Photos
from Our Trip to Oregon (October, 2006)
We spent 6 days or so out in Oregon this fall.
We flew into Portland on a Saturday afternoon, then rented a car and
drove to McMinnville, a town in the Willamette wine country.
Instead of staying long the following morning and visiting some
wineries, we drove to the coast to Lincoln City and spent most of the
morning and early afternoon cruising down the Oregon Coast Highway to
our next destination, Bandon.
In Bandon we stayed at a beautiful B&B called
the Lighthouse
Bed and Breakfast. The first night we were in the Gray Whale
Room, then the Sunset Room on the second night. Both are
wonderful and the breakfasts hearty. The first night we ate in
the Old Town area at the Wild Rose Bistro, a tiny little place serving
pretty darn good food. The service was uneven, but it wasn't like
we were in a hurry to get to our next stop. The next evening we
ate at Lord Bennetts, a restaurant with a beautiful ocean view.
Our meal here was also solid, but not spectacular.
On Monday Diane spent the day roaming the beach and
Old Town, while I went to the much hyped golf destination known as Bandon Dunes Golf
Resort. Three courses are there now and Golf Magazine rates
all of them in the top ten public courses in the country. In
fact, the one called Pacific Dunes is now rated #1, ahead of the
legendary Pebble Beach. I played the course called Bandon Dunes
in the morning and Pacific Dunes in the afternoon. The complex is
simply first rate. All courses are walking only and BD and PD
both have many holes right along the Pacific. Unfortunately I
forgot my digital camera and instead had to rely upon Diane's
film-based camera that I didn't really know how to operate. But I
snapped some photos anyways and had them digitized and they can be
viewed here. A couple
of different people I met at the resort, including a caddie, mentioned
a rumor that the owner might try to add another course or two (and this
caddy claimed he may even have invested in the local airport with plans
for expanding it). If more first-rate courses are built there,
this place could easily become the top golf resort in the country,
perhaps even in the world.
On Tuesday we drove back up I-5 to Portland and
stayed in downtown Portland at the Mark Spencer Hotel (nice place,
good value). Our first evening in Portland we went to Murata for
dinner, one of the much written about Japanese restaurants in the
city. Well, Chowhound readers gave it mixed reviews but we read
between the lines on the comments there and were confident it would be
good. Well, we were wrong. It was absolutely
fantastic. If you are a hard-core sushi eater, this is the place
for you! Sit at the sushi bar if you can (get there right when it
opens), then see if the servers there (which speak both English and
Japanese) can accommodate your requests as the itamae, Murata-san,
speaks very limited English.
The next day we visited the Japanese Garden and took a
short road trip to see Mount St. Helens. I snapped a few photos
with a disposable camera and the digitized pictures are here.
That evening we ate at the McCormick
& Schmick's Seafood Restaurant back in downtown Portland.
We headed back to Philly out of Portland Thursday morning to arrive
back home by 10 PM. And if you've ever flown into Philly's
airport, then you know that is unusual.