After leaving Vancouver last Tuesday we planned to stay in Seattle a few days. However the weather and difficulty parking our "rig" ended up making it a quick drive thru. We stayed in Everett, WA on Tuesday night and had a fancy dinner at the Olive Garden! LOL! This is pretty much fine dining in Everett but truth be told it was a yummy meal that we actually enjoyed! The highlight of our quick time in Seattle was a tour of the Boeing Future of Flight and Aviation Center Factory Tour, something Michael has always wanted to do. We had a very interesting & informative tour and got to see new airplanes being built...pretty fascinating to see especially what is in the future for air travel! We spent the rest of our day there running some errands and had an amazing pho lunch which was perfect for the chilly & rainy day. Next we headed to Lacey, WA and had another uneventful evening (dinner from Costco!) since there was one right next to the hotel and we are really getting tired of eating out every night. We've been enjoying getting takeout lately and just bringing it back to the hotel to relax and eat and catch up on the nightly news on TV! We ran a few errands the next day in Lacey since it's a pretty decent sized town with lots of the stores that we needed things from. Then off we headed for Oregon!
Boeing Factory Tour...perfect for the rainy day!
We drove into Portland but then decided to head to the outskirts as it was pretty crowded there too and all of the hotels downtown had outrageous parking fees and we would have to pay for 2 vehicles- the car AND the trailer! So we found a great hotel on Hayden Island that had an evening reception every night (2 drinks each!) and appetizers and a huge complimentary breakfast buffet. Plus ample FREE parking! Sold!!! We spent two nights there and had fun catching up with Michael's family. On Thursday night we had a great dinner with his mom's cousin Jack and wife Susan at a seafood restaurant right on the water. Then we met his aunt Susan and her family for a yummy breakfast on Friday morning before heading out of town. Over the few days we were in Portland we had time to explore the different downtown areas which was really fun. I haven't been to Portland in over 20 years so it was A LOT different!
Pretty clouds driving thru Oregon...
After breakfast on Friday we headed out of Portland and drove to Grants Pass, OR, a city off the I5 that is famous for rafting on the Rogue River and the Oregon Caves National Monument. Fun fact- my mom and family stayed in Grants Pass on a road trip in the late 1960s...which I didn't know until I told her we did an overnight there! We had a delicious seafood dinner at a restaurant with live music and a great night of sleep.
The next day we continued south on the I5 to Ashland, OR, known for being the home of Southern Oregon University and the esteemed Oregon Shakespeare Festival...oh and LOTS of wineries which of course we had to check out! We had a delicious lunch upon arriving into town at Bella Fiore Winery and of course a few glasses of wine! It's a beautiful winery in an amazing setting reminiscent of Tuscany...a few times I had to stop and remember I was in Oregon and not Italy! We also took a gorgeous motorcycle ride up a long and windy mountain road to check out a few lakes to see if we could drop the jet ski in any but everything is so dry there that sadly a lot of the lakes have dried up. Oregon needs water just as much as California and all of the other states suffering from the droughts! While at lunch at the winery we met a group of girls at the table next to ours...turns out one was the lead in that night's Shakespeare production, Much Ado About Nothing and the others worked with the theatre in some aspect. They persuaded us to get tickets and meet them at the show so we did and it was fabulous! We had a great time getting to know them after the show over drinks and fun conversation. We had a yummy breakfast in Ashland and quick walk around the popular Lithia Park to see the fall leaves before heading on to CALIFORNIA!!!
Weisinger Winery
Bella Fiore Winery
Evening motorcycle ride thru the hills of Ashland...
Fun night at Much Ado About Nothing...and then wine overlooking downtown Ashland!
Morning walk at Lithia Park
