Day 67...Friday, September 19, 2008...Farewell to Wine Country...Great Food/Great Times in Bend

With great reluctance, I've finally got to say goodbye to Wine Country and start heading eastward...homeward bound.
BUT...I could not leave the Willamite Valley without one final winery stop...Panther Creek Cellars. I had a bottle of their 2006 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir with dinner last week at Bistro Maison, and it was just my type...dark, concentrated...lots of blackberry flavors. The winery is located right in downtown McMinnville, so it was only a short drive. The staff there was very friendly and proud that I was so enthusiastic about their wine. One gal (see photo) reminded me of my good friend and closest-I'll-ever-have-to-a-daughter, Jasmyn, and that made me a little homesick. But they were pouring all of the best that they had...the Shea Vineyard was as great as before, but it was the 2006 Freedom Hill Vineyard that just blew me away. It was every bit as good, if not better, than the wines that I bought at Domaine Serene (heretofore my "benchmark" for Pinot Noir). So...you KNOW what's coming...I bought a few bottles...well...maybe more than a few. I got three magnums of the Shea and a whole case of the Freedom Hill. By leaving behind both coolers, all of my clothes and most of my camping equipment, I was able to "squeeze" my latest purchase into the Escape. Only kidding...I didn't have to leave anything behind, but I did have to do some very creative repacking/repositioning.
Now an official member of the "Lowriders Club", I set off for my last stop...the Evergreen Aerospace Museum. It's big, it's made out of wood and it flies (well, it flew exactly once)...it's...the Spruce Goose...Howard Hughes' masterpiece of aeronautical engineering...and it's at the Evergreen Museum. This plane is so big that it fills virtually an entire hangar. As you can see from the photos, this made it difficult to get a really good shot. They had lots of other cool planes as well...WWII bombers, fighters, Migs...you name it. I spent almost two hours there and still didn't see everything.
Now it's on to Bend, Oregon...and yet another, albeit final, trip over the Cascade Mountain Range. A fun trip through the winding, hilly roads of Wine Country brought me to Salem where I picked up Oregon Route 22 for the drive to Bend. Getting over the Cascades was another challenging drive with a winding road and lots of steep dropoffs, but there were also stretches through big old-growth forests. About an hour after I got on Route 22, I went through an apparent "wormhole" and, for a few minutes, I was instantly transported to the Detroit area (see photo)...Wow...it's really changed since I left home! I think that's Lake Saint Clair in there. Then another "wormhole" swept me up and spat me back onto Route 22.
After a couple of hours through the mountains, I eventually broke out on the eastern side in the area of the Deshutes National Forest. At some point in the recent past, there was a huge forest fire here, and things were pretty burnt out.
I got to Bend around 6:00PM and checked into the local Days Inn. As soon as I got out of my car, I noticed a strange scent in the air that I couldn't identify. Then, I started thinking back to how I used to go camping with my late father in northern Ontario. We'd drive up through the U.P. and follow the same road each year as it was built a hundred miles or so at a time. We'd camp, fish, drink beer and have a lot of fun. One time, I mistakenly threw a pine log into our campfire and soon realized my mistake...that "kerosene" odor was unmistakable and very unpleasant. THAT was the scent that I was getting in Bend. Talking to people later in the evening, I learned that it was smoke from that forest fire way back in Crescent Lake, the beginnings of which I saw on the way out of Crater Lake. By the way, that fire is now "under control".
I have to tell you...I wasn't expecting much from Bend...a little farming/ranching community in the middle of the state, I thought. Boy, was I wrong! Bend is quite a sophisticated little community with a lot of top-notch restaurants, divey little local bars and very, very friendly people. I had planned to have dinner at a place called "Cork" that was supposed to have a great selection of wines by the glass. The hotel manager told me that it was within walking distance, so I set off on a one-mile walk through a newer section of Bend on the fringes of downtown...a very "hip" new section with loads of interesting restaurants, upscale boutiques, etc. I had some difficulty finding Cork, so I stopped at a place called Bo's for Pan-Asian cuisine...a great choice. The staff was very friendly (see photo of my bartender, Ashley), and the food was outstanding. I had Tuna Tartare, a Pressed Duck Spring Roll, and an order of Thai Air-Dried Crispy Beef...Wow...it was delicious. And, for dessert, they had my favorite...Coconut Ice Cream.
Full, happy, satisfied...I set off back to my hotel...but not before one last stop for a nightcap at the M&J Tavern...a fun local bar. I ordered a local beer, Session Lager, and sat back to relax. Soon, I struck up a conversation with a local guy, David...we talked about my trip and soon I was mentioning the very relaxed "substance-control" laws in the Yukon. I was both surprised, as well as skeptical, when David pointed out that Oregon's laws were very (VERY) similar to those in the Yukon. I, of course, wanted proof of this...so...we stepped outside for a minute, and it was there that I learned (in the fullest sense) that wine was not the number one cash crop of Oregon. David set off on a wobbly course on his bicycle home to his girlfriend while I, now thoroughly disoriented, returned to the M&J. M&J had an incredible selection of Tequila (see demonstration photo of Shanna), and I thought that maybe a quick shot would restore my senses of balance, direction, etc. I was wrong on that, but I did manage to retrace (in, perhaps, a slightly more circuitous way) my one-mile route back to the Days Inn...where I fell immediately to sleep