The Willamette Valley

From the Oregon Coast, we traveled about a hundred miles inland over the Coastal Mountain Range into the Willamette Valley.  This valley surrounded by mountains runs from Eugene in its south end to Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Portland at its north end.  During the ice age, the valley was subject to many rounds of massive flooding.  The flood waters in the valley are estimated to have been as deep as 300 to 400 feet at times.  All these floods carried fertile silt that was deposited in the valley as the flood waters receded. 

 

In modern times, the Valley has been and is one of the most productive agricultural regions of the country.   Not only is the soil very fertile, but the growing conditions are excellent as well.  Because of the breezes off the Pacific, the Valley has cool wet Winters but warm sunny Summers.  It has a long growing season as well.

You don’t anymore than come east over the coastal mountains into that valley than you start noticing this huge range of agriculture.  As you travel through the Midwest you see corn and soybeans.  In the Plains there are endless fields of wheat.  In the Willamette Valley there are all kinds of crops.  There are grains, fruit and nut trees, fruit vines and bushes, vegetables, hops (yes, those aromatic little flower cones that provide aroma and bitterness to beer), flowers and bulbs, Christmas trees,grasses, and many other varieties of crops as well.  We read somewhere that 99% of all Hazelnuts (aka Filberts) grown in the US come from the Willamette Valley.  And, by the way, Rogue Brewing produces a superb Hazelnut brown ale with these delectable nuts.

Given the richness of this Valley, settlers of the American West streamed into this area via the Oregon Trail.    The majority of the population of the entire State live in this Valley.  We are camped near the town of Silverton east of Salem, the capital of Oregon.  We were lucky to find a campground that would give us the Passport America half off discount for our entire stay so we are getting the rate of $20 a day, quite good for Oregon in the Summer.   http://www.silverspurrvpark.com/

Newport Wrap-up

We have moved on from Newport,Oregon so it’s time to finish writing about our adventures there.  As the weather was for the very most part quite cool and the ocean  quite cold, we didn’t spend nearly as much time at the beach as what we might have hoped.  So we used some of our time in Newport for very serious cleaning of the exterior of the motor home.  We scrubbed it down and waxed it by hand.  We even polished the wheels and treated the tires.  It’s looking really good for its 12 plus years.

The weather was perfect for some baking and as berries are coming into season in the Northwest, I took the opportunity to make a couple pies.  The first one was made with Bing cherries    Alley Cat photo bombed the picture of the first slice as she knew ice cream had to be around somewhere.  Look to your left, honey.

 

 

My other pie was made with a mixture of blueberries and red and black raspberries.  It was the first time I had ever made a lattice top.

 

 

 

 

We visited the Yaquina Head lighthouse, the one we could see from our campground, and saw thousands of sea birds and a few sea lions as well on the offshore rocks.  We took in more marine life at the Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.

 

 

 

And finally a last look at Newport’s Yaquina Bay Bridge one of the many arch bridges of Highway 101 on the Oregon Coast.

Rogue Brewery

One of the things that makes Newport famous is that it is the home of Rogue Brewing.  Rogue is one of the most renowned microbreweries in the country.  They were founded in 1988 making them one of the pioneers in the craft brewing industry.  They now are about the 30th largest brewery in the U.S.  But they don’t strive for high volume but rather produce a very large range of specialty ales that are mainly sold in painted bottles rather than ones with paper labels.  They tend to be one of the higher priced lines of ales.

 

 

So it was a pleasure to visit their facilities in Newport including their main brewery, the pub house which used to be the brewery and also is now a small inn with rooms on the upper floor, and even a micro distillery which we didn’t visit.

 

 

 

 

Within their extensive range of ales, there is one that more than had us scratching our heads.  It’s name is Beard Beer.  As you won’t be able to read the description at the bottom of the pictures here goes:  “The brew dedicated to Beards, Beard Beer is brewed with a yeast created from Brewmaster John Maier’s Beard.  No need to freak out, Brewers have used wild yeasts in beer making for centuries.  John has had the same old growth beard since 1983 and for over 15,000 brews so it is no great surprise that a natural yeast ideal for brewing was discovered in his beard.”  Talk about spontaneous fermentation.  This was actually one brew we chose to pass on.  But we sampled a good many of their range.

Sea Creatures

We read that it could be quite interesting to go down to the beach area at low tide – that there would be all kinds of interesting sea creatures that could be seen.  We waited for the morning that the tide was at the lowest during our stay here in Newport, Oregon.  Except at low tide all of these smaller rocks would have been covered by the ocean but at low tide they held tide pools and all kinds of things that were attached to them.

The stars of the show were none other than starfish. also known as sea stars.  They are not a fish.  They are fairly crude creatures that don’t have bones.  They have a mouth on the backside of the center of their body and they move along the rocks attaching themselves to their prey, largely small shellfish which they can open and essentially extend out their stomachs and eat.  There is presently an epidemic up and down the Pacific coast of something called Starfish Wasting Disease that is killing almost all of them.  Scientists are unsure of the cause, but it has happened before and eventually they did recover, hopefully they will again.

There were various forms of sea anemones which are other crude sea animals which at times seem like plants.  Some of these can feed on starfish.

 

There were rocks virtually covered with mussels.

And the beach was heavily littered with these creatures.  We guess that they were Portuguese Men Of War but some research indicates they likely were Velella.  Note that this one exhibits kind of a clear wing to the left of its purplish body.  This wing helps them to ride on top of the ocean being propelled by the wind and they have no means to move themselves.  They feed on plankton in the ocean and they do not sting humans.

There is a lot out there in the ocean beyond the fish and sharks.

A Day Trip To Tillamook

We drove north up to the costal town of Tillamook, Oregon.  This is likely the farthest north we will go on the Oregon shore.  In total we have driven about 300 miles of the Pacific coast in northern California and Oregon.
The major attraction in Tillamook is the Tillamook Cheese Factory, the main facility of the Tillamook County Creamery Association, a cooperative of dairy farmers.  Settlers in the 1800s quickly realized that the Tillamook region with its bountiful grassland, rain, and moderate temperatures would be a great place for dairy farming.  But there was a little problem as the area was on the wrong side of the coastal mountain range from the population centers of the West.  The dairy farmers first built a schooner to carry milk and cheese to Portland.  In the late 1800s, the farmers came to the conclusion that it would be easier if they could create a product that would be easier to transport – so they built a cheese factory.  Tillamook cheeses are a very popular brand throughout the West today.

The factory in Tillamook makes various cheeses and ice cream  There is a second Tillamook cheese factory on the Columbia River in north central Oregon.  The factory in Tillamook produces around one million pounds of cheese a week.  The aging area has a capacity of 50 million pounds of cheese.  The factory tour consisted of a few overlooks of a production floor where large blocks of cheese were being cut and packaged along with several story boards.  At the end of the tour was a cheese tasting area including “squeaky cheese” or cheese curds that are made from the solids of milk coagulated with some form of acid.  They are only sold at the factory as they lose their freshness and “squeak” (fresh ones really do squeak against your teeth as you bite into them), very quickly after the curding process is finished.  Of course they had plenty of cheese for purchase as well and we bought a couple kinds but we were already familiar with their products from Oregon grocery stores.  And Gary felt the need to re enact a bit of his farming heritage.

And you may wonder what this pleasure boat has to do with the cheese factory.  Note that it is parked with all the cars in the visitor lot at the cheese factory.  Well we saw it rolling in right behind us when we entered the grounds of the factory.  Yes, it was rolling.  The owner has mounted the boat hull onto a vehicle chassis.  I talked to him a bit when I went over to take the picture.  His boat is a street legal fully licensed vehicle.  He had driven it over to the Oregon coast from Spokane, Washington.  There is a convertible top for it.   Not something you see every day.
On our way back we stopped in the town of Pacific City and had dinner at the Pelican Brewery located ocean front.  Gary was the adventurous one as he had the deep fried oyster po boy.  The brewery was a fine one having earned the honor of being name the Champion Small Brewery at the 2014 World Beer Cup.

July 4th On The Oregon Coast

After the fireworks of the birth of our first grandchild in the early hours of the 4th, anything else was going to pale in comparison.  But we did take in some Independence Day activities.  The RV Park organized a potluck lunch.  I took my favorite appetizer – jalapeno pie.  It is a very simple mixture of egg and cheddar cheese baked over a bottom layer of sliced jalapenos.  You know it is a hit when there is someone going table to table looking for the maker and the recipe.

We went down to the bay front area of Newport for dinner and a couple craft brews and walked to the boardwalk area to watch the town’s fireworks.  We don’t even know who sponsored them, but the show was about 20 minutes long.  We didn’t carry our better camera with us so we just shot some pictures with our cell phones which turned out not too bad for just some shots on automatic settings.

We’re Grandparents!

What a way to celebrate the 4th of July!  Our daughter-in-law, Natasha, and our son, Andy birthed their first child and our first grandchild -- a healthy and handsome baby boy -- in the early hours of Independence Day.  Victor James Boone weighed in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and measured 21.5 inches tall.  All three of them are doing well.