Back from California and Oregon!!

Just got back from a "research" trip to California and Oregon! It was a hard trip but somebody had to do it! ;-)

Seriously, I took over 400 pictures while I was there, so I have no shortage of reference material to paint from now. I'll give you a little taste of what went down so you can be envious!

We started the trip in San Francisco. We flew under the Golden Gate during a helicopter tour of the city and later that night attend the theater to see a little play called "Blues in the Night". This is an excellent play with lots of great blues music. Gregory Hines's brother, Maurice, stars in the the play along with "Band of Gold" singer Freda Payne.

When walking around San Francisco it really struck me how much this city has changed since my last stay there. I couldn't help but wonder how people meet anyone in this city. No one looks at anyone they walk past (and with good reason--whatever you do don't make eye contact with anyone---you might just get the sales pitch of any number of panhandlers that seem to have taken over the city!!), and people seem so blue. We walked down to the turn around for the cable cars just down from where we were staying. The general aura of the crowd was a blue/grey depressed feeling and it was pretty overwhelming! It made such an impression I returned later with my camera to take some pictures for a future painting--complete with sketches and a mental image that I'll be putting into the painting. The city was just so different and it was even a sunny day!! Despite this overwhelming aura, I enjoyed the time in Frisco...except for when I ran a red light and almost got us killed!!! (ok--who decided that red lights should go next to cross walk lights anyway?????)

Next we headed up to Bodega Bay and stayed for a few nights. The Bay and coast in this area was just beautiful and full of color. The aura of the place was so much more welcoming than Frisco, bathed in the golden honey yellow hills with reds and oranges highlighting the grasses, moss and blue/purple rocks along the coastline. Of course the backdrop of these beautiful colors were the viriden greens and ultramarine blue waters of the Pacific. Sunset over the bay was just stunning with a rainbow of colors in the sky reflected in the bay waters. Again we had sunny warm days that just heightened the warm colors of this wonderous area. Bodega Bay is where they filmed Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", so naturally ever time I saw a bird I had to point and shout "The Birds!!" . Yeah, I know---it got old!! We enjoyed wine tasting in the Russian River Valley and there will be plenty of paintings of some of these sites coming up. The Zinfindel and Pinot Noir grapevines were in full color with such warm reds and oranges that they looked on fire with the cool backdrop of the greyish/brownish hills and dark greens of the yet to ripen grapevines.

When we got up on Thursday, it was fogged in---oh did I mention there was this fog horn that kept going off every 10 seconds or so that could be heard throughout the bay. Of course on sunny days this horn was a real nuisance!! It even drowned out the sea lions!! On Thursday, however, we figured out why it was needed. "The Birds" was a thing of the past and Jon Carpentar's "The Fog" was now called to mind. We were going to drive up the coast to Eureka, but after talking to the locals it was decided the smart thing to do was to take 101 up there instead. It was so foggy, we would not have been able to see anything anyway.

From Eureka we headed up the coast to Crescent City. This is the cutest little town and we ate lunch at place out on a pier. Great fish and chips! Sea lions that barked and a wind--not a breeze--a full scale gale as far as I was concerned was more than caressing my cheeks as I struggled to take pictures of the sea lions on the pier. You know that commerical with people's cheeks, hair and bodies flapping in the wind (some kind of high speed internet commerical)?? Well, if you seen that commerical that's about the speed of the wind up there. If you ignored the wind and the wind chill--it was a quaint little town. People there were very nice and helpful. We drove out "Pebble Beach" drive and got some great shots of a lighthouse, Point St. George and beyond.

We headed over the mountains to Medford and the Rogue Valley. We knew there were more wineries there and we had never tasted the wines from this region although we had heard of a couple of the wineries. However, on the way we had the stalwart redwoods of Humboldt and Redwood State Parks to be in awe of. I had the feeling I had been here before and after talking with one of the guides at the visitor center I'm sure now that this is one of the areas my Dad drove us throught when I was nine. Lots of photos of these massive tree trunks were taken--they are so tall you can't get the whole tree in frame!! Back to Medford-- We headed to Edenvale Winery--what a beautiful place to taste wine and paint. Their grounds were meticulously planted with a demonstration vineyard, welcoming roses, a pear orchard, a restored Voorhis Mansion, a quaint tasting room and a friendly, courteous staff who didn't mind this redhead running around snapping photos for the future. The wine was equally as enjoyable as the grounds. After Edenvale we headed down I-5 to Paschal Winery just outside Talent, Oregon. The views from the winery were very nice and we unfortunately hit the winery at the same time as a bus tour. It was a bit overwhelming for the staff. We were spoiled at Edenvale and after taking some shots of the mountains and some baby ducks we headed up 1-5 to the Umpqua Valley.

There we tasted wine at Abecela Winery and two family owned wineries that we just lucked into finding. Spangler Winery just off I-5 is definately worth a visit. The wines are big and bold and you can tell that winemaking is a passion to Pat Spangler. We were lucky enough to have Pat pour his wines for us and talk about his passion. Just like when I talk about art, you could tell the passion was there by the sparkle in Pat's eyes as we enjoyed the wines he poured us. He then referred us up to Rueslte Prayer Rock winery. This little family owned and operated winery is a find--literally--as it is off the beaten path a bit but definately worth the trip out. Gloria greeted us and wouldn't let me eat any of the chocolate she had out until after we tasted her great wines!! (This actually became a joke between us--she has a great sense of humor.) We tasted three of their selections and she paired the tasting with some tasty little appetizers which aided in tasting the wines. These wines were "bone dry" as Gloria put it. The appetizers helped in bringing out the true beauty of these young wines. After taking a few pictures here and at also at Spangler we headed up the road to Eugene, Oregon.

Unfortunately the weather turned to what we hear is typical for Oregon at this time of year. The rain came and we headed over to King Estate the next morning for what we thought was brunch and turned out to be lunch. This was fine though as the food and accompanying paired wine was excellent--even if I hadn't had breakfast yet! I just kept telling myself it was 3:00 in Ohio...and of course 5:00 somewhere! We tasted a few more of King Estate's wines before getting back on the road to our departing destination of Portland. It was an early rising to catch our flight out on Monday, so we repacked the suitcases and watched a little football---oh did I mention that I got to watch my USC Trojans play twice while in CA? That was cool! Don't get to see them much back here in Ohio.

So here I am, back in Ohio with 417 photos to go through and get in some kind of order! Whew--this is going to take some time!!

Don't forget that this weekend is the Essex Studio's First Friday/Saturday Art Shows. I'll be showing down there, so stop by to hear more about the trip and to say hello!

Toodles for now!
Linda