05

Our last day at Cedar Springs ended up being the 15^th. The night before, we made a fire by the creek and I went for a dip. It was a really nice last night to have. In the morning we packed up, had breakfast, and said our goodbyes. It was really sad to leave, but really nice to have such good memories and new friendships to take with us.

There is an alpaca farm close to the center that we had been scoping out the entire time we had been there, so we decided to stop and check it out. It is a family run place called Day Creek Alpacas.

A very nice woman, Janice, brought us in to visit with the alpacas.

Our dreams were realized, and they had a ton of alpacas, as well as two baby alpacas, one born on Mother’s Day, and the other on the 4^th of July. She invited us to pet them, which we did. They were really soft and friendly. Alpacas are the perfect pets, and even though we didn’t get to pick any up (one of our summer goals), I think it prepped us a little bit for the next chance.

Our next stop on our way to Portland was a winery. Pasck cellars was located next to a strange mini-mart type place so we were skeptical. It ended up being really nice on the inside, and their wine was actually pretty good. Kate bought a bottle of pineapple wine for Alan as a birthday gift, and we got a bottle of chardonnay to share.

We headed to Seattle to get some vegan food we had looked into, as well as organic vegan donuts! We ate sandwiches and soup at Chaco Canyon Cafe (which we didn’t take pictures of, surprisingly enough!) and then headed to mighty-o donut. Their selection of donuts was wonderful, we got to see donuts being made, and they were all completely organic (including sprinkles!) We settled on six of the best, not entirely knowing what we were getting ourselves into. They were the most perfect donuts ever, and require a picture to partially convey their amazingness.

We ate most of them on the road, heading to Portland.

We spent six nights in Portland. It was plenty, but I think we both wish that it could have been longer. Spending time with Alan, Noah, and Jordan was really great but it is sad knowing that we won’t see them for awhile. The day after we arrived was Alan’s birthday. That day I went out to lunch with my cousin Eric who lives in Portland. He took me to his apartment because his parents were visiting Portland too. It was really nice to see Eric and Sharron, and surprisingly not strange or awkward considering how long it has been since I have seen either of them. Then it was back to Alan and Noah’s to figure out some exciting birthday plans. We decided that we would try to go ice skating but the cost and time led us not to. Instead we went to go see Wall-E. I think everyone liked the movie well enough, in one fashion or another. Afterward we went and got Mexican food and ate it on the water in Forest Park.

After we went to Jordan’s house and had a little fire in her backyard. Despite Alan almost pushing Moses (a dog that lives at her house) and his favorite toy into the fire, it was a success.

Later that night we went into downtown Portland to wander around, ending up at an arcade/bar which was fairly exciting. Kate and I played Tetris, and Kate played Donkey Kong while we cursed Billy Mitchell and his world record scores. We also ended up going to Voo-doo Donuts to get late night donuts (my second time that day). We watched a guy try to eat a giant donut in 80 seconds to get it for free, but he failed pretty miserably.

We decided that the next day would be “B” themed, even though it was past Alan’s actual “b-day.” Activities for this “B-day” included: getting bagels, going to “the bins” (which is really just a Goodwill outlet with several large bins that have a lot of stuff thrown in them), hanging out with sweet buddies, having baked goods, and seeing the new Batman movie The Dark Knight.

All of these events were extremely successful, especially the last one. If you have not seen The Dark Knight yet, you need to.

Another day in Portland we to Mount Hood.

Full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we decided to head up the mountain.

Jordan quit pretty early on since she had a stomach full of cream of mushroom soup that did not fare well against physical activity. Having planned on the mountain being cold, we all ended up very warm and inappropriately dressed. This made everything more difficult, but not impossible. After awhile I decided that I didn’t feel like going any further. Alan, Noah and Kate continued up for quite awhile until they got to a small lodge that was the site of a child’s fancy birthday party.

Luckily the people there were kind enough to give them some water so that they were prepared for the way back down.

We all headed down the mountain to meet of with Jordan and go home.

Love,
Cheryl

We did a lot of other things in Portland, too. Including: eating vegan pizza by the slice, seeing Mattress play in a bar (you can smoke in them in Oregon…yikes) and belt out his hit single “El Dorado” with harmonica in tow, watching a lot of Frasier projected onto a big screen, petting rats, and talking about Star Trek almost exclusively sometimes.

Our last night in Portland we drank wine and played Pass the Pigs and a unique version of the game “Guess Who?” on the porch. This version of “Guess Who?” determines the character through personality traits instead of physical traits. In the typical version of the game, you try to figure out the other player’s person by asking if they have blonde hair or brown eyes. In our version, you ask things like “Does your person love their mother?” or “Does your person own a MacBook?” It was me and Kate vs. the team of Alan, Noah, and Jordan. We played three games and correctly figured out their person all three times. They got our person on the last game, so we decided to quit while we both had just won.

The day we left Portland we got brunch at a diner, and then walked to the Rose Quarter to see some weird basketball festival. Some highlights included a 3 point shoot out contest, an animatronic dinosaur, a table of clif bar samples, ionized water creeps, and a wacky dance contest between a whole crowd of little kids. Little kids always have the weirdest dance moves. We walked back along a river, and stopped at one point to check out the view and some ducks.

Then it was back to the house, where a dog party was getting started. In the park just a block away a bunch of people had gathered with snacks and their dogs. The number of dogs and owners running around was pretty overwhelming.

There was even a pool set up for the dogs to jump in, which must have been wonderful. A dog named Charlie lives at Alan and Noah’s house, and he was a delight to hang out with both at the dog party, and at the house.

There was a volleyball net in the park, too, so we took the opportunity to play. Originally it was a 4 against 1 game, with all of us versus Noah, until Jordan decided to join his side. Overall, we were pretty terrible.

We left Portland and headed for Carlton, about an hour drive southwest. When we got to the vineyard, we were greeted by 4 tiny kittens, which is always a great way to arrive anywhere.

Also greeting us was Felix the winemaker, and Katie, another WWOOFer. We got a tour of the winery, vineyard, house, and garden,

and then sat down a dinner that they had made. We had some of Felix’s wine to go along with it, and it was really good. We talked a bit, then went to bed. Our rooms were in the attic, which was really comfortable. My window had a really stellar view of the vineyard.

We worked 6 hours every day that week, starting at 8 and usually getting done by 3 with lunch and all. We did everything from picking black currants, planting beets and carrots, watering, working in the tasting room, weeding, and doing lots of work in the vineyard.

The vineyard work was my favorite, as it went by really quickly and was almost kind of fun. We did pruning, hedging, and shoot positioning with the vines.

After we worked we all came together to make dinner.

We had Felix’s wine every night, and often ended up at the dinner table until 10pm, talking and drinking. We both feel really spoiled to be working at such a great winery, and to be able to drink really fantastic wine every night in result. Also to be able to eat so well, mostly from garden produce.

After work one day Cheryl, Katie and I went into McMinnville, which was a neighboring town of a bigger size, and we bought Purple Rain. Cheryl and I watched it that night. We also bought a Hall and Oates record for a dollar, which is a super steal if it can make it back to New York without getting warped. And since you’re probably wondering, the album is H20. There are a lot of quality songs on that one. We also made jam at one point from the black currants that we picked. We also made sour cherry jam, but I think the black currant jam turned out much nicer.

On Saturday we had the day off to go wine tasting in the area. There were almost a hundred wineries spanning from Portland to Salem, but we hit 7 carefully selected ones during the day. My favorites were the wine and people at August Cellars

and the view and garden at Penner-Ash.

When we got back we started to make seitan, and Felix made a lentil and vegetable dish with ginger rice. Combining forces with that and coconut milk led to a great dinner, with a few friends of Felix’s invited over, and his daughter Madeline. She was there for half the week and loved the kittens a whole lot.

Yesterday we left Carlo&Julian winery to come to Eugene, Oregon. Leaving was sad, as to be expected when you get comfortable with a place and the people in it.

Felix sent us off with a few bottles of wine, one we will give to Marc when we get to New York. One night we drank an Adair Frontenac that we had brought with us, so I’m excited to be able to share Felix’s wine with Marc. Felix also sent us off with a recommendation for his friend’s winery that was on the way to Eugene. We went there and met David, the winemaker, who was really nice and made great wines. He gave us the deal of a lifetime and we left with a bottle of tempranillo and estate reserve pinot noir.

We drove to Eugene, which didn’t take much longer than two hours. My aunt Betsy lives here, so we went straight to her place. Eugene has always been one of my favorite places ever, so coming here was really exciting. We talked on the porch for a while with her and my cousin Elijah, then unpacked and hung out some more. We walked to the market and grabbed a paper to see what was up this week. The paper only went up until Thursday, so we don’t entirely know what we will be doing this week yet. However, Spiderman 3 is showing for free today at the library, so I know for a start that we will be doing that, along with all of the children and Tobey Maguire fans of Eugene.

Love,
Kate

04

We have been fairly busy since our last update. We have made enemies with buttercup and morning glory, both of which we have found impossible to eradicate. The other day we harvested cherries, which was fun because it meant that we could eat them as we were doing it. Also, it gave us time to daydream about the possibility of raw cherry pie.

Today we fought (and beat) fennel roots which tried harder than anything to stay in the ground. I would say it has been quite a successful week.

Diane showed up for a little while, but she wasn’t able to stay for too long. (this means that kate and I attempted to write/play music). We went outside into the field and brainstormed all the reasons that we hate buttercup; musically. Anyway, it’s a song that is a work in progress.

We also used the sauna for the first time. It was hot, but we did not sweat nearly as much as we were hoping for. I blame this on the lack of steam because nothing else seems to make sense (we are open to suggestion however, so any explanation is welcome). We need to make use of that sauna more often.

The other day Trayce decided that he wanted to make a trip to the local(ish) co-op and get some essentials. He invited us to go along, and we accepted. I knew that going would cause me to spend far too much money, which it did, but we both needed a few things. Through this trip we discovered why Trayce’s car looks the way it does, as well as solidified the stereotype of spacey raw foodists in our hearts forever. I think this scared us both enough away from ever even trying to be 100% raw.

We also went on a day trip to Vancouver.

On the way we stopped at two wineries that made fruit wines almost exclusively. First was Wellbrook Winery.

All of their wines were fruit wines. Some were dessert wines and I think they had a few ice wines. We only tried the table wines. They were really good for the most part, and the woman who worked there was super friendly. We ended up buying a dry white cranberry apple bottle of wine. Sanduz winery was our next stop.

Upon entering we immediately felt a little uncomfortable. The woman working could apparently tell that we were from out of town (and country!). We tasted a few wines, and ended up buying a white currant wine which was delicious.

After our winery stops we cruised into Vancouver. Our first destination was a raw food restaurant called Gorilla Food. We ate raw pesto pizza, a raw burger, and zucchini hummus with flax crackers.

For dessert we had raw fudge and a treat that they called Gorilla Biscuits, which we had to have for the name alone, and as a dedication to hardcore kids everywhere.

All of the food was very good, but we both agree that the food here at cedar springs is better (also free. I don’t yet know if that has anything to do with it). When we paid, the woman gave us back way too much change; however we did not realize this until after we left. This reaffirmed the notion of spacey raw foodists for us once again.

Stanley Park was our next stop. It is a huge city park in Vancouver that has a lot to do and see. We saw some fairly impressive totem poles, the beautiful and futuristic cityscape, a beach, hollow tree, and a lot of benches.

We basically just walked and drove around for a bit and took a bunch of pictures. Kate talked in a pretty poor British accent for most of the time for no reason. Maybe just to annoy me and practice her accent. Someday it will be totally legit. It was really nice and made me wish that I lived there so I could ride my bike around the park every day.

After Stanley Park we went to an area of Vancouver called Gastown. It is supposed to be the oldest area in the city. We walked around a bit there, but it was mostly just lame tourist shops. It was pretty beautiful and nice to walk around, but that was about it. Then again, you can’t really expect too much from a city. However, we did find this gem in a tourist shop. We almost bought it to mail to Leslie, but since the Canadian dollar is currently just as strong as the American dollar, we decided just to take a picture.

Once our parking meter time was up, we headed over to Chinatown which is supposed to be the biggest Chinatown in North America. When we got there everything was closing up. We were pretty unimpressed. We decided to just go get dinner instead of walking around for the sake of it.

Radha Yoga and Eatery was our dinner destination. It is a non-profit yoga and vegan/raw restaurant. We toyed with the idea of getting a raw dish, but instead we decided to delve into the world of cooked food. We also caved and both got tempeh in our meals, already succumbing to the world of soy. Both meals were delicious and well worth what we spent on them.

That day was Kate's mom's birthday, so for dessert we had a chocolate cherry jubilee with ice cream completely made out of cashews in her honor.

It was absolutely phenomenal.

After dinner we headed back to cedar springs, but not before stopping to take some swell pictures with a couple of bears in rad costumes.

Over the weekend we weeded everything, as well as washed every window ever, and helped out in the kitchen.

There have been some really great meals lately, although we're currently in the middle of a three-day juice fast. One night we helped make and eat raw falafel.

We watched and helped AJ make chocolate and Sage make onion bread. We put sprouted buckwheat into some of the chocolate to make it crispy. Other variations included: orange, goji berries, peppermint, maca, and raspberries on top.

Both chocolate and raw bread making are going to be necessary and regular activities for me in the future. We also had wheatgrass, which didn’t agree with Kate’s stomach that day and made her throw up, but made me very happy.

We decided that we needed to camp out while we were here, so we set up the tent in the middle of the meadow.

We spent two nights in it, which were both significantly more pleasant than our camping experience in Wyoming. We drank wine, snacked and were not afraid of bears (for the most part).

Trayce gave a “performance” for us and all the guests. It was long. Luckily, some people were into it, and enjoyed it. We had to escape at a certain point otherwise I might not have been here to post this entry. Did I mention that it was long yet?

That night AJ, Kat (a guest here) Trayce, Kate and I had a fire out by the creek. It was small but really nice. This place has really started feeling like summer camp, and that was probably the thing that pushed it overboard.

Tonight is our last night here. It is strange thinking that we are done doing work here and will be gone tomorrow. I could probably stay here for at least another couple of weeks, but I know that it is time to move on and continue to do really awesome new things. We have learned a lot and I am very grateful for that. I was expecting that the only things I would learn would be about gardening, but it has been so much more. We are both ready to be healthier people and to continue learning about things that we do not know nearly enough about. I think that is a much greater lesson than anything else I could have taken away from here.

Love,
Cheryl