Axl's Catch Groove

This was our last day of real vacation. Again we had a perfect weather day. We slept in, Paul made us an amazing breakfast – his variation on Eggs Benedict- which I will rename Eggs Gualala: English muffin, a crab cake (made with crab Paul had caught), smoked salmon (caught and smoked by Paul) topped by a runny egg and a side of bacon. Added bonus was espresso coffee and lattes.

After our late breakfast we headed to Mendocino for some site sightseeing. The goal was to wander the cliffs and take in the sights – mission accomplished! We walked down the main street and checked out the shops. We stopped for a beer at Dick’s Bar which had a local feel.

We then headed back toward Gualala. We stopped in Port Arena to have a beer and snack at Pier Chowder House & Tap Room.

The next goal was to grab some beer, a to-go pizza and head over to Paul’s friend Sabrina’s ocean front place to watch the sunset. We made it just and time to see a great Pacific Northwest sunset. We enjoyed the pizza, beer and conversation. It was an amazing location and a bonus was Sabrina’s gazebo which protected us from the wind.

We head back to Paul’s for final night cap. It was a perfect last day of vacation. The next day we packed up and headed to San Francisco for our flights home. This included a final 90 minutes of Highway 1 winding road (again we were blessed with great weather to enjoy the spectacular ocean views).

Over all it was great vacation. Mom, dad and two adult children managed to spend 10 days together in close quarters without getting on each other’s nerves. We had great food, great beer and great sights. It was great to catch up with an old friend. A special thanks goes out to my wife Laura and daughter Al for organizing the trip. Quote of the trip from Paul on our final night “is this a normal amount of beer for you all to consume?” We laughed and responded no – we were restraining ourselves.

PS – Happy Birthday James L. (Jim) Adams (RIP) 10/2/21 – 8/6/14.

The weather was near perfect for a costal drive. We did take detour via the Avenue of the Giants. This is a pretty amazing drive: a narrow winding road cutting through a grand redwood forest – where many of the trees were in excess of 3000 years old. When you pull over into one of the many groves (a little parking space and some amenities: picnic tables, restrooms, fire places and access to Eel River) it is like entering a cathedral. Allow a couple of hours to meander through this heaven on earth.

Once out of the forest we were back on the coast. If you have never experienced Highway 1 on the coast of California, it deserves to be on your bucket list. First there is the drive – be prepared to average under 30 MPH, experience hairpin turns on a harrowingly narrow two lane, close to the edge of cliffs with no guardrails and some of the best ocean views on the planet. It is not for a meek driver. Learn to pullover at the many turnouts to let the experienced natives drive by, rather than having them breath down your neck. You will get nice little horn toot thank you for getting out of the way in a timely fashion.

We stopped in Fort Bragg at North Coast Brewing for beverage and some snacks. The clam chowder was top notch. I did not realize it, but I was familiar with this brand and I am a fan of their Brother Theloneous Ale. We picked up some beers for the evening – one of my new discoveries was their take on a dark Mexican beers like Negra Modelo called Laguna Baja. Their beer is some of the best we experienced on the trip.

We arrived in Gualala at the home a our family friend Uncle Paul – our final destination. Paul is a great fisherman and cook. He prepared us a great meal of fresh French Fries, deep fried cod, grilled salmon and a salad. We devoured the meal and Paul topped it off with a dessert of vanilla ice cream topped with local huckleberries and maple syrup. It was a grand meal and great conversation as we all caught up, told stories and belly laughed.

An added bonus is Paul’s house, which is beautiful. He now has a second house that is about 90% renovated and is right next door. Laura and I stayed in the main house and the kids stayed in the second house – it was nice to have the extra breathing room.

This was a pure travel day and I was not expecting much from this. Turns out the drive is very scenic. So it was pleasant surprise the travel day turn out as a fine adventure. There a three major sites along the way:

1. Freeway 5 from Portland to 199 – which is rolling hills/mountains – unfortunately we had rain and fog through most of this. But I assume on a clear day this would have been an impressive view.

2. 199 to the coast – is a poor man’s Avenue of Giants , but still impressive. I had no idea we would get this treat. The weather turned to partly sunny for this stretch of the trip.

3. Highway 1 – more about that tomorrow- fog obstructed most of our views. But if it hadn’t it would have been another great set of views. Fortunate the next few days were sunny.

We ate along the way at Wild River Brewing in Grants Pass OR. Nothing special, but better than average road food.

Once in Eureka we stayed at the local Days Inn. We walked down to the local brewer: Lost Coast. In addition to brewing their beers it is decent restaurant serving good bar food. A nice treat for a small town.

We started the day with breakfast at Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen. As you might guess this is a fancy deli. It was good, but not unusual.

We then wandered the Knob Hill retail on NW 23rd Avenue. Again it was a mix of familiar national retailers and local.

We then headed over to Base Camp Brewing Company. This brewery had a Minnesota feel – right down to the guy who was pouring the beers who went to the University of Minnesota. They had nice outdoor space and plenty of good beers. Again we had a perfect weather day in Portland.

I had the anniversary beer called Four (8 IBUs, 7.3 SRM, 19.3°P OG, 1.0°P TG, 10.5% ABV –not sure what all that means beyond the IBU and ABV). Per their website:

Our yearly anniversary beer, brewed in celebration of our fourth year spent doing what we love. A tart and funky strong amber saison. It showcases pilsner malt, wheat malt, and flaked wheat, then fermented with our two favorite saison yeasts. We then add to the complexity of this beer with an extended aging in red wine barrels, where it’s dosed with brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and Willamette Valley-grown Pinot Noir grapes from Goschie Farms.

We had a snack from one of the on-premise food trucks: the classic nachos, but instead of a base of chips, it was fries – a simple but brilliant innovation.

The Base Camp bartender suggested we try out Wayfinder. Again a brewery with great outdoor space for a top-10 weather day. They also had a great play list of classic and new-classic soul/funk over a well designed sound system. This brewery’s shtick was recreating some German classics – I had their Octoberfest (Freight!).

We headed back to the Airbnb to regroup and prep for today’s feature event which was to see Sturgill Simpson at a local theater.

Before the show we went to Shalom Y’All for dinner. Their deal is Israeli street food. Food was great, but the real feature was the incredibly fresh pita bread – literally prepared on the spot. Stuff melted on your tongue like butter.

We then walked over to the Arlene Schnitzer Hall to see Sturgill. The Arlene Schnitzer Hall is the building with the iconic Portland in neon marquee you have seen in TV and movies. A absolutely beautiful old concert hall.

Given how elaborately arranged his latest album is, I was not sure what to expect from Sturgill. He came up with a great idea: an outright rock presentation of his catalog. It was a very pleasant surprise to learn Simpson is a fine guitar player. The four piece band was tight and jammed without getting boring. My only complaint was that Sturgill’s vocals which were a garbled – it seemed the goal of the sound system was to make his vocals sound musical, but not necessarily understandable. It was a fair compromise. Overall a great show and I highly recommend him if you are a fan of his music – he can deliver live.

The day’s plans were to explore Portland. We slept in, putzed around the Airbnb and then headed off to brunch at Tasty n Alder. When I first looked at the menu I was unimpressed – this did not look like brunch food. But after careful examination it really was – but with a total original twist: regular dishes repurposed for breakfast – mainly by adding an egg. Food is served family style – we had four different dishes and all were great and all really worked for breakfast.

We then explored some shops in downtown, walked to the river and hit some more shops as we passed through the Pearl district of Portland. Portland’s retail is a mix of the familiar national brands/retailers and some truly original local/regional choices. Powell’s City of Books is an epic book store – per their web site: is the largest used and new bookstore in the world.

As we hit the afternoon, we ventured to our first brewery of the day: Fat Head’s Brewery. After the beer disappointments of Canada, it was great to be back in serious craft beer country. Fat Heads had a rich selection and a nice tap room – with some unremarkable outdoor space. It was in the mid-80s with no humidity, so outdoors was the way to go. The ladies had a flight, Patrick had a couple of their IPAs (Built For Speed West Coast IPA and New Order IPA) and I had an IBUsive. Good stuff – however I am oddly biased against breweries that brand with cartoon characters (in this case a guy with a fat head) and it had a mild corporate feel (sure enough looking at their web site they are kind of a mini chain founded in Ohio).

Next we moved on to a corner with three breweries: 10 Barrel Brewing Company,Backpedal Brewing and Rogue Distillery and Public House.

At 10 Barrel, not only do they have great beer, they have a great rooftop outdoor space, made better by a top-10 weather day. The ladies had a mega flight (10 beers) and Patrick and I tried their IPA’s.

We made a quick stop at Backpedal as they had an event and needed to shoo us out. Backpedal is a combination tap room and garage for their pedal pubs – they have a nice collection of beers too.

Finally we stopped at Rogue for a beer and snack, before heading back to the AirBnb for some quiet time before heading out to dinner.

Dinner was at the Screen Door – which had a reinvented southern comfort food vibe. Laura and I shared an amazing fried chicken, Al had trout and Patrick had brisket. All were delicious.

Although completely stuffed we found our way over to Salt and Straw (notable endorsement: Oprah’s favorite ice cream) for dessert. We shared a Honey Lavendar scoop (better than it sounds) and Sea Salt with Carmel Ribbons (as good as that sounds – it was better than it sounds). This was amazing ice cream – even on a full stomach it tasted amazing. It was 10:45 on a school night and the line was out the door.

With that we called it a day.

We took the train back from Vancouver. Not as nice a train as the one on the way up to Vancouver in that it did not have the BarcaLounger seats. Got to experience re-entry to the US – more serious than passing into Canada – I guess Canada is not as border crazed as the US.

Upon arrival to Seattle we picked up a rental car. We were starving, so our first order of business was lunch. Our end destination was a distillery in Woodinville (remarkably called Woodinville Whiskey Company). Al found a eatery on the way : Lot No. 3 in Bellevue. Lot No. 3 had the best bathroom doors I have ever seen. I had fish and chips – good – not greasy – not an easy feat for deep fried food.

Woodinville Whiskey Company was great – I must be getting beered-out as distilleries catch my fancy more than breweries these days. Woodinville’s specialty is bourbon style spirits. We did a tasting and all were great, but their Micro-barreled Rye Whiskey was my favorite. The building was gorgeous. These folks have hit a home run (turns out they really did hit a home run in that they sold the business to Moët Hennessy this past summer).

We then started our journey to Portland. The traffic to get from Woodinville to Portland was brutal – it was 3:30 PM so right at the start of rush hour. We were tangled up until we got past Olympia. Once we got past that it was clear sailing. Evidently this is the new normal.

We got to our Airbnb in Portland’s Nob Hill neighborhood. Again we were starving and so we headed over to an upscale pizza joint: Please Louise. It was a beautiful night and the restaurants open air concept was perfect. We had a couple of pizzas that were delicious. My favorite was their triple pepperoni – three different types of pepperoni. This was high quality pepperoni. We had some beer’s and cocktails too. I had a Gigantic Brewing Solid! Hoppy American Wheat that was very tasty – very citrus flavored – light and refreshing.

We then headed over to Breakside Brewing (Slabtown Location) for a night cap. Great beer, great ambience and one of the finest tag lines I have ever seen: “tastes like vinyl sounds.” The beer I had was What Rough Beast – per their web site:

“Contemporary India Pale Ale brewed with feet firmly planted in the Northwest and a nod to New England. Mosaic and Columbus hops get lots of play here creating a beer that is tropical, fruity, dank, soft, and balanced.”

It was excellent. Highly recommended: olive oil cake for dessert.

My first impressions of Portland are thumbs up. In hindsight Vancouver is too new. I was disappointed by the food and beer in Vancouver also. Seattle was just a pass through, but it clearly has more funk than Vancouver. Just driving into the Nob Hill neighborhood here in Portland – you instantly feel the hipster hippie vibe – which I dig.

Our first Uber driver could have been right out of an episode of Portlandia – he was pretty stuck up and snobby for a driver. His antics included: thinking it was too short of a fare and we should have walked, that the area we were going to was too newly developed and that we should use Lyft vs. Uber. But our second driver was a grand Portland ambassador- welcoming us to the city. He had great English, but clearly an accent. He encouraged me to guess, my gut was Greek, but it did not seem quite right – it had a more Russian sound to it – I should have gone with my gut – as he was Greek. He chuckled and encouraged me to tip generously to make up for the error. I should have known better having grown up around a Greek family. Further proof to trust your gut.

We ended the day back at the Airbnb with a couple of Pilsner bombers from Breakside and we watched the new Lady Gaga special on Netflix. Laura, Al and I had witnessed her tour – so it was fun to see the back story of what it takes to create a new album and a Super Bowl show. One of the best parts was how much Gaga fully appreciated what a big deal playing the Super Bowl would be and how much she knew she had to deliver the goods (which of course she did).

The objectives of the day were to take in some famous Vancouver attractions: Capilano Suspension Bridge Park and Grouse Mountain.

Capilano was double cool: first the bridges and second to get a flavor of the Pacific Northwest rainforest. The main suspension bridge is high over a gorge and has just enough movement to provide thrill (my wife found the movement less of thrill and claimed her legs were shakey for an hour after). The tree top bridges give you a sense of the forest canopy. There is a cliff walk that allows you to examine the water formed walls of the gorge and test your fear of heights – although firmer than the suspension bridge, it provides no distraction – just emphasizes the height. It had rained earlier in the day, which was actually kind of nice as it gave the forest a rain forest feel – gentle dampness. We had lunch at Capilano – nothing special, but I had the best beer I tasted in Canada: Bridge Brewing’s Bourbon Blood Orange Wheat Ale (even my wife liked the brew).

Grouse Mountain was a bit of bust given that the mountain top was covered in a heavy fog/cloud. But it was still fun to ride the gondola to mid-mountain and the chairlift to the peak. Mid-mountain there was a very nice grizzly bear exhibit – not a zoo cage, but a nice roomy natural habitat.

We headed back to town and enjoyed happy hour at Rouge Kitchen & Wet Bar. After that it was back to the Airbnb for a little quiet time. Later we headed out for some ramen at a neighborhood place – Ramen Koika.

General impressions of Vancouver – I did not find it particularly Canadian, it felt like a US city. Like Seattle, it is very much a port city and has the same Pacific Northwest feel, but the big difference is that it has a very new feel – it seems most of the buildings have been built in the last 25 years.

Not only was the itinerary for the day to visit the capital of British Columbia, but again the mode of transportation was the featured performer: seaplane. Downtown Vancouver actually has a seaplane airport – proof you are not in Kansas. The airport is like a very upscale bus terminal located on the water with great big windows to enjoy the view. My wife thought this up when she decided that spending most of the day on a slow moving ferry was going be kind of boring. Instead we took the 30 minute flight that was an absolute thrill. Taking off from the water, great views of the the coast and islands and landing on the water were all amazing. The plane flies at a nice low level so you can see a lot. It is a bit pricey – but totally worth it. Don’t think of it as transportation – but like the train – a ride. However, this is very efficient mode of transportation compared to the train.

Once in Victoria first on the agenda was visiting the famous Butchart Gardens. The gardens lived up to the billing – they are spectacular. The fact that they are are out in the middle of nowhere (they are about a 30 minute bus ride from downtown Victoria) adds to their charm. Highly recommend. An added bonus was our CVS Tours driver Adrian – he gave us a nice history Butchart Gardens and pointed out the significant sights along the way – all with dry British humor.

We returned to Victoria just in time to experience Canada’s Peace Officer Memorial service in front of the BC parliament building. The Canadian police sure know how to wear dress uniforms: from the classic Mounties to something similar to the Royal Guard. We got to see a neat parade with pipes and drums to boot.

We then explored downtown Victoria. It has lots of nice shops – again this is mostly an upscale tourist trap – even the t-shirt stores are pretty nice. We were thirsty and hungry and so we found a nice sports bar (Darcy’s Pub) with some good outdoor space (it was a nice warm fall afternoon). They had some very fine poutines. We explored a few more blocks of Victoria and then headed back to the seaplane terminal for the ride back to Vancouver. I was a bit disappointed in Victoria – it had been advertised as a mini-London, but it seemed nothing more than an upscale cruise ship port and government town. If not for the Butchart Gardens and seaplane ride it would have been a bust.

Once back to Vancouver we went to Steamworks Brewpub for some beverages and a snack. I found the beer unremarkable and the pub a bit to corporate (think Rock Bottom). Given its location in proximity of the Vancouver convention center, it was low on funk (to be fair it was a Sunday night). We were pooped and headed back to the Airbnb for an early evening.

The primary adventure for the day was to take the Amtrak train from Seattle to Vancouver. It was a beautiful day and the trip has great views – for much of the journey you are riding the edge of the sea. The train is not the most efficient way to get from Seattle to Vancouver, but if you are not in a hurry it the best way. It is about a four hour ride. The train has a great sightseeing car with great windows. The regular coach cabin has comfortable reclining seating – significantly better than most plane’s first class. All this makes a train a great way to travel – but keep in mind you could have done the trip in about a quarter of the time when you count getting to the station early and the train’s meandering pace. Timing is not dependable either – we had an unplanned delay due to a freight train coming from a different direction that had its own unplanned troubles. But that being said, if you treat the this as a ride (in the amusement park sense) it can’t be beat. PS – if you want some good food – bring your own – a picnic would have made the trip perfect.

Once in Vancouver we checked into our Airbnb in the Davie Village neighborhood and went to lunch at Score On Davies. I was not very imaginative and had some more mac and cheese. The place had nice vibe, good food and some fine outdoor space. We headed back to the Airbnb for a little regrouping.

Our next adventure was to check out Granville Island. This is an upscale tourist trap that was a short water taxi ride from near our Airbnb. The water taxi was adorable – False Creek Ferries’ boats are like cute bathtub toys. We explored the various shops and settled in on Granville Island Brewery for some beverages. It was a nice brewery with a nice ambiance. The view of the city from Granville Island is pretty spectacular.

We then headed back to our neighborhood and went to The Capital on Davie for dinner. This is an upscale “dive” bar with the best value in bar food – all entrees are $4.95 Canadian and the drinks are reasonable too (and a short walk from our Airbnb sure helps too). With that it was again time to call it an early night.