Day Trips

The weather has been just right for tooling around in the Miata with the top down and Tom just cleaned all the spring's pollen off so was bright and shiny. On Sunday we headed toward Hood River to visit Foothill Yarn and Fibers. I'd seen the name and read a glowing review written by a California visitor who was (not surprisingly) enamored with the Portland area, so that was our first stop. It would have been hard to find were it not for the signs very strategically placed at every turn. And they were busy. It's a lot easier to observe a yarn buying moratorium when you can't see and touch the yarn...

The brown and cream are spun from Bethel and El Misty, two alpacas there at the Cascade Alpaca Farm. Lovely soft yarn.

We also got to see and touch alpacas, and Charlie the Great Pyrenees dog.

In town, we had lunch at Bette's Place. I had a fabulous fresh crab, avocado and cream cheese omelet - and MAN was there a lot of crab in it! Next door is Gorge Dog - a very cute doggy gift shop. Next we headed toward our ultimate destination - Knot Another Hat, where I bought a purse kit, complete with yarn, fabric, and handles.

Whereever we go we like to find things that are locally made so we stopped in at Made in the Gorge, an artists co-op. I was struck immediately by Bonnie White's watercolors. A print of two shelties that was just too hard to pass up.


Another Day Trip
Two weekends ago, it was the first of the moderate weather (not raining and not nearing 100°) so we decided we needed pull out the Miata for it's first ride of the season. That trip took us south to Salem to see the Capitol. We had a lovely walk around the Capitol and Willamette University grounds. Salem is pretty much closed on Sunday, but we did find a restaurant worth mentioning: Busick Court Restaurant. It was a great brunch. We found out it's been feature on Food TV's $40-a-Day because we sat under the picture of Rachael Ray. Of course they just showed the Salem episode two weeks earlier, so we'll have to wait awhile to see it.