We hosted our first east-coast visitor this past weekend, our good friend
Brian. We'll look forward to repeating some of the fun times with many more visitors in the coming months/years!On Friday night, we met Brian up at Jack and Kelly's house in Portland and headed to a brewery called Roots for some good beer and live music. Brian sampled a beer that was flavored with apricots and Scotch Bonnet peppers - the rest of us weren't so adventurous, but all the brews were delicious (and organic - how "Portland" of them...)
On Saturday morning, we relaxed over coffee and some delicious apple-cake that Kelly baked. Then we headed back to Corvallis by lunch time. We showed Brian around our new abode and grounds...Had lunch at Nearly Normals, a local vegetarian place, then walked downtown to an arts/crafts festival. We stumbled across an interesting find when we hit the end of the Sat Farmer's Market, including the community forum, where there is literally a soap box on which you can stand and share about whatever your current concerns/opinions are...
On Sunday, we relaxed at home for the morning and then hit the road to Newport, directly west of Corvallis on the coast- about an hours drive through the coastal range. We found their quaint downtown and all the sea lions by their ridiculously loud barking. Next we made our way over to a public pier to see how folks were doing at catching Dungeness Crabs - a pretty simple trap that uses chicken legs as bait (a crab trap is definitely on our 'to purchase' list). And lucky for us, the public pier happened to be right next door to the Rogue Brewery. So, we stopped in for a visit and some sampling. Then we headed farther south down the coast to check out the Pacific proper and then back to Newport for a great dinner at a waterfront place that served the best crab/shrimp cakes ever...Nate had a delicious seafood stew of shrimp, scallops, sturgeon and clams. We were back home by 9:30pm, where we were entertained by some first season Flight of the Concords.
On Monday, Nate had to head to the office (bummer) but I had the day to hang out. After some reviewing of the Oregon Gazetteer, Brian made a good plan to try our luck at catching cutthroat trout on the Alsea River. Got licenses, some spinner baits for me and some flies for Brian, and we were on the river just before lunch - a 45 min. trip door to river (Alsea R is in the coastal range, between Corvallis and the coast). Brian caught a Cutthroat within mere minutes of arriving. And then a few more...me, I had a couple of bites that I completely missed and I spent more time tugging my spinner and hooks out of rock crevices than anything else. But what a pretty river and what a nice way to spend the afternoon. We were back home by 4pm and had a nice dinner and a relaxing evening to end the visit.
Who's coming out next?!
