

It was late Thursday afternoon, and the first campground I stopped at, Keller Ferry Campground, was crowded with loud RVers and their loud families. I almost backed into a campsite that was not much more than a glorified parking space in an asphalt lot with a picnic table on the grass nearby. But I knew I’d hate it and I hate paying for things I hate. So I pulled out and continued on my way.

The second campground, Spring Canyon, which was nearly all the way to Grand Coulee, was much more pleasant. Lake Roosevelt is a National Recreation Area and this campground was managed by the park service. The other was managed by a concessionaire and you can really tell the difference. The sites were on a hill with views of the lake. The spots were spread out a bit with lots of shade but little underbrush. I drove around and finally found an open spot that just happened to be designated as handicapped. A sign said that if it was still available after 6 PM, anyone could have it for one night. (Apparently, handicapped campers need to get where they’re going by 6.) It was 6:30. I only needed it for one night. I backed in, checked the level, was satisfied, and shut the engine.

It wasn’t until after I paid the $12 fee in the self-pay station that I regretted my choice. That’s when the white trash family in the site next to me went off the rails. They had three young sons aged 12 and below and one of them — I never could figure out which one — was misbehaving. That got dad yelling and threatening. Then mom joined in. Soon they were both yelling and cursing at each other and the kids. I have never heard a couple throw the F-bomb so loudly in public in front of their own kids and other kids as much as these two did. Fuck this fucking fucked up thing. Well, okay, not exactly that, but close. It reminded me too much of time spent with my ex-brother-in-law, a low-life loser who couldn’t complete a sentence without some form of the word fuck in it. But these people were doing it loudly in a campground full of families.

I wanted it to stop. I looked around for a ranger but didn’t see anyone. I was just starting to wonder if it was worth complaining to the campground host when they finally settled down. I think someone got sent into the tent. Mom settled into a chair to study her phone. Dad disappeared.

You don’t get scenes like this when you camp out in the middle of nowhere. You get the sound of nature — wind, birds, falling water, coyotes, squirrels high in trees chattering at small dogs on the ground — or no sound at all.

Anyway, things were fine after that. I ate reheated leftover Ethiopian food on the back steps of my camper, looking out over a campground that was settling down for the night. Someone nearby — maybe in the camper van? — started playing a flute and it sounded very nice. I took Penny for a walk around the campground and then we climbed up into the sleeping area for bed.

Day 7: Lake Roosevelt to Home

I woke up before dawn, as usual. I had coffee while Penny slept in. I caught up on Twitter and did the word puzzle I try to start each morning with. Each morning I have an Internet connection, anyway. It’s a daily puzzle and I’ve done it faithfully every day for the past 70+ days.

When it got light, I took Penny for a walk down on the beach. I let her loose to run on the sand. She loves the beach.

Dawn at Lake Roosevelt.

It was quiet and very pleasant. I watched the sun rise and saw the first light hit hillsides beyond the dam. I wished I had my boat with me. I thought about boat camping. I had recently bought a new tent that would give me, Penny, and even a companion plenty of space to camp in and was eager to use it along a lake or river.

Back at camp, I made breakfast and ate it on the back steps. Other campers were waking. There was no sign of life from the tents at the loud family’s camp. I wondered if the husband or wife had killed the family during the night.

I did the dishes and went through my morning routine. By that time, the loud family was awake and breaking camp. They sure didn’t look like happy people. I wonder sometimes why people bother going on vacation when they spend so much time fighting with each other and staring at their phones.

Penny and I went out for another walk. Although I’d only planned to walk around the campground, I found a “nature trail” and started up that. It was a dirt path that climbed up a hillside with numbered markers along the way that had likely, at one time, corresponded to points on a self-guided tour. There were a few benches along the way that looked like good places to stop and look out at the lake and contemplate life. I stopped at the one at the top of the hill. There were nice views from up there of the lake and campground. The trail continued and we followed it, not sure where it would lead us. It wound up bringing us back down to the campground, no far from our site.

A view of Lake Roosevelt from the highest point on the trail.

The loud family was gone. There was an inflated beach ball under my truck. I fished it out and gave it to a family with small kids that was camped nearby. The one that spoke English thanked me and handed it off to two young girls who immediately started playing with it. The rest seemed to speak Russian.

I was already ready to go. So I hopped into the truck, started up, and asked Google to show me the quickest way home.

I did stop at the dump station on the way out to dump the holding tanks. I have a very convenient place to dump at home, right near the door to the garage where the camper lives. But I’d rather dump before going home. Then I can add a gallon of clean water and chemicals to the tank and let it slosh around in a sort of cleaning cycle on the way home. It’s a losing battle to keep the tank sensors clean but I haven’t given up. This is just one strategy in my fight.

Our route home took us down the east side of Banks Lake, over the dam at Coulee City, and then up onto the Waterville Plateau. I made a quick stop to look at a vintage pull trailer in Waterville where I chatted at length with a man who’d stopped to do the same thing. Then we descended down to Orondo. I stopped at Katy Bee’s farmstand-turned-cafe for lunch and an ice cream. From there, it was less than 30 minute to get home.

My first vacation for the season was over.

The Eclipse Trip Day 4: The Travel and Wine Tasting Day

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Maria Langer

Comment

I visit Walla Walla, get a good, hot shower, and have a great dinner.

I slept until nearly six — which is late for me — and woke up feeling refreshed. The first thing I did was look out my side window to see if my neighbors were up and about; that would determine how loud I could be. But they were gone.

All traces of them were gone.

Somehow, they’d managed to pack up three tents and a bunch of other gear into their cars and drive off while I was sleeping less than 100 feet away. How was that possible?

My sleeping pattern is regular. I sleep like the dead for the first three to four hours every night. You could set a bomb off next to me and I’m unlikely to wake. For the rest of the night, however, I’m a very light sleeper. So unless they packed up and left without sleeping there, they somehow managed to pack up and leave so quietly that I didn’t hear them. If that’s the case, thank you mystery campers.

The site on the other side of me just had a pickup truck parked in it. There hadn’t been a sign of people since I arrived. I had begun to think that the truck’s owner had parked there and then just wandered off into the woods to camp. Beyond them was a camping van with a tall, skinny tent — the kind often used for a bathroom or shower. Those people were gone, too. The guy at the far end was still there with no sign of life in his campsite.

So I opened the door and let Penny out to do her business. And then I got to work making coffee. She was back before the water had boiled.

I spent the next two hours working on my Day 3 blog post. There was no signal at all in my campsite, so posting it was not an option. When I was finished with that, I made a breakfast of bacon and eggs. Then I spent some time planning my day.

I knew I wanted to end up in Walla Walla for some wine tasting. If you’re not familiar with it, Walla Walla is one of the AVAs (basically, wine production regions) in Washington. It has dozens of wineries. (Too many, if you ask me.) I could just continue up 395 to Pendleton and follow Route 11 north from there. But I wanted to do some exploring along the way and tracing my path back to Pendleton would not accomplish that. I saw a place called Lehman Hot Springs on a side road that went east to La Grande and thought that might make an interesting stop along the way. From La Grande, I’d head north and then come down the Blue Mountains southeast of Walla Walla.

My campsite in the tiny 5-site campground. I think that pile of wood used to be a picnic table.

Plan made, I cleaned up my breakfast mess, got dressed, and stowed my loose belongings. By this time everyone else in the campground had gone. Even the pickup truck; apparently two people had been sleeping in it. (Compared to everyone else there, I was sleeping in the Ritz.)

It was about nine when I headed out. That’s when I discovered that the creek that went past the campground was actually the North Fork of the John Day River.

The Drive

On Route 395, I passed the parking area I’d spent my first night on the road in. Three miles later, I reached the campground that had been full; I pulled in to take a look around. It was a nice place with a creek running through it and still half full. It’s in the Ukiah-Dale Forest State Scenic Corridor, in case you want to look it up.

I turned right on Route 244 and, a few miles later, passed through the sad little town of Ukiah, OR. (Sorry folks, but I just report it as I see it.) Not much going on there, but there were about 20 motorcycles. Big cruisers, mostly. I kept going. The road continued into rolling hills with patches of forest. It was a very pleasant drive. For most of the way, I saw traces of an old railroad bed that predated the road. I have an eye for these things — old railroad or road right-of-ways — and it always gets me wondering where the train (in this case) went and why they removed its tracks.

I climbed up into the forest. There were now national forest roads going off into the woods on either side of me. Plenty of camping opportunities if I was looking for them. It was after I crossed the county line that I consulted the map again. Thats when I realized that I’d passed the Hot Springs. There hadn’t even been a sign. Just another point on a map that barely existed.

I kept going.

A while later, Route 244 dumped me onto I-84, where I definitely did not want to be. There wasn’t much of a choice, though. I followed it east and after a quick side trip to see a historic bridge, got off at the first exit in La Grande.

The Perry Arch Bridge near La Grande.

I had decided about 40 miles earlier that what I really wanted was ice cream. So imagine my joy when the first business I encountered on my way into town was an old-style ice cream/hamburger joint. I slid into a parking space out front, cracked the windows, and went inside. I arrived after two big parties and waited while the woman at the counter took their orders. For a while, I considered having a burger, too, but by the time it was my turn to order, I’d settled on a rocky road waffle cone for me and a vanilla pup cup for Penny. $4 later, I was on my way back out to the truck. I didn’t realize until much later that it was the first money I’d spent on food during my entire trip so far.

I’d been noticing a sort of haziness in the air for most of the day and it wasn’t any better in La Grande. I followed the road through town, passing the Ford dealer where I’d bought my truck less than two years before, then turned left onto Route 82 heading northeast. I had to trick Google Maps into finding me the route I wanted by telling it I planned to stop in Elgin on the way. Otherwise, it tried to route me along I-84 through Pendleton. The road was fast and there wasn’t much traffic on it. The valley I was in was big and broad but the haziness really made it feel sort of closed in.

I turned left onto 204 at Elgin and headed northwest, back into the mountains. The road twisted and turned and I passed more than a few SUVs towing very small pull trailers. R-Pods seem to be pretty popular, although I don’t understand why. One of the models I passed had a narrow body with its wheels extending on either side of it. If the designers had built the body out over the wheels like most pull trailers, they could have added a foot of space on either side. For a 14-foot trailer, that’s 140 square feet of additional space. Go figure, huh?

I reached the community of Tollgate, which looked like a mountain retreat with homes on a small lake. There was a ski resort up there and lots of turnoffs into the forest for Sno-Parks. Not many people, though. No reason to stop, so I kept going.

A little while later, though, I passed a sign for a farm stand that had a magic word on it: Pies. I pulled into a parking lot in front of a tiny building called The Outpost. There were fresh vegetables outside — the absolute last thing I needed. Inside was a young woman at a little counter with pies behind her and handmade fragrant soaps on the other side of the room. The room smelled wonderful.

The Blue Mountain Outpost has fresh eggs, produce, and pies, as well as handmade soaps that smell really nice.

We chatted for a while as I smelled the soaps. I had to buy one, of course. I asked her which one she liked and she picked one up. I sniffed it and it smelled good. Then I asked about the pies. Peach, huckleberry, and peach-huckleberry. I picked the peach-huckleberry and paid for my purchases. When I picked it up, it was still warm from the oven.

Back on the road, I continued down the mountainside. After a few Google-directed turns, I found myself driving through Milton-Freewater.

I remembered the town mostly because back when I first drove through — on my midlife crisis road trip back in 2005 — there had been a lot of frog related stuff. I wondered how that was playing these days with the famous Pepe being taken as a symbol of the Alt-Right. But that day, when I drove through, I only saw a frog in two places: on a very old sign near the outskirts of town and in a statue in town. They had obviously moved on from frogs in town and I thought that was a good thing.

I continued north on Route 12 toward Walla Walla. For a while, my rig was one of three Lance truck campers heading that way. We were all bunched up at traffic lights more than once. Onlookers probably thought we were all together. But when we got to Walla Walla, I turned off into town and they kept going.

I stopped at the Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to ask about parking for the night. I had stayed at two different campgrounds in town in the past and had no idea whether they still existed. I also wanted to ask about wine tasting. But the only guy in the Chamber of Commerce was clueless about both things. Apparently, he was new to town. I knew more about the town than he did — and I hadn’t been there for four years.

I left with a wine tourist magazine that listed all the local wineries — did I mention there were a lot of them? — and a brochure for Palouse Falls, where I hoped to spend the night. I’d also left a message at the RV park closest to town and had called the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel about getting a room. I decided that $200 including tax and a $30 pet fee was more than I wanted to spend. (I’m certain I’d stayed there with Penny and a friend a few years back and did not spend that much.)

I drove the few blocks into town and parked on a side street. (I really do love the parking flexibility T2 offers.) That’s when I realized that there could be more hotels within walking distance of downtown. I wound up finding a room at the Red Lion Inn only two blocks away for a much more reasonable $70/night. I drove right over and checked in.

By this time, it was 3 PM. I figured that there was a chance that a lot of the downtown shops and wineries would close at 5 or 6. So rather than go up to our room, Penny and I took a walk up and down Main Street.

Wine and Dinner in Walla Walla

Walla Walla is a really nice town. It’s a lot like Wenatchee, but it has a lot more going for it in terms of wine tasting rooms, restaurants, and shops. The downtown is vibrant and was relatively busy, even on that Tuesday afternoon. I was sad to see that the shop with the walk-in, glass-sided cheese closet had closed down, but glad to see T. Macarrone’s, a favorite restaurant of mine, was still open. I wasn’t in the mood to shop or taste wine, though. I think it was the weather; the heat, light humidity, and thickness in the air from smoke was taking its toll on me.

Still, I did manage to squeeze in a tasting on my way back to the hotel. It was the brand new tasting room for Bledsoe. It was a really nice space, tastefully designed with big windows looking out onto the street from its corner. Although the tasting room was not normally open on Tuesdays, the girl in there was pouring for another customer and didn’t mind pouring for me.

To say I was not impressed was an understatement. The four wines — which started at $40/bottle — had definitely been released too early. I tried not to be critical — after all, it could be my palate that was mistaken. The wines all tasted different but all had that bite that’s common with wines that haven’t been aged enough.

While I was tasting, the girl at the counter gave me some background information about the winery. It had “split off” from another winery called Doubleback that was also in the area. Both wineries were run by the same people but they had two lines of wine and two tasting rooms. I tried to figure out why someone would do that and finally realized that it was a marketing scheme. Hell, it was from the Marketing 101 class I’d taken in college. To maximize exposure of your products, make as many versions of it as the market will support. In this case, they’d taken one winery and instead of selling six or ten different wines under that name, they were selling eight or twelve wines under two different names. Two tasting rooms. Twice the exposure. Of course, this is just a theory. The way Google works these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from Bledsoe or Doubleback found this blog post and set me straight.

I did buy a bottle of wine, though. The tasting rooms in Walla Walla all have a tasting fee that can be applied to a purchase. I wasn’t interested in spending $10 for four tastes of disappointing wine. Instead, I’d spend $40 and take home a bottle I thought was least offensive. I figured I’d share it with people knowledgeable about wine to see what they thought. Maybe they’d educate me.

From there, I went right back to the hotel. I fetched some clothes and toiletries and Penny supplies out of the truck and camper, locked everything up, and went up to my room. This part of the hotel was in an obviously old motel building that had been nicely refinished. The walls were painted cinderblock and because they’d been painted in bright colors — yellow and purple (really!) — the place looked kind of hip. There were two queen beds with their blankets wrapped in sheets. (I really like when they do that.) The pillows were big and fluffy. There was a table and chairs, a fridge in the cabinet, and even a balcony overlooking the pool.

I made reservations for 6 at T Macarrone’s, then set Penny up with food and water, showered, and got ready to go. I left a little after 5, walking back into town alone.

Feeling more refreshed, I stopped for another tasting, this time at Henry Earl. What a difference! These wines were quite good — at least more to my taste — and I wound up buying three bottles. An interesting thing about this winery: the grapes come from the Red Mountain and Wahluke Slope areas of Washington state, making me wonder why they had a tasting room in Walla Walla.

Again, it’s all marketing. First there was Napa and Sonoma Valleys in California, producing wine, offering tastings at the wineries, and getting an audience for what they made. I was in Napa back in the 1980s and it was a great place to explore wines. At each stop, you’d get an opportunity to not only taste wine, but have a production or history tour of the winery. There was no tasting fee. It was a service they offered to attract new customers. At the tasting bar, you could chat with someone knowledgable about the wine — maybe even the winemaker. Fast-forward to 2013, when I returned with some friends. Now tasting was a business, with tasting fees ranging from $10 to $20 per person and advance tickets needed for the few wineries that offered tours. The tasting bar was staffed by sales people who often only knew what they’d been told about the wine. And there were dozens and dozens of wineries, many of which had absolutely no participation in the growing of grapes.

In Washington state, it’s the same thing, but more insidious. Yes, there are some great wineries, including estate wineries, throughout the Columbia Valley, Walla Walla, Chelan, and the Red Mountain area. But since tourists are apparently too lazy to drive out to the wineries these days, winery owners have opened tasting rooms in centralized areas. Downtown Walla Walla is one of those areas. So is Woodinville — conveniently placed near Seattle to make it easier for city folks to go wine tasting without actually visiting a winery. They don’t grow many (or any?) grapes or make much (or any?) wine in Woodinville, yet people think of that as “wine country.” It’s a real shame. There’s nothing quite like visiting an actual winery and chatting with a winemaker, especially when you’re part of a group of people who truly understand and appreciate wine and want to learn all they can.

That said, I should have made more of an effort to get out to the actual wineries the Walla Walla area. But I think I’ll try again another time, hopefully with a wine tasting buddy.

My dinner, in three courses.

At T Macarrone’s, I sat at the bar. I’d been told their cocktails were good and the bartender helped me pair two different cocktails to my first two courses of dinner. The first one was a somewhat spicy Thai concoction that I liked a lot. It went well with the Tuna Crudo appetizer. The second one was some sort of margarita that I liked a little less; I had that with a creamy Sweet Corn Soup. I had the Seared Duck Breast (which I had them cook more than just seared) for dinner with a glass of wine that I was unable to finish. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it — I did! — it was just that I worried about being able to walk the four blocks back to my hotel if I kept drinking. I skipped dessert because I was absolutely stuffed.

Back at the hotel, I made some finishing touches on my Day 3 blog post and got it online. I spent some time taking care of email and responding to text messages that had come in while I was off the grid.

When I took Penny out for her last walk of the evening, we went to the truck to fetch a few things I’d forgotten, along with that pie. I had a nice slice before going to bed — it was delicious! — and put the rest of it in my hotel room fridge with my truck keys so I wouldn’t forget it.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

Tag Archives: vacation