Oregon- Wednesday July 31st

After a very active day yesterday we had a slower start and headed off to do our first wine tasting of this trip in Oregon. We started in st innocent winery about an hour north of Corvallis. This is apparently the area where pinot noir was first grown in the Willamette valley. The winery was very pretty. We were tasting 2011 and 2010 vintages which were wet and cool years here so not the rich fruit forward pinots that I prefer but Dick was happy. We just went to one other winery- Cristom, and decided that even sharing a tasting that was enough that early in the day.

We then came across the Willamette cheese company and so stopped in for a cheese tasting which was very nice after the wine. Ironically we ended up buying Oregon Gouda !

On our way back south I checked email only to discover that our planned visit to the Ashland Shakespeare festival to see A Midsummer's Night Dream for our anniversary treat (August 1st) was in jeopardy due to forest fires in southern Oregon that we knew nothing about having not kept up with news whilst traveling. The theater is open air and they had already canceled several performances for the health of both actors and audience. That forced us to change our plans. So we went back to Corvallis for lunch and called to cancel the hotel in Ashland. Instead we decided to do a scenic route and visit Crater lake.

We finished the day visiting one more small winery called Brigadoon and then drove down I5 to Roseberg.

Interstate 5 is horrible in central California but this was fine. Not horribly busy and the drivers generally polite. So far we've found that driving in Oregon is much nicer than in California. Everyone seems to follow the rules of the road, sticks to the speed limit or only just over and is easy. Lots of passing places on narrow roads too. Even the RV drivers consider other motorists. The only odd thing thing is not being able to pump you own petrol/gas! Weird but a state law

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