Pacific Northwest Road Trip

With COVID restrictions still making international travel a little dicey, in the fall of 2021 we embarked on another Road Trip, this time to the great Pacific Northwest…. during their offseason. We only had about a month to plan this trip when our initial plans fell apart, so we focused on what we knew. From friend recommendations, reading, and just general knowledge, we knew to look for wine, beer, hiking, and the scenic driving of Highway 101. 2300 miles, 40+ wineries, 10 breweries and a few hikes later, here’s our story.

Planning and lessons learned

We flew in and out of Seattle, WA. on this trip, although Portland, OR. was also an option, or in to one and out of another. The airfare and rental car costs decided it for us, so it was in and out of Seattle. We purposely skipped exploring both of these cities as well, since we wouldn’t be able to do either of them justice in the limited time we would have had, and both can be destinations all by themselves at a later date.

We had planned on a number of hikes along the way, but one of the reasons it is the offseason in this area is the rain, fog, and just general gloom that limited some of the trails we could do. Luckily there were no lack of wineries and breweries to add to the list. That brings me to the last point, there were over 400 wineries along our trek, we obviously couldn’t stop at them all. We used a combination of price, location, and availability on the days we were there to help us narrow it down a bit but we still missed plenty of places we would have liked to have visited.

Yakima and Walla Walla

Our first stops were in Eastern Washington to visit the Yakima and Walla Walla American Viticultural Areas. We reviewed a few hiking trails in the area, but the weather never really cleared up while we were here. Yakima gets 6-8 inches of rain a year, and it felt like we were there for half of it over the course of two days.

Yakima

In two days around Yakima, we visited 10 wineries and joined two wine clubs but easily could have joined two more. The first one we joined was Two Mountain Winery, supposedly you can see two mountains from their estate, but with the weather on our trip, we couldn’t verify that. They had some solid reds including their Cab Sav and Cab Franc, along with a white wine that we’d never had before that was amazing called Lemberger, a varietal from Austria and the only winery in the area that grows it. Our second wine club was Thurston Wolfe, a neat little tasting room with heavy pours and even a free charcuterie plate, and there’s never anything free in this region. We didn’t taste anything here we didn’t like and we especially liked the Zinfandel. Honorable mentions in this area go to Airfield Estates, that has a really cool looking tasting room and a solid selection of swag and Cultura Wine. Cultura had a great tasting room that was being manned by the owner and they had excellent wines like their Cab Sav, Merlot, and Cab Franc. The only downside was their limited shipping ability.

Walla Walla

We arrived at Walla Walla towards the end of the day and and we found one place open at the old airbase, Adamant Cellars. This was a fun little district with several wineries, distilleries, and breweries, we’re told that during normal years there are some pretty cool events out here. The wines were ok here but he was getting ready to close for the season and didn’t have much left, luckily he also let us taste them for free.

During our first full day in Walla Walla, we scheduled a number of tastings, maybe one day it won’t be the case, but during COVID, reservations are the safe play in very popular areas. We made reservations early in the day at Pepper Bridge Winery, Sleight of Hand, and Long Shadows, these were all very good with the Sauvignon Blanc at Pepper Bridge, the Chardonnay at Sleight of Hand, and the Saggi Super Tuscan at Long Shadow as our favorites.

We had lunch at a familiar name but definitely a different place called Fast Eddy’s in Walla Walla, a quick little inexpensive drive-in. In the afternoon, we stayed close to our hotel, the Marcus Whiteman, a pretty impressive hotel built in the 1920s. On the first floor of the hotel, and then just down the street are three tasting rooms that we really enjoyed hanging out at. Our first stop was Spring Valley, which has an excellent little tasting room and an even cooler story that they’ll tell you. What’s amazing about this winery is that they’ll let you taste some of their oldest vintages, we bought two bottles that were six years old. We really liked everything here and even joined the wine club.

Our final two stops of the day were in the Marcus storefront, Mansion Creek Cellars and Heritage by L’Ecole tasting rooms. We really enjoyed the L’Ecole wines and almost joined their wine club but settled on shipping home a case of their Syrah instead.

Columbia Gorge and Hood River

Leaving Walla Walla, we headed west through the Columbia Gorge, which is a pretty cool drive with lots of pullouts for pictures. Our final destination was Hood River, but we passed it up to hit a few stops that came highly recommended but, due to the weather, Multnomah Falls was the only stop that seemed worth it. Headed back into town, we stopped at three wineries, Mt. Hood Winery, Marchesi Vineyard and then Cathedral Ridge. We enjoyed the wines at Mt. Hood Winery, and would have loved to see the view, but the overcast day deprived us of that. Marchesi Vineyard had a nice outdoor setup, but the wines weren’t all that great. Cathedral Ridge was a great choice, with both a nice tasting room and some excellent wines. We shipped home a case including their Chardonnay and CabMerlot.

For the evening we had dinner at Everyone’s Brewing, a nice little brewpub in White Salmon with a decent menu and an excellent beer lineup. We stayed that night at a beautiful detached garage turned AirBnB with a fantastic view of the surrounding mountains in White Salmon. The hotels and AirBnB’s in Hood River were pretty pricey, but just across the river and up the hill in White Salmon, the prices dropped significantly.

The Oregon High Desert

Mt Hood

Our first stop in the high desert was one of the highest points, we did a four mile hike at the base of Mt Hood along the Tamanawas Falls trail. Even though we got a little rain, the hike was great with beautiful fall colors.

We never actually got to see Mt Hood, but like many of the sights out this way, the fall isn’t always the best time to catch them. During our drive south though we did get to see Mt. Roosevelt and The Three Sisters, so we were able to cross mountains off of our list of things to see on this trip.

Our stop for the evening was in Bend, OR. This was a much hyped stop with apparently a pretty incredible beer scene, but a combination of COVID and arriving later in the day on a Wednesday conspired to limit our choices. We visited Deschutes Brewery, Bend Brewing, and Boneyard Beer. Hands down we enjoyed Deschutes beers the best. While there we had a pretzel with cheese dip and the dip was amazing, we found out it came from Tillamook, which settled any debate we had about stopping there later in the trip.

The day after Bend we got an early start to make sure we had plenty of time at Crater Lake National Park. Our research on this was a little mixed, we knew there were trails, we knew that we might run across some closures, and we know there could be weather issues. Well the trails were closed, only a small portion of the rim road was open, and there was weather, but we got lucky for sure! The north entrance was closed, so we got delayed by about a half hour, but once we finally got to the south entrance, and flashed our America The Beautiful pass, we were in and headed to the visitors center. We were initially disappointed at the heavy fog cover, but after driving to where the road closed, we got an opening just past the Discovery Point trailhead.

Southern Oregon

We covered Southern Oregon over the course of a couple of disjoined days, starting with Medford OR. in the afternoon after we left Crater Lake. We visited RoxyAnn Winery and really enjoyed their Chardonnay and Malbec. We also had lunch there, which was a BBQ food truck called Rogue-ish Smokers, the pulled pork and Mac n Cheese were outstanding! Our second stop was 2 Hawk Vineyard, which had a beautiful tasting room, some pretty nice wines, but they were a bit on the pricier side for us to send anything home. Our next stop was Edenvale Winery, which was a bust for us. Our final stop of the night was Dancin Vineyards, which had an amazing patio complete with a waterfall and koi fish.

That night we stayed in a rather unique AirBnB, it was a two story tree house that looked and felt like a tiny house on the first floor, with an enclosed porch on the second floor for reading, playing board games, or just chillaxing.

Redwood National Forrest

The day, in between jaunts into Southern Oregon, we dropped down into California to view the Redwood National Forrest. We had a couple of points of interest on our agenda including Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Trees of Mystery, and the Klamath Tour Thru Tree. After visiting all three, we decided not to continue to the official Redwood National Park since our goal was to see Giant Sequoia trees and we saw those in spades. The first stop was Jedediah, the road in isn’t well paved, but it’s well worth the time. For about 90% of the time we were there, we had the place to ourselves, we were able to setup our tripod, walk around freely, and only once did we ever get photobombed.
The second stop on our list was Trees of Mystery, which had all the sounds of a tourist trap, but it was actually well worth it. With the Native American museum, the treetop canopy walking path, and the self-guided ground level tour, this is a great stop. Our final one was the Klamath Tour Thru Tree, which is the tree you can drive through. This one truly was a tourist trap, but if you don’t want to drive an additional hour and a half, then it’s probably worth it for the picture.

Highway 101

Over the next four days, we drove up the coast along Highway 101 with some excursions inland for wine. Along the way we stopped at several scenic turnouts, a few breweries, and the world famous Tillamook Creamery.

Our destination on the first day was Bandon, OR. but the fog and poor weather made a lot of our stops impossible to photograph. We did get a couple of good ones including Natural Bridges Viewpoint and Ariya's Beach. Once we got to Bandon, we stopped at Broken Anchor Bar and Grill for lunch. They had a surprisingly good food and beer selection for what looked like a dive bar from the outside. Wandering around town we found a seafood market that also sold local crafts. The downtown was a nice walkable area with candy shops, restaurants, bars, souvenir shop, and a water front with locals casting their lines in the chilly temps. For dinner we stopped by Bandon Brewing Company and had their wood fired pizza and chili along with a flight of their beers. It got pretty busy, so we were lucky to get in and grab two seats at the bar.

We returned to highway 101 a couple of days later, having skipped about 70 miles. We started in Florence, OR. and continued north to get as many stops in as possible while also making it to Tillamook before they closed. Our first stop was the overlook near the Sea Lion Caves. You’ve got to pay to get to the lower lookouts, but we got some nice pictures of seals and some scenic shots of the Heceta Head Lighthouse, which we would also have to pay to get in to. Our next stop was somewhere around the top of our list when we started planning this trip, Thor’s Well. This formation is a hole in the rocky coast that water sinks into and is blasted out when the waves come in, there are several vantage points to see it from and it is best viewed during high tide.

Continuing up the coast we stopped at two breweries to help break up the trip. The first one was The Horn Public House in Depoe Bay, they carried a couple of very good IPAs and a nice smooth red ale.

Our second stop was Pelican Bay Brewing, there they had a uniquely cool beer flight tray and a willingness to let us try just about anything we wanted. This was a nice little find on the beach near Chief Kiawanda Rock, which provided some fun views of cold weather surfers. The beers were great, we particularly liked the Hazestack, Hazy Rock, Bad Santa, Slide Tackle, Tsunami, Sea’N Red, Beak Breaker, Updrift, and Kiwanda. The food looked great too, but we weren’t looking for a meal at that time. This would have a been a great place to bring a few cases home if that was a possibility.

We ended the day in Seaside, which has a nice little boardwalk area with restaurants, bars, ice cream parlors, arcades, and plenty of souvenir shops. This is also the location of the End of the Trail monument, signifying where the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Pacific. We stayed the night in a nice little motel on the cheap. Seaside is a tourist attraction, so the further you stay from the beach, the cheaper it is. If you don’t mind a leisurely walk then you’ll notice that prices drop if you stay west of the Little Muddy Creek.

We made it a point of arriving to the Tillamook Creamery before they closed at the amazingly early our of 6 pm and we were not disappointed. There’s a nice self guided tour that walked us through the cheese making process, the restaurant that had some pretty nice options, the Mac & Cheese was amazing, and then the store. There is also an ice cream station with plenty of options, but ice cream just wasn’t on our minds with as cool out as it was out. If you’re getting there later in the day, check the front door before you buy anything, they were handing out free samples when we left and those would come in handy later in our trip.

Willamette Valley (and umpqua)

We split Willamette Valley up so that we could see as much of the coast as possible, that means we did the south from Roseburg to Eugene and then the north side from McMinnville to Newberg.

Roseburg
During our second foray into southern Oregon wine country we started in the Umpqua Valley. We had stayed along the coast in Bandon, OR. the previous night and drove east through the mountains to Roseburg early in the morning. The first stop was Girardet Wine Cellar which had a nice little tasting room but the wines weren’t much to write about. Our second stop yielded better results. Abacela had a pretty fancy tasting room and their wines were pretty classy as well. We both really loved the Grenache, which came as a surprise to us, since Grenache is typically used as part of a blend in our experience. It was smooth with a buttery finish, and yes, we bought a case to send home. The Mablec was quite good as well and the Albarino and Tempranillo were solid. We continued into Roseburg and stopped by Paul O’Brien Winery tasting room. It was situated in an old warehouse but had the look and feel of a comfortable old scotch bar. The wines were pretty amazing with the 2016 Pinot Noir Madrona Vineyard and 106 Sangiovese Southern Oregon being our two favorites. We joined the wine club here because the discount brought the wines down to a pretty reasonable price.

We continued north to Eugene, where our Airbnb was for the next two nights, but with it being a Sunday night, we wanted to make sure we stopped at a few of the tasting rooms that would be closed on Monday. We started at Bennett Vineyards & Wine Co. and both really liked the 2015 Cheshire Valley Estate Pinot Noir, but not too much else. Our last stop of the day was J. Scott Cellars, which has a nice two story tasting room with some very nice wine and a delicious food and dessert menu. We really enjoyed the Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, their Malbec and Zin were solid, but the Syrah felt like it needed a little more shelf time. Our Airbnb was a converted garage, but it was pretty awesome with a huge bed and a great setup, being in Eugene, they probably do a solid business during college football season. We took a walk in the morning through Alton Baker Park, which was a great way to work off our delicious breakfast at The Original Pancake House. After our walk and breakfast we stopped at Terra Pacem with their fun little storefront in the 5th Street Public Market. We bought a case of their full-bodied Pinot Noir and listened to their owner talk about the work they do in helping disabled young adults learn job skills and become more independent. Our next stop was Silvan Ridge Winery where we got some mixed results with the Malbec and Super Rioja getting split decisions. On our way back to the AirBnB, we returned to 5th Street to visit Pfeiffer Winery’s tasting room. The wines there were good and the staff was very nice, but the prices were a little more than we were looking to spend.

Newberg and McMinnville
After exploring the southern half of Willamette and then the rest of highway 101, we returned to the northern half of Willamette Valley starting in McMinnville. Our first stop, and probably best stop of the day was the Troon Winery tasting room. The staff was really great and as for the wines, we both really liked their Garrigue Syrah, Estate Syrah, and Siskiyou Syrah. Miranda also really liked the Biodynamic Red Blend and the Zinfandel. The next stop was the Willamette Valley Winery tasting room, which was a very old fashioned décor tasting room with some really good reds. The 2019 Estate Pinot Noir was our favorite, it was very smooth and full, almost like a Zin. We took a trip out of town, passing by the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, which looks like a must visit our next time out, to head to Remy Wines Tasting Room. This was a bit of a mistake on our part, the tasting room was very awkward and the wines really weren’t worth it.

Our second day in the area started just down the street from our Airbnb at Chehalem Tasting Room in Newberg, we got there at opening and had the whole place to ourselves. They had some really good wines there, we both liked their Riesling, Chardonnay, and their Corral Creek Pinot Noir. The next stop was at the far end of our route for the day, Cougar Crest Winery, we were again the first visitors of the day and had the run of the place. We really liked their Grenache and Malbec, along with their 2014 Estate Encore, 2014 Estate Tempranillo, 2014 Estate Determination, 2014 Merlot, and 2015 Estate Syrillo. We actually liked it so much we ended up joining the wine club as well. The next two stops were across the street from each other, Cliff Creek Cellars and Carlton Cellars, both in Newberg. Cliff Creek had a smoky Syrah that we both liked and the Red Red was a good table wine. Carlton Cellars had a nice tasting room with a bartender we enjoyed talking to, but the wines weren’t much to write about for us.

Mount Saint Helens

Like Seattle, we skipped Portland on our way north because this city can be a trip unto itself one day when things settle down. During our final full day in the area we swung by Mount Saint Helens, the site of the horrific eruption in 1980. The entire north side of the volcano was blown open, allowing us to now see into the crater from the Johnson Ridge Observatory. The road up was long and windy and had plenty of viewpoints to stop at. Parking was very limited but luckily we weren’t competing with anyone during the pandemic.

our trip

For the second straight year we replaced an overseas trip with a road trip in the US thanks to COVID. This time it was the Pacific Northwest, with its wineries, breweries, and beautiful scenery. We joined a half dozen wine clubs and are looking forward to enjoying these wines as they come in. Seattle and Portland will be on the future plans once those cities get back to their former glory!