Four seasons in one day! (well three I suppose - summer definitely not present)

Before I forget again (which I did yesterday - must have been the wine!), over the weekend we spent a rather splendid afternoon at a local winery, Sweet Cheeks, so called allegedly because the owners who live across the valley looked at the hills on which they had planted their first vines and decided they look like a huge pair of buttocks. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the story or indeed whether the view does indeed look like some gigantic arse, but I can agree that they make some rather nice wines. Starting with a fragrant sauvignon blanc we progressed via a pinot noir, for which Oregon is internationally renowned, to something I can’t quite remember. Funny that! Of course we bought bottle! I was up for a case but the voice of reason stopped me - just as well.

OK, got that sorted having shamefully omitted it yesterday. On with the trip…

This morning we awoke to SNOW! What? Here we are driving across a bridge somewhere on the way to the coast.

After a few consultations of Google maps to see just haw many mountains we needed to cross to reach the coast and a recheck of the hire car manual to see if by any chance they had mistakenly given us a 4x4, we decided the worst that could happen was we would have to turn back. As it turns out the road to the coast barely rises above sea level and anyway he snow was very wet. More sleet than fluffy stuff. So off we went.

Soon of course it turned to torrential rain as we went through the hills, but the coast was reached and a thoroughly deserved coffee was sequestered at Sugar Shack. Even Nareesa went for the full on dark roast as she had been driving up to this point.

But miracle of miracles, the sun came out as we joined Highway 101 south and apart from the occasional cloudburst stayed mostly with us for the rest of the day. Cue stops of impossibly beautiful headlands, capes and beaches with crashing waves and howling gales. We thought we were in spring, we'd had winter and here was another season arriving - fall! We seemed to have passed through summer in a microsecond.

We walked on the aforesaid coastal marvels and took stupid pictures of each other, on one occasion Nareesa having to return to the car for fear of being blown off the cliff at Cape Blanco.

To round of the day we hurtled (wind behind!) into Gold Beach, which it turns out is neither a D-Day landing site nor a a decent holiday resort, but did have the merit of having a cheap, clean and perfectly pleasant motel for the night.

Our tour leader then took us on a wild goose chase to find a bar via a “path”, which eventually came up again the flotsam and jetsam of the pacific coast congregated across a raging torrent (ok, a bit of a deep stream). I was half way across jumping gazelle like from log to log when I was called back and told I was a nutter! And whilst Nareesa didn’t give too hoots if I soaked myself she wasn't taking me to hospital with a broken leg/knee/hip/face. Fair point I thought and returned to the shore, when I discovered I had actually crossed about 10% of the obstruction.

A long way round eventually found us at the Crow’s Nest where, most unusually for the US, we were greeted with a mixture of indifference and hostility. I might have accidentally gone in the wrong door but I thought that was fairly minor crime in the circumstances. So no chance for me to say “Hi, I’m Al…” We slunk out and made our way to the posh restaurant instead. Good call as it turned out. Good food, good wine and I got stuffed again at cribbage in the bar afterwards.

So, where are we? Still in Oregon, just. California beckons tomorrow and our first National Park, Redwood. Massive trees and quiet still atmosphere is what I remember from 20 years ago. I hope it hasn’t changed - except maybe the trees are even taller!

PS: As we returned to our salubrious motel they were playing "The Sound of Music" onto a screen in the garden with a light show. Utterly surreal, utterly mad and utterly marvelous! Doh a deer, since you ask! Been a great day!

Sorry, lots of silly pictures today but the wifi is rubbish so only a few for now. But here is one of complete idiot!

And another of one of the many beautiful views up the coast.