Escape to Portland

When we received the announcement from an Oregon winery I like a lot for their harvest celebration last Saturday, L, tired of being in the house with me and J so much, suggested we go. I shrugged and said, "Okay." We took Amtrak's Coast Starlight up to Portland, stayed a few days there, and took the train back. The first night we had to stay in a regular hotel, but the next days we stayed at the Hosteling International hostel in NW Portland. It was new and superb, highly recommended.

Saturday, we drove out to the winery in Carlton. The countryside gets rural quickly, and is quite lovely, with gently rolling hills of fields, orchards, farm buildings. We had a great time at the tasting, with the proprietor / winemaker's wife holding J for a while, indulging ourselves in buying a half case on futures of their best 2005 wine. Scott is very enthusiastic about this wine (and about the 2005 vintage in general), calling it his "favorite wine he's made," and with good reason. It's delicate, subtle, and complex, but with plenty of strength and tannin to hold it together for a long time. When I described to the other winemaker (Kelly) that the wine was being to reticent for me to tell what it had to offer, she suggested that I put my hand over the top of the glass and shake it up and down to aerate it. It would never have occurred to me to be so violent, but it did work very well to open up the wine. Getting home was more problematic, as J would be put into the carseat only to start wailing a mile or two later. We'd pull off and think we had him settled down only to repeat the scene. But we eventually made it home just fine.

Sunday, we walked several blocks to a very lovely classical Chinese garden, recognizing along the way, an elegant urban park that had been a setting in an otherwise terrible movie.

The train rides were fun and pleasant. Or at least I had fun figuring out how to work the bunk beds in the cramped rooms, and sleeping in them for a few hours at a stretch. J liked the train a lot. As people pointed out to us, all we had to do to rock him was just to hold him. He liked the scenery going by, even if he likely couldn't actually focus that far away.

But we've been back for a few days, and are working on moving all our stuff to the flat upstairs. (Mail will always still reach us at our present address.)