Memorial Day was coming up in a week or two and we still had no idea what we were going to do. Our local sailing pals said “What, go out on a crowded weekend? We’re retired and don’t need to fight the crowds”. The vaccine rollout was rapidly succeeding, and it was starting to look like we were going to be out of covid hell and able to travel and socialize again outside of our bubble.
As luck would have it, I was randomly looking at concert schedules one night and checked in to see when I’d be able to catch Ashly McBryde live. And there I see it – Holey Moley, she’s playing her first post-covid concert at a casino in Southern Oregon. And there are tickets available! Road trip time for sure.
But this is just over a week before, and it being Memorial Day weekend, reservations for the trailer are hard to find. So Rob pops open the Harvest Hosts website and starts looking at what’s between us and the casino. We stopped the first night at a Harvest Hosts winery in the spectacularly beautiful Umpqua Valley.
This was the Henry Estates Winery – the ancestors of the founders had not only been the original white settlers in the Umpqua Valley, but also brought the first Pinot Noir vines to Oregon. Scott Henry III greeted us in the driveway as we pulled in while we were looking for our Harvest Hosts membership cards. We settled in to our parking spot and walked up to the tasting room. Scott was on the porch, and greeted us with the same “Hi, I’m Scott. Where are you from?” that he had shared only a few moments before. It was obvious that he was in the beginning stages of some severe memory loss. But he turned out to be a charming host, joining us for wine and sharing stories of his life making wines and traveling the world to other wine making regions. He had invented a trellis system for the vines that was used in many vineyards world wide. The messaging from the tasting room hosts about his mental health and ability to continue as head winemaker was mixed – there seems to be much support from the other winemakers in the area, but one employee did insist he was fully capable of still making wine.
The next day we went into the RV campground at Seven Feathers Casino, where the concert would be that evening. This is a first class facility, with swimming pools and gathering areas, and shuttles to the casino. Rob and I are not really into RV parks just for the sake of sitting around talking about your RV, and we’re totally not gamblers. So we took a walk into the tiny town next to the casino and just waited for the concert. And it was worth the wait – Ashley totally delivered, and you could tell they were all thrilled to have a live audience for the first time in well over a year. Here is a link to a performance her band gave at the 2020 American Country Music awards in Nashville – they have so much collective talent, and she’s a great songwriter. https://youtu.be/Los8qDdEeFE
Our last stop for the busy weekend was at another vineyard west of Salem. This is Cardwell Hills Cellars, and another very interesting story. It had been abandoned, and was saved by a former engineer and executive from the oil and gas industry. Some of the vines were not suitable for the region, and some were saved. In the few years since they took over, the awards have been plentiful.
Rob & I were delighted to get a private tour of the facility from owner Dan Chapel on Monday morning before we headed home (again, with a good supply of wine in Nonnie’s Diner.)
Our last planned stop on the way home was at a state park on the Oregon Coast. Anytime I can score a reservation for a spot at a park is great, and the coast just south of Cannon Beach was a bonus. But this was scotch broom season, and as we backed into our site I saw the noxious weed in full bloom all over the park, and just feet from where we stepped out of our trailer. The headache started almost immediately, and the campsite was determined No Bueno. We left the next morning and headed home.