We left Crater Lake largely because it was so cold. But we were also eager to get to Corvallis, Oregon to see my sister-cousin and her girlfriend, Katy and Christy respectively. Corvallis is a ridiculously cute little town of about 50,000 with the state’s largest university, Oregon State University, in it.
We spent about four days there. We of course all had a blast hanging out with Katy and Christy. Dinner at their place let us unwind in a proper house while the kids could climb trees and play with the chickens.
Katy hooked us up with a babysitter one night and the four grownups went out to a fancy dinner and had a few cocktails. It was a nice break for us, but the kids had a great time hanging with the sitter who was 16 years old.
Another fun treat we enjoyed was getting to get a full tour of one of the police cars. Christy, a homicide detective, set us up to tour one of the patrol cars with her former partner. We were all surprised by All The Gear that is in every car.
After hitting the awesome farmers market and checking out a good portion of Corvallis, we left for Portland. We decided to take a more scenic route and stop at a few of the wineries on the way. A group called Harvest Host allows wineries and farms to offer free camping to RVers which allows us to see and sample wine we might otherwise miss. We spent a night each at two different wineries which were both beautiful. The first was Eola Legacy Vineyards. I can say it looked almost identical to the wineries in New Zealand. It was absolutely spectacular.
Eola Legacy Vineyard was spectacular.
We picnicked next to the lake for dinner.
The other winery we visited was Arcane Wineries. The man who owned the place specialized in red wines, so we were pretty happy with everything we tried.
The kids ate cherries off the tree next to where we parked at the winery.
From there, we hit up a family owned berry farm. There were more berries than I’d ever heard of. Of course we picked berries and generally enjoyed the beauty of the views before heading into Portland.
So many berries!
Acres and acres of strawberries and other varietals.
Honorable mention:
Cute dog spotted at a bar on the river in Corvallis