VACATION: October 2007

From Dwayne Wright - www.dwaynewright.com

Well, this is my first entry in my personal blog. I’ve been blogging about technical content (mainly FileMaker) for about 5 months now. I didn’t think I would ever do a personal blog ... but ... here we are. I have no idea where this will take me but here goes!

I’m going to start the ball rolling discussing the vacation I just came back from. My girlfriend April and I left Friday (Sept. 28, 2007) on a combination winery tour, trail exploring, camping excursion type of vacation. We had the most brief outline of what we wanted to accomplish and then let the winds guide us during the in-between spots. I’ll try and do a separate post for each day of the trip and link back to a page that discusses it in more detail.

We did have a guide though, the Northwest Wine Country Hill Guides was something that April picked up before the trip.

DAY ONE - Portland
We didn’t get out of town very early on Friday and it was totally my fault. I just couldn’t seem to get all the little things done before the trip that I wanted to get done. We finally pulled out of town about 1:30 PM and arrived in Portland about 5:30 PM. We had reservations at the McMenamins Kennedy School. This is a elementary school that has been converted to a hotel and is extremely cool.

DAY TWO - Portland / Oregon Coast Wineries
On Day 2, we had breakfast at McMenamins Kennedy School and then headed out to our first winery. In order, we went to Rex Hill, Duck Pond, Torri Mor and Erath. We then headed south to get within striking distance of Crater Lake.

DAY THREE - Crater Lake
We made it to Crater Lake about 11 a.m. It was snowing pretty good but the snow was having a hard time sticking. We didn’t get to see much of the lake because of the cloud cover. Still pretty cool and then we spent the night at the Crater Lake Bed and Breakfast.

DAY FOUR - Prineville, Oregon
Our B & B was on the south side of Crater Lake. So we entertained the thought of driving back up to Crater Lake and try our luck at seeing the lake again. At the turn off to go through the park or around, we could tell the cloud cover was too dense. So instead of going back up to the summit again, we saved time and went around. We did pick up some excellent books on Oregon hiking and campgrounds. So we went as far as Prineville Oregon, saw Stein’s Pillar and spent the night in a cabin at the local RV park.

DAY FIVE - John Day Painted Hills / Emmett Idaho
We left Prineville and proceeded to April’s childhood friends house in Emmett Idaho. We decided to take Highway 26 and visit John Day Painted Hills National Park.

DAY SIX - Emmett Idaho And Surrounding Wineries
We decided to spend a second night in Emmett and in the morning went for a great hike in the high desert landscape. Then visited three local wineries of Ste Chapelle, Williamson Vineyard and The Winery At Eagle Knoll. A wonderful dinner with our hosts and wrapped up by watching A Night At The Museum.

DAY SEVEN - Hat Rock / Tea Pot Service Station / Leavenworth / Home
We headed out early and made very good time on day seven. We stopped off at Hat Rock National Park and had a great hike along the Columbia River. Getting back into the car, we didn’t stop until April got excited about a highway sign indicating the Tea Pot Service Station was the next exit. This is some sort of National Monument or something. Very cool and then we decided to head all the way to Leavenworth Washington and perhaps all the way home to Snohomish. Leavenworth was great but we hit it just shy of closing time. A quick by quaint dinner later, we set out on our last leg home.