What a pleasant Sunday morning we are spending right now at our friends' Elfi's and Erhard's beautiful home in Astoria/Oregon! After having driven about 550 miles (almost 900 km) in two days we were glad to finally have a "home" for three nights in a row! We arrived to Astoria, at the northern tip of the Oregon Coast (see pic), yesterday in the late afternoon, in the pooring rain, but the warm welcome of our friends compensated fully for that (as well as the fantastic king bolete (Steinpilz) soup, Elfi had prepared for dinner). This part of Oregon is blessed with mushrooms (and many other things) and the two of them are eager mushroom hunters.
We left Boise on Friday morning, again in the rain, and crossed the border to Oregon after about 50 miles. All of the sudden more fruit orchards came up. We stopped in Baker City (pic) - where we have been several years agon - and a couple of other places on the way, but due to the inclement weather, we arrived pretty early to our destination, Pendleton/Oregon.
We have visited the town at least three times before, among them once for the Pendleton Round-up, a rodeo and powwow - this was a special experience! Our first stop in Pendleton was at the Woolen Mill, famous for their colorful blankets, which are produced on the property. Since they are also offering second choice and underruns here for about half the regular price, we couldn't refrain from buying one. Not sure yet how we'll bring it home, though ...
On to Hemley's, another Pendleton institution, which started out as a saddlery and is now a huge western store with boots, hats, saddles, horse gear and other things Western riders can think of (pic). We were supposed to meet our friend Bobbie, the director of the Tamastslikt Institute (a fabulous Native American Museum) on the Umatilla Reservation at 3 pm, but she called and before the tour in the museum we got a chance to watch her work a 3-year old Appalousa colt, which was highly interesting!
In the evening we were invited to dinner in the Wildhorse Resort & Casino - where we were staying, too - and had a great meal in the Plateau Restaurant - smoked salmon soup, rabbit, dessert and good wine - with Bobbie, our other friend Michelle, and Bobbie's mom. Since our last stay in Pendleton the resort hotel has completely changed, a tower was added and the new rooms there are large, well equipped with microwave, coffeemaker etc. and tastefully decorated. We got a room on the 10th floor and had a great view, too.
Departed on Saturday morning, heading west, towards the coast, mostly along the Columbia River, as once, beginning of the 19th century, Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery did. We had rain most of the time during this technically wonderful drive, therefore we didn't stop as often as we had planned. Main break was at an outlet mall in Troutdale, closeby Portland, where we bought nice weather/rain-proof jackets at Eddie Bauer's for a good price (Oregon doesn't have sales tax!). We've been fools, bringing all the Alaska winter gear (which we didn't really need), but no rain jackets. Now we just have to figure out how to get rid of our winter gear, how to mail it to New York.
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