What? Two sunny days in a row in Portland? Not wanting to miss doing something outside, we decided to go for a bike ride. Kate located two city bikes near her house for us.
Daughter Kate is entering her credit card information to rent the bikes. Frank is staying out of her way.
We were doing a loop around Katie’s neighborhood, a ride along the Willamette, and then along a slough or backwater of the Columbia River. It was pretty cold at first but warmed up as we rode.
Stopping to check out the view along the Williamette River. There were warehouses and two ship building industries on the other side of the river. The ducks and geese were out for a swim. They didn’t seem to mind that the water was low. This is the bike path along the slough. It was right beside the Portland racetrack. We could hear the roar of engines as the cars lapped around the track. Not being a huge NASCAR fan, it detracted from the serenity of the trail. Here are Frank and I in front of Katie’s house. We made it all in one piece. Kate and Dan returned the rental bikes while we took a much needed break. (Notice the inflatable black cat on top of her neighbor’s roof. His name is Midnight! )Of course I had to visit the chickens. Kate gave them some apple peelings and meal worms, Fog Horn, T-Bone and Bakewell got really excited! We missed spending time with Kate’s two cats, Scarfy and Fred. Sadly they both had to be put down about a month ago, one week apart. Dan made this frame in memory of their beloved feline companions. In the picture they look like they were best friends. In reality, not so much! At Fred Meyer we saw Mochi which are Japanese ice cream balls covered with dough. Kate brought four for us to try. This is a vanilla blueberry mochi cut in half. It was delicious. Kate surprised us with Dungeness crabs for our supper. They were huge compared to the ones we had to throw back yesterday. Frank thought the whole process was messy and a lot of work, but we all agreed the crab meat was delicious.
After dinner we went to see a local theatrical group’s production called Gumbo… a steel magnolia in the Rose City. It was written and performed by Kate’s next door neighbor, the one with the black cat on the roof. It was a series of humorous skits about her growing up in New Orleans with her Cajun family. It was very entertaining.
Her Shelly is doing a cooking show skit making of course, “gumbo”!Apple crustato with carmel sauce made by Chef Kate. It was a flat crusted apple pie. Very yummy!
All in all, we had another great day visiting Kate and Dan. With a full belly, I called it a day. I knew I wouldn’t have any problem sleeping tonight.
I was really excited. Kate and Dan were taking Frank and me crabbing out on the Oregon Coast. They had gone a year ago and their whole party each caught their individual limit of 12 Dungeness crabs each. We were hopeful that we would come home to feast on our 48 crabs. Maybe crab cakes or even eating them out of the shells. We’d decide later.
It took about two hours to get to the coast. Kate had reserved a boat with an outboard engine. At first the owner of the boat was reluctant to rent since none of us had had an experience driving with an outboard motor, but Dan convinced him that he had a lot of experience with engines growing up on a farm and was confident he could handle it.
Captain Dan navigating our boat on the bay. There were a lot of boats crabbing by the wall in the bay. Each buoy had a crab pot under it. Here Frank and I are in the positions we remained during our crabbing adventure. We weren’t much help. This is one of our buoys. We had NB 302, NB 306, and NB 307. The idea was to throw a crab pot in the water, spacing all three at different spots. Then coming back to the first one 15 minutes later, pulling it back up and checking for crabs, etc. We were given a measuring device. If the crab wasn’t as wide as the gauge, it had to be thrown back. Also only males were legal to catch. Kate was in charge of pulling up the crab traps. It was a watery, messy affair. We were always hopeful that when she pulled up the trap there would be crabs galore. I could just taste those crab cakes as we anticipated our catch. Here is one of crab traps with a few unhappy crabs. None of these were big enough. Oh, darn it! We got excited a few times thinking that some were big enough only to find out they weren’t. Here a crab fell out of the trap and Frank had to grab it from the back to toss him back. None in this trap were keepers. Our luck up to this point had not been good.It was a beautiful, sunny day. It was fun watching the seagulls fighting over pieces of bait (chicken) that had come loose from the crab traps. They made quite a racket with their feeding frenzy. Throwing in the crab pots and hauling them back out was the main activity. Since our catch always had crabs that were too small, our enthusiasm was dwindling. Kate’s hands were getting cold with no reward in sight.
Then to add to the frustration, we were unable to find buoy NB 302. Dan took us up and back by the rock wall of the bay several times, but we could not find the missing buoy. We knew we would be charged $40 for any lost traps, so we returned to the dock in a somewhat subdued mood. Not only did we not catch any “keeper” crabs, we were now minus a trap to boot!
Here are Captain Dan and first mate Kate waiting for the owner to show up with his trailer to take the boat back to the Netart’ s Marina.
Dan did a great job navigating the boat back and forth along the bay. No one seemed to be catching much that morning. Our luck changed though as about an hour after we left the marina, Kate got a call from the office saying that one of the other boats in their fleet had found missing NB 302!
After our crabbing adventure, we were very close to the town of Tillamook. In this neck of the woods Tillamook = cheese factory. Frank and I had stopped at the factory about 10 years ago when we visited Oregon to visit our son Matt when he sang in the Oregon Bach Fest in Eugene. Since then, they have designed and opened a new visitor’s center called the Tillamook Creamery which is attached to the factory.
We were really hungry so we went to their food court to make our order. Fried milk curds, tomato soup with curds, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese were ordered as well as a hamburger with fries for Frank. I had never tasted deep fried curds before. I was surprised how tasty they were. I gobbled more than my share. Sorry no picture of this extremely greasy treat. Just think of how yummy french fries are at a country fair to imagine that “let’s have just one more” flavor.
After our lunch we took the self guided tour through the factory. Even though it was a Saturday, the production lines were working. Since the factory is open 7 days a week, I think they probably have a small number of workers on the weekend shifts.
Here the blocks of cheese are weighed and if they aren’t two pounds they are taken off the conveyor belt. We saw one of the workers putting extra layers on the rejected blocks. They are then sent to cold storage for the aging process. Some hands on activities were available for the younger set. There were stations for bottle feeding a calf as shown above and hooking up a milk machine to a cow’s udder. At my request, Dan and Kate posed for the picture above.
With full tummies, we headed back to Portland. The winding roads were not a big hit with my stomach full of fried curds. I am happy to report that I did not need to ask Kate or Dan to pull over to the side of the road, but I was really glad when we returned to Kate’s house.
Not much supper was needed, although now Capt. Dan turned into Chef Dan and fried some tasty taco meat for us. We had taken a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of Fallingwater as a gift, and this now called to the jigsaw enthusiasts. (Meantime I worked on my blog and fell asleep.) Being out in that fresh salty air is very tiring. In spite of our lack of a bountiful catch, we had a fun day trying our hand at crabbing, even though Frank and I were no help at all. Thank goodness our hosts have been very patient in introducing us to crabbing.
We left our house at 6:30 am for the Philadelphia airport. Our flight to Chicago through to Portland left at 10:15. We hit rush hour traffic but knew we would and had plenty of time.
Our final flight was right on schedule, landing in Portland a little after 3pm PST. Daughter Kate picked us up a little after 3:30 and we were on our way to her house in North Portland.
Kate’s house on Halleck St. Notice the box gardens in the front yard. Can you believe it? Kate has tomatoes on her plants. They are still tasty. Amazing!After supper we visited a local brewery called “Fun House“. It’s located in a garage. Kate and Dan filled their ”growler” with freshly brewed “Triple Berry Snowcone”.
On Friday, Kate and her boyfriend Dan both had to work , so Frank and I were on our own. I walked to the Columbia Pool which is only a few blocks away from Kate’s house. I attended a one-hour water exercise class. On the way to and from the pool I enjoyed the colorful trees. Even though Portland has a rainforest climate, the deciduous trees were at their peak.
Falling leaves covered the sidewalks. A group of school children were biking through Columbia Park when I left the pool. Certainly not a common sight in Pennsylvania!
After lunch Frank and I drove a hiker friend’s Toyota to the local grocery store to do some shopping. I was surprised to see so many organic and natural food choices, a lot more than our stores at home.
Fred Meyer is a local chain grocery store here in the Northwest.
After supper we headed to Portland’s Night Market. It was open Oct 25th &26th. It is located in the South East section of the city in an old factory building. The were lots of food carts and craft vendors. The picture above is of an mobile tattoo van. Frank had to surpress his urge to get a tattoo since we were limited on time.
Only in Portland- A Nature Commode Urinal – Your pee is fertilizer. Ever heard of chickpea ice cream? Here Kate and Dan are ordering some. I had black raspberry; It tasted like sherbet and was quite tasty.
By the time we got back to Kate’s house, I was exhausted. I had to take a picture of the next door neighbors Halloween lights.
On the roof is a lighted black cat. Unfortunately it is hard to see in the picture. Too exhausted to do any more blog tonight. Picture taken by my helpful daughter.
