A Day in the Country (Wine, That Is)

Friday was one of our “catch-up” days, taking care of laundry, cleaning house and doing inside things while it rained, walking the dogs and getting out for a little exercise between rain storms.

The weather forecast promised a better day Saturday, and thankfully, it turned out to be one of the prettiest days we’ve had.  The plan was to meet our friends, Joe and Jo, in Dundee, Oregon for lunch and then visit some local wineries.  Dundee is the home to the oldest winery in Oregon, as well as many others.

We drove through the Van Duzer Corridor on the way.  This is a beautiful old-growth forest along the Salmon River on Highway 18. The early morning fog set off the colors of the trees:

 

Soon we were out of the forest and starting to see the rolling hills of the farmland of the Willamette Valley:

Then we spotted this local market:

We went inside to take a look around:

Check out these Pink Banana Squash! 

They had all kinds of interesting and beautiful produce here.  We decided to stop back by on our way home and pick up the makings for a new batch of salsa.  Somehow, most of our last batch ended up in Dortha’s kitchen!  She likes that salsa!

One more look around at the colorful fall decorations at Farmer John’s Produce:

And we were on our way to our lunch destination, the Dundee Bistro:

We enjoyed a great lunch with Joe and Jo, trading memories of the days I worked with Joe, and lots of others as well.  After lunch, we plotted our course to visit two or three wineries in the area.  Choosing which to visit wasn’t easy, as there are so many to choose from.  But we decided on the ones we especially wanted to visit and headed out.

We passed by miles and miles of vineyards, all putting on their fall colors:

Joe, Jo, and I enjoyed sampling some of the great wines produced in this area:

Then we passed by more awesome scenery:

The fall colors are really amazing:

All too soon it was time to say farewell to our friends and start back home.  As planned, we did stop at Farmer John’s and loaded up on fresh tomatoes and peppers for that salsa, which is today’s project!