We wanted to visit our families and friends and, because we’ve driven to and from Colorado and New Mexico several times, we wanted to explore some new places on the way, so we plotted a month-long road trip where we would alternate between camping in our tent trailer with staying with the people we visited.
We managed to pack up and get on the road at 11. After about 20 minutes we realized we had forgotten a few things, but nothing that we thought we couldn’t do without, so we just kept going.
We decided to take some back roads to avoid I-5 as much as possible, and this route ended up passing by Alesong. We stopped to try some of their fabulous beers and we got a tasting flight with:
And we got a “Modern Langos” to go with them. This is based on a Polish street food where the base is fried dough, then covered with gruyere, frisée, and both caramelized and crispy leeks
The beer was amazing, food tasty and interesting, scenery nice, and music on their patio a playlist I could identify with. We ended up joining their beer club.
We stopped for a little break in Myrtle Creek and checked out the covered bridge.
We arrived at Valley of the Rogue S.P. a bit before seven. We got set up quickly and made some veggie burgers for dinner accompanied by a barley wine from Ferment. For dessert Julie brought a pie that she made to use up freshly harvested rhubarb and get some frozen blueberries out of our freezer.
We slept fairly well considering how close the campground is to the highway. We got up around seven and had blueberry rhubarb pie with yogurt for breakfast. And a little granola and yogurt, too - this was the yogurt’s last stop.
We walked a quarter mile or so down the path along the river, then came back and started packing up. We got on the road at eleven. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop and for gas at Williams, where we got off I-5.
We arrived at Denise’s cabin around six thirty. We talked to her parents Carol and Warren for a few minutes, but they were in the middle of dinner. We parked our trailer and moved stuff into the little cabin, then Denise came over and we chatted while enjoying a beer from Alesong. Then we made our own dinner.
Afterwards we joined Denise and her parents for some wine and good conversation.
I found a tick in my leg and another one on my leg while showering, but they did not seem to be getting on Daisy like they did on our previous visit here.
We stopped in Forestville after finishing our blueberry rhubarb pie for breakfast. We got sandwich bread and cinnamon rolls from the Nightingale Breads bakery and a smoke alarm for the cabin from the Ideal Hardware store.
We were looking for a dog-friendly winery on Bring Fido and found Moshin Vineyards which is more-or-less “just across the Russian River”. We split one tasting, but our server (Stacy) poured more generous tastes as it became clear that this winery is really for wine aficionados who can taste subtle differences between wines and I think we demonstrated that we “get it”, or maybe we just have a cute dog.
We got a number of extra tastings, and she did some fun stuff like gave us one wine in two different shaped glasses so we could see how the glass shape can affect the scent and flavor. We ended up spending two hours tasting some really nice wines.
Afterwards we went to the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve and walked around on the roads. Unfortunately dogs are only allowed on the paved roads, so our choices were fairly limited, but it was still really neat to see all the giant trees and be in the cool shady valley. We even found a small creek where Daisy could drink and get her feet wet.
We returned to the cabin and found Denise and her brother doing a little yard work before getting ready to have a big dinner. Denise made a big ham and pierogies along with salad and appetizers. We brought a bottle of Moshin Zinfandel which turned out to be pretty tasty. After that was gone, Denise’s dad opened up a bottle of Precarious Pinot Noir from Oregon. It was much different, but also tasty.
Denise’s mom made strawberry shortcake and some very rich brownies for dessert. We had a great dinner outside on their patio.
We may have given Daisy too many treats and people food because her digestive system had some trouble overnight. I had to get up at 3:45 so she could go to the bathroom and then she spent a lot of time in the morning trying to pass the problem.
We got up fairly early and were enjoying some time reading while eating the cinnamon rolls that we got from the bakery in town when Denise showed up, hoping to get us working. Julie did a bunch of string trimming once we figured out that we were trying to use the “wrong” string trimmer and got the one that did work. I installed a smoke alarm in the little cabin and then did some work on bushes that were growing into the long, long driveway.
Then we took showers and headed into town. Julie went to the bakery again and got some scones for the next morning and some sandwich bread for our upcoming camping. We spent a little while catching up online with the cell reception near the bakery, then headed north to Frick winery. Bill seemed to know us by name and we weren’t sure whether he had just been very careful with the reservation notes or whether he has a really good memory. He did know that we had been there a little over a year ago. There were only had three wines on his tasting this time, but of course they were all good. We bought a mixed case and he also gave us each glass of wine to enjoy with the sandwich that we were having for lunch there in the shade on the nice patio. While we ate we noticed and watched a smoke column develop to the north. It was a hot day and the wind was strong and gusty. We saw slurry bombers begin buzzing overhead.
We drove the short distance to Wilson Winery and found that the smoke was blowing south down the Dry Creek valley right towards the winery. It seemed like there were fewer people at Wilson than usual, and in general we felt that fewer people were out wine tasting in the past couple days than we’d seen in the past. Bill Frick confirmed that visits seem to be down at all the wineries. At Wilson we ended up sitting inside and were glad because it got smokier and smokier outside.
Wilson had some good case sales so we got some for ourselves as well as a case for one of our neighbors back home.
The Point Fire grew to over a thousand acres that afternoon and ended up destroying several structures, most of them outbuildings. As we were getting ready to leave, us and everyone at Wilson received an emergency alert phone message delineating an evacuation zone that Wilson Winery was just a little way outside of.
Back at the cabin we had a nice dinner of leftovers with Denise and her parents. We brought a Wilson Buzz Zinfandel for the appetizers, and her dad opened a bottle of Hartford Old Vine Zinfandel that Denise had given her parents for their 60th anniversary - it was really good. We ate outside again and it was pleasant until the end when mosquitoes began to show up.
After dinner Julie and Denise finished a puzzle that Denise and her mom had been working on. Her parents do a lot of puzzles and told us that Nautilus and Liberty make high quality puzzles. They also recommended we visit Korbel, which is known for its champagne-style sparkling wine, and was started in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s – we’ll try to get to it on our next visit.