Road trip - Day 3 Portland

We woke up in our motel around 7:30 in the morning, I looked outside the windows, the weather is a bit overcast, tide is coming in and out, I’m feeling a bit sad leaving Bandon and the Cioppino.

I popped my work out DVD on my laptop, good that I brought it with me on this trip, can’t imagine 11 days heavy eating and drinking without a little bit of exercise…:). My fiancée was playing this game with very annoying music on his iPad. We’re getting ready to leave Bandon.

10:30am, we finally had everything packed up and ready to go. We decided to drop by some wineries in Dayton and the Dundee hills before getting into Portland. The 1st winery on the list is Stoller Vineyards, 240 miles to go.

The drive again was very pleasant. The trees alongside the road changed from redwood to evergreen. When we were on 38 heading east, the woods, trees, lush greens, meadows, and lakes keep us in awe of the stunning scenery of the Northwest. Hopefully it will stay that way for many years to come before humans figure out how to destroy it.

After around 4 hours of driving, we arrived at our 1^st winery for tasting – Stoller. The wine they were pouring was just ok. They were pouring 2 Chardonnays, 1 Rose, and 1 Pinot Noir. We weren't convinced by the wine, paid our tasting fee, and we head out to Domaine Serene.

We had high hopes for Domaine Serene. Couple of our friends whom are wine connoisseurs had highly recommended Domain Serene, so even they only has 3 stars on Yelp when I did my research, we still decided to give it a try. :)

They were pouring 4 wines, 3 Pinot and 1 Syrah. The wine was soooo delicious, the staff very knowledgeable, and was overall a great experience. We bought a bottle of 2007 "Evanstad Reserve" for dinner. One thing about the winery though, they charged $15 for tasting and it's not refundable unless you buy more than 6 bottles of wine. My fiancee felt the wine is good enough for us to pay $15 for the tasting, but it was a bit pricey for me!

The last winery we visited is White Rose. The winery turned the attic into the tasting room, the rest of the house is underground and used to store the wine. Don't let the attic scare you away, it's actually pretty nice and has this rustic vibe. The wine was pretty good, I'd recommend to visit the winery if you're in the area.

After 3 wineries and all the yummy vino, we were satisfied and ready to head to Portland. While we were on 99 west, there was some pretty heavy traffic, that's how we saw "The Dapper Frog" when we drove past and fiancee was curious about what the store carries so we made a U-turn and paid the store a quick visit. The store is actually very interesting, it specialized in unique, high-quality, artistic home decor. It carries products from $15 all the way up to $8,000. The sales person offered us wine and snacks when we walked into the store, that probably contributed to all the $$ we spent in the store. In the end, we bought some pretty unique home accessories, we're excited about our purchase!!

Dinner was at El Gaucho tonight. We had been to the El Gaucho in Seattle but not the one in Portland. We ordered seafood tower for our entree (I know, it's strange that we didn't order steak at a steak house), the oysters were fresh (a bit too big to my likings but taste good regardless), huge succulent prawns, the King crab leg was sooo sweet, I feel like I can just have the King crab for the whole night, wishful thinking I guess....haha!!

Day 3 of our road trip was another huge success. Except for the annoying game my fiancee was playing, everything else was awesome!! Can't wait for day 4 to begin!!