Day 2 around Costaklis

Then it turns out much of today was worth writing about as well, so here goes. Our morning started with a walk along the river to the farmers’ market about 10 minutes away. One of the things I most love about living here in the Willamette Valley is that there’s a farmers market almost every day, and the one here in Corvallis is very nice – about the same number of fruit and veggie vendors as Hillsboro’s, with not quite as many food and craft places. My goal was peaches, because Oregon peaches are the best, and I did well there. I also bought some table grapes, but the absolute star of the market was the 3.03 lb orange watermelon I bought from Gathering Together Farm – yes, the same place where we ate last night. To save Dave’s shoulder I carried it home, and it is a thing of great beauty and charm. It lends itself to being an imaginary bowling ball, shot put, and arcade basketball, and in the elevator on the way up to our room I also realized it makes a tremendous goddess globe. I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat it when the time comes, I love it so much.

Once I managed to put the watermelon down we headed off for our day. Our first destination, driving around the OSU campus, was not very exciting, although we did see the stadium where they play football and the giant beaver store across the street. They were doing much construction, so getting around was tricky, Then we headed off to Mary’s Peak, the highest point on the coast range, which is a scenic botanical area and a Fodor’s choice. The drive up is quite pretty – it was logged some time ago and has more deciduous trees than we’re used to, so the greens were very varied and the views were good too. What was not good was the signage and the trail maps, which were pretty much useless until after you knew where you were. We managed to find the gravel drive up to the peak which was well worth the walk, because the scenic botanical area turns out to be a large and beautiful meadow surrounded by noble firs. We took the trail down, but chose the least good of the 3 possible (unmarked) trails, which involved a very steep descent on a bare dirt path with lots of slipping and sliding. Once we crossed the road, though, the trail wended its way through more meadow and down into the firs and was lovely. Faithful readers know that I’ve had some knee trouble on similar hikes. I did not have any such troubles today, and I am hopeful that some physical therapy is responsible for that, and it wasn’t just that the hike wasn’t long enough.

  

We went to downtown Corvallis for lunch, a place I'd never been where they don't allow bicycles or slugs - it was a good thing we didn't have Tim with us. We ate at Block 15, a totally forgettable brewpub with a major fly infestation, and then went back to the room for some very good napping. After napping I did the Nia routine Feeling with the video while Dave did travel writery things.

Dinner was in Albany, about 20 miles away. It was super easy to get to – turn right out of the hotel parking lot, drive 20 miles on hwy 20, then turn right and the restaurant is on the left. The drive was quintessentially Willamette Valley – one lane each way beside a river, with lots of rolling hills and trees and farms, not too much traffic, and the constant possibility of getting stuck behind a piece of farm machinery. I mentioned it to Dave and he said it was missing a winery – so moments later we saw the blue sign for Springhill Winery (we used to be big fans of their Mer Vin but we’ve moved on). Because in the Willamette valley, what you want always happens.

Dinner was at Sybaris, and I would give it a solid 4 stars. The appetizers and entrees were very good, but lacking that whatever that makes food truly memorable. There were, however, some things which were 5s. Our server, who was very engaging, and the wine, a 2007 chateuneuf-du-pape that was completely memorable even if it didn’t have the glass seal on the bottle (which explains why it was not as expensive as many c-d-p’s). Also the dessert, the 2014 Liberace, which was Valrhona chocolate sorbet, salted caramel gelato, coffee granita, hazelnut oil ice cream,  foamed milk and chocolate ice cream in the kind of stemmed metal ice cream dish that they had at Friendly’s when I was a kid (only this one was silver), with chocolate filled macaroons pasted to the outside with chocolate. It turns out that if you finish it and then pour your coffee in the bowl the attaching chocolate melts enough that you can lick the macaroons off the side. Or so I’m told – I would never do something like that. Well, I blame Nia for training me to always ask the question, “what can I do to make this even more delicious and wonderful?”

Then I drove us back through the warm sunset next to the river to our hotel, with only one scary moment of not being sure where the lanes were exactly. The hotel has a parking garage under it that’s mostly empty, unlike the above ground parking lot, so I parked in our favorite spot by the elevator and we went to the room where I communed with my watermelon. Another good day in the mid valley.

McKenzie Bridge

Faithful readers know I generally only blog on vacations, and this is just a long weekend, but today deserves a blog post if ever a day did. Faithful readers may not know that in addition to holding down a full-time job at Intel, brewing beer, making wine, and cooking amazing food Dave is also a writer for Fodor’s  travel guides – specifically, the Willamette Valley section of their Pacific Northwest edition (excluding Portland). It pays less than we spend, since mostly food and lodging aren’t comped, but it takes us to places we might not otherwise have visited, like Tree to Tree Adventure Park at Hagg Lake and, today, to the Mckenzie River area.

We’re based out of Corvallis (which my phone’s autocorrect used to call Costaklis), staying at the Holiday Inn Express. We ate dinner at DaVinci’s in Salem last night, which had great décor, great piano, great service, and just ok food, checked in to the hotel around 8:30 and fell asleep shortly after. This morning we were out the door by 9 on our way south. Our first stop was Terwilliger Hot Springs, just past the Cougar Dam.  You hike out to them on a very wide well maintained path after paying your $6/person entry fee. The thing about THS is that it is clothing optional once you’re more than 50 feet from the road, and I was concerned that it would be full of people I’d rather not have seen naked. It wasn’t, and it looked very fun – four pools, going down a hillside, getting gradually cooler as you descended. We were totally wearing the wrong clothes and especially the wrong shoes – putting on socks and sneakers with no towel is tricky – and also we had two appointments that we needed to get to, so we reluctantly turned our backs on the hot springs and the lake with the 60’ waterfall and continued south.

Our first stop was Takoda’s restaurant in Rainbow, the kind of place we would never, ever, ever stop at. But it’s in the book, so we had to, and it turned out to be much nicer than I expected – they had a nice patio out back with lots of flowers and a water feature that made soothing noises. Lunch was tasty and the service was very friendly, so we enjoyed ourselves very much. I considered buying the book about how to draw star wars scenes using colored pencils and fingerprints for Jen, but didn’t.

 We drove on down highway 126 – very scenic - to Belknap Hot Springs Resort. When we got there, Dave asked at the front desk for Marlene, with whom he had been corresponding. It turned out the person we were talking to was Marlene, and she had no idea who he was. But she was very nice anyway, and took us out to the golf cart to give us a tour. Then she suddenly turned to Dave and said, “oh, you’re from FODORS! Why didn’t you say so? I was expecting you!” We did not point out that he had. So Belknap Hot Springs resort has been there since the early 1900s in a variety of guises, and now consists of many cabins, tent spaces, rv spaces, and large lawns where you can get married or have a wedding reception. Marlene’s grandson got married right over there. It was very nice, but also very busy and with a hint of Disneyland about it. They have a pool which they keep at 104 degrees – they add cold water to keep from scalding the guests, always a good idea.

Then back past Cougar Dam to Eagle Rock Inn, a place I would stay for sure. A little musty, perhaps, but peaceful and beautiful, and the innkeeper Debbie believes pampering guests – cookies, port, candy, more candy, and a 3 course breakfast, not to mention more candy. I think we might have stayed there forever except she was full.

Once we were done there, we had no more appointments.  Marlene had told us we should try the old highway to Mckenzie pass (242), and we had driven up it a short way after we left the resort. Should we go back to it and drive the whole way to the pass? Should we go back to the hotel and take a nap? Should we go back to Terwilliger Hot Springs? Yes, we should go back to THS! So we did – our passes were good all day. Dave had shorts in the trunk, but I went with the optional clothing option. We swam around in the lake for about half an hour, including swimming over to the waterfall and letting it fall on our heads. It was wonderful! If you’re down in that area it’s something you should do. If you’re wondering, Dave is such a hoopy  frood that he had two clean towels in his car which we took with us this time, so we got dried off and dressed and headed back to Corvallis in a very good mood.

We got back around 6 and didn’t need to leave for dinner until 7, so I filled up the Jacuzzi and had a wonderful time. Somehow I’m a gold member in the Holiday Inn loyalty program, so they’d upgrade us to a king size room with spa on the river side of the hotel  - it’s no Eagle Rock Inn but it’s not bad either.

Eventually I got out of the tub and we headed out to Gathering Together Farm for dinner. GTF has a stand at the Portland Farmer’s market every Saturday, but the farm is in Philomath and on Thursday and Friday nights they serve dinner at the restaurant on the farm. Go there. It’s a wonderful funky place, with tables out on the semi-enclosed porch by the store.  You can dress up and have a fancy dinner for adults (the table next to us) or go casual and bring the loud children (the table behind us) and everybody will fit in and have a good time.  The food is very, very good (the carrot puree under my perfectly cooked duck breast and Dave’s chocolate mousse dessert were standouts, but the squash/corn/basil soup and melon/almond/goat cheese salad appetizers were pretty special too). We had a nice 2009 Lumos Temperance Hill Pinot Noir, and the prices were very reasonable. Also our server was super and the whole experience was delightful. They are open for lunch and I would go there again in a minute. 

So that was our day. It was a good one.