Day 5

Well, it doesn’t seem like we did a lot of stuff Thursday, but we took all day to do it! Plus, we had an awesome time!

After an underwhelming time in Napa Valley on Wednesday, when almost every place was closed, we decided to veer off course a little bit and go through what has been described as the last great undiscovered wine region, the Umpqua valley in Southern Oregon.

Along the way we met some incredibly interesting people, like our barmaids Jazz (what a great name) and Rachel (she decided she needed a change, so she took a map of Oregon and made it a dart board, and the spot she hit was in wine country, so she moved there). Or, take one of the winemakers named Greg, who left his defense contractor job in Washington D.C. to move back home to Oregon and make wine. He came home after his mother died a few years ago to hike to the peak of Mt. Hood with his 84 year old father, got inspired and got retired! He toured us around his winery and even yodeled for us Texans!

Or how about the vineyard manager named Don who looked like he was a body builder, and had previously lived in Napa Valley and worked in the wine business, until he moved to Umpqua Valley. Ironically, business took him back to Napa to a vineyard they were buying grapes from, and the Napa folks, wanted to charge him a tasting fee in the tasting room. That was when he washed his hands of Napa, and they grow or buy all their stuff in Oregon.

We also got an education in wines -- how to sample, what to look for, what tastes we liked. We learned that some winemakers (like Greg) don’t take all the extra sediment out, and that we LIKED that!

Johnny and Robert had a ball since they are now 21 (I made the folks card them wherever we went) -- and learned how many differences there were between wines.

We ate a lot, laughed a lot and talked a lot. We had a very serious conversation about marriage and what it means to be a man of God -- one of the best conversations of my life.

Before you knew it, it was 6pm, so we headed up the road and stopped in Salem for the night (Oregon’s capital and right outside of Portland). We have amended our travel plans and will stay here for two more nights, thus skipping Seattle. Sunday we will begin to make our way back toward Texas by driving to the Yellowstone NP area. Today we experience the city -- Powells Books, Chinatown, maybe even the Zoo. Hope you have a great day -- we are doing laundry and getting ready for the day! Much love to you all!