Gettin’ out of Dodge

Day 1 ~ Vacation Day! Yippee!!! Flynn, Ollie, Jones, and their handlers were on the road a full 30 minutes before their anticipated departure time. This in itself was a miracle, considering Ollie had to pack for Jones, who stubbornly refused to do it for himself. The cat is a jerk.

This first day of the trip went perfectly according to plan. Southbound into Oregon, with a to-be-determined stop for lunch along the way. They hit Oregon and began googling for a place to stop, pop the slides, and fix a nosh. Flynn found a potential spot just outside of Salem called Ankeny Wildlife Refuge, which had minimal info or pictures but seemed to be ideal; not far off the freeway, likely had a place to park and pretty views. In the words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad. It was closed. Gated. It would have been ideal if we could have gone in, or even parked nearby, but it’s on a (gorgeous) two lane road with no shoulder.

Not to be deterred, Ollie made a 3 point turn in the two lane road (towing a trailer, this is amazing), and followed the signs another 3 miles up the road to the Coria Winery & Tasting Room. Most wineries have plenty of places to park trailers, and they like to have visitor$. The road to the winery was beautimus. When we arrived, there were signs indicating “reservations only”, the place was deserted, and no sign of a tasting room, just some sort of industrial building. One human came out, got into a truck and left without batting an eye at us. Huh? We parked and popped the slides so the Jones could get some downtime. Flynn called the business line to the winery, got an answering machine, and left a message that we were there ‘just visiting’ with our deets in case they wanted to demand we get off their property. Mid-sandwich assembly, a man clearly associated with the winery drove up and honked. Busted! Nope, he just thought we were someone else and was saying hi. We explained our situation, he shrugged, was a little preoccupied and gave us directions to the real tasting room/winery up the hill.

• 

• 

• 

(A small part of the vineyard, the tasting room at the top of the hill, a beautiful bottle. )

Flynn and Ollie decided to walk up to the Tasting Room, official visitor building, after lunch. Jones was instructed to guard the trailer from virtually no one, and off they went. 800 ft elevation climb to the stunning views, gorgeous patio, and friendly staff who offered us a no-reservation tasting. Obviously, since they were driving and pulling a 13k lb trailer in the near future, Ollie declined the tasting. A purchase or two was made to compensate for the perfect lunch location which is awaiting consumption in the fridge. Pretty color on this bottle of rose! The walk up and back was the perfect exercise mid-day, and the views were to die for. Oh yeah, the guy who talked to us was the owner. Go figure.

Another hour or so later, we ended the day’s travel at Casey’s Riverside Resort. This was yet another pleasant surprise, as it lies directly against river, has perfect paved sites with clean tables and grass, and excellent facilities. Mr. Jones had the time of his life watching CatTV, Flynn & Ollie fell asleep listening to the roar of the water 20 feet from their bed. NICE! We almost hate to leave, cause.. uhm, this place has soft self-serve ice cream.

Off to Lassen!

Fin

Flynn