Britney Spears punk cover band

Saturday was a pretty lazy day. At night we went into portland. Went to dinner at pok pok, a thai restaurant. It was awesome. If you ever get there sit outside! It was a great place and got to enjoy lots of unique representations of thai food including duck, quail, and lots of great salads. No pad thai on this menu.

After dinner we headed over to the Redroom to see one of our co-workers bands. There motto is....10 years and still not a strip club. The club totally reminded me of some places my friend in LA has taken me to. The first set was all punk renditions of britney spears songs, so it was pretty entertaining.

It's finally friday!

So, we got word that the fruit won't be in this weekend...was excited but also wanting to have one last weekend of freedom. After work on friday we had our winery pre-harvest party at one of our vineyards that is about 20 minutes from the winery. I really enjoyed having an opportunity to learn and ask questions about the different clones of pinot we have, as well as the vine management, soil, and so on. I was reminded of college and my days at the ag school.

The party culminated with a spitting contest. I didn't win, but I didn't come in last place either.

After the party it was time to head back to the house for the real party we were throwing at the rock quarry behind our house. Had to pick up some necessary supplies on the way home as the pics show...yes I am going old school with my Icehouse and yes I ate half a jar of antacids....I blame it on all the redbull I drank in order to stay awake for two parties :)

I'd say 40-50 people came, mostly all people from other wineries in the area. It was good times and noone got hurt trying to find the quarry or in the fire, ha ha and I got to play dj until the iPod died.

Another week gone bye bye

Well, we are waiting for harvest, so got lots more samples to test this week from the vineyard. Also, got to sample the juice from the fruit. It will be interesting to see how the juice evolves before we pick it.

Fun times at night...

Monday: Movie night!!!

Tuesday: Went to a bonfire at a co-workers and I taught everyone how to make S'mores PA style. Noone melts their chocolate first and gets the marshmellow just to the point of a golden brown! I have also decided that I really like Crown Royal. I think that will be my new drink of choice (other than wine of course)...

Thursday: We were given a bunch of Walla Walla wines left over from work (they were doing a tasting to determine if there are any other varietals that might be of interest for producing wine in future years). Not a lot was actually tasted out of the bottles so us interns had a fun night of bonding and wine drinking. We estimate we had about 13 bottles between all of us. Our crazy Italian intern decided he wanted to give us "tatooes". We all showed up at work thursday with sharpie remnants. Fun times as the pics show....

All in all it was a great week!

Monday isn't my favorite day

Back to work. Today was cleaning day. I didn't have any samples to test in the lab so I got to help the cellar crew with cleaning and lots of it as we prepare for our first grapes. I think they say 70% of wine making is cleaning and sanitization. My favorite was scrubbing the floors. I was seriously contemplating how much money I had to make when I get back and find a new job so that we could afford a house cleaner so I don't have to scrub anymore floors!

Sunday is also for wine tasting

Truth be told...all days are for wine tasting :) Guess that is what I am out here to learn about, so must explore. Went to a number of wineries today with all my fellow interns minus one. We went to Domaine Drouhin (one of our neighbors and close competitors), Ponzi, Argyle, Rex Hill, and Chehalem. Chehalem and Argyle were favorites. The photo is from Chehalem. They had a lovely tasting room, very modern.

Also got to experience Burgerville which is pretty much so just like McDonalds except better and they use all locally sourced food and all recycled paper products.

Saturdays are for wine tastings....

Slept in a bit from our late night out in portland. Then decided to go to the goodwill. Since I am on a budget now, the only clothes shopping I'm doing is at the second hand store. I don't mind though, as I used to spend alot of time looking for vintage clothing at the salvation army and goodwill in allentown.

After the goodwill, me and Amelia decided it was time for some winetasting on our own. We went to Stoller, Cristom, St. Innocent, and Mystic. My favs were Cristom and St. Innocent. Bought a couple of bottles! The best thing about working in the wine industry is the industry discount. I got a $52 bottle of pinot for $30! How can you beat that!

Had a lot of great conversations with the tasting room folks. Learning alot about oregon wines and the land.

After tastings, we went to McMinnville to La Ramblas. A great spanish tapas bar and restaurant. Of course, we had to drink the spanish wines here! What's great about being here is everyone is into wine. Met a nice couple sitting next to us at the bar that just planted their first vines last year.

The weekend is here!

So I had a great weekend and I still have Sunday to enjoy! Friday after wine tasting, we had a photo shoot at the Ritz (they wanted to photograph the interns in their daily routine). I decided I needed a shower, so any photos of me might be in my robe! They are going to publish them in our winery newsletter that goes out to our buyers.

After the photo shoot we headed to Lumpy's, the local watering hole. Had a beer then went across the street to A to Z wines. They were having a pirate party to celebrate International pirate's day, Arghhh. We had to come up with names for ourselves, so of course I had to be One Eyed Willy.

After the A to Z party, it was time to finally get to Portland for a night out. We started off at Vault. Let me tell you how happy I was to be in the land of fancy cocktails and great food to nosh on (ha ha). This trip has totally made me realize what a city girl I am! Wherever wine might take me, we'll have to be living somewhere where vineyards are close to a big city that we can live in! Now, don't get me wrong, I do love some Budweiser, PBR and bikers (as my knew fascination with another local bar Kin's would tell you)! Just don't think I can live in the country permanently...

We hopped around Portland a bit. Had some bourbon at Clyde common and ended the night at Auros (spelling? - a posh club in the city). All in all had a great night!

Another nice friday at work

So, we were lucky to again have an opportunity to go tasting at another local winery...Shea. In case you are wondering, our winemaker is new, so she is trying to get around to some different wineries to meet the winemakers and also learn from their best practices. We obviously also benefit in that we have an opportunity to meet and talk with these winemakers and try their wines. This week we spit, no swallowing....which by the way, I am having trouble with, but I need to practice because when you are working you should be spitting! It seems whenever I "spit", either it dribbles down my chin or splashes back out of the cup and onto my glasses. Pretty classy. My roommate recommended practicing in the shower. At Shea we just spit into the drain on the floor, so that was a little easier.....

Shea is a very small operation and they sell a lot of fruit to other vineyards. I've noticed this being a pretty common practice, even though a lot of the wineries still make ultra premium wines from the grapes they are procuring.

This week in a snapshot

I'm so getting behind on my posts, but it is fun to keep the blog going and I know bryan appreciates it! This week at work was a little slower. We are still not sure when the first batch of fruit it coming in, probably this coming week, so things might be get hectic soon.

I did however get some grapes to test in the lab. Performed some pH analysis, Total acidity, and Brix on the fruit. Last week I did a lot of free SO2 and a few alcohol determinations on our wine that is almost ready to bottle.

The "Ritz" (as they call our intern housing) is coming along. They are doing alot of landscaping which will be nice, but right now there is just alot of red dust! We finally got a path laid, however, it doesn't got all the way to the winery so I imagine there will be a lot of muddy commutes once it starts raining.

Had an opportunity to try some local microbrews at the Golden Valley brewery in McMinnville. Of course I had to do the tasting.....it was pretty good!

Wine Tasting Part II

The second winery we got the behind the scenes tour was Archery Summit. Me and Bryan actually already had an opportunity to visit the winery when we were on vacation and bought a bottle to celebrate our anniversary. But we didn't get the tour! This is one of my favorite wineries so far in regards to the style of pinot I like... If you're lucky, maybe I'll even share a bottle with you when I get home.

Wine tasting Part I

Friday we had the opportunity to spend half the day at two wineries, doing tastings of course, hearing about their wines, the winery operations, and checking out the vineyards. It wasn't such a bad day to spend at work! These photos are from Lemelson, an organic wine producer. In the photo is one of my roomates from Australia.

What a view!

Here's the view coming into the winery. Not too bad, huh?

Everything has been going great. It is not "harvest" yet, but they have been keeping us busy (hence why my postings have decreased!).

I'm finally here

Well, it is now thursday and my 4th day of work. As you can see I am quite busy, plus it is hard to get access to a computer. So far things are going great. I am working in the lab and helping out as needed in the cellar. My cellar work has been all manual labor....like working on the bottling line glueing boxes together containing wine.....but the lab related stuff is interesting and I definately have the opportunity to ask questions and learn all about wine making!

Harvest hasn't started yet, so we are working pretty normal hours...about 40 hours a week. But that will change soon and I will be working 12-14 hour days, 6 days a week. Luckily they keep us busy both at work and after work - lots of harvest parties and tastings at other wineries. Monday we were introduced to the infamous dive bar...Lumpy's. Wednesday I got to go out for a nice dinner (I have been eating a lot of chips and salsa and cheese this week for dinner), apparently Nick Cage's fav restaurant in the area.

This weekend we get to move into our permanent housing (it wasn't quite ready). Lot's of fun stuff going on tommorrow and the weekend. I'll share all the details later and a picture of the view I've had in the morning when I walk to work (it's about a 5 minute walk).

Portland...almost there

We're getting close.....Spent sunday night in Portland (yes I am a little behind on my blogs....but work is busy!). My new friend Nat (thanks for the intro Tommy!) took us around the city and for his favorite bar for a beer. We drove through the neighborhoods to get a better intro to Portland. Went to the rose garden and finished our night off at a BBQ held at Nat's friends house. According to Nat, BBQs are a very portland thing to do. They served a tortilla/chili type soup, tamales with all sorts of toppings, and last but not least flan. That's my kind of BBQ!

More fun in Boise

We got up somewhat late but were still able to bike ride into downtown for some brunch. We cruised through the greenbelt (a park along the river in town) and since there was an hour wait for brunch decided to check out the saturday morning market. Lots of fun stuff to buy and eat, and we managed to find wine tastings! All before our first meal of the day. Had a yummy brunch (mmm... mimosas), then rode to an art festival. Also got to see an exhibit called American Cockroach. I highly recommend - if you are not scared of insects...esp cockroaches. It was interesting, but then again I studied entomology for two semesters.

At night, we had an opportunity to attend a cd release party for a co-worker of Jenna who plays the ukelele.

Had a nice time in Boise. Thanks Jenna!

Boise IDAHO

Never thought I would visit Boise, but one of Sarah's friends Jenna (a fellow Allentonian) lives there, so we thought it would be a good place to spend the weekend on the last leg to Oregon.
We had a rough drive from Jackson hole, we were both very tired, but arrived in Boise early enough to catch a Jazz concert. The city is pretty cool. Not very big, but a nice downtown area with restaurants and shops. They seem to have alot of activities going on. What I liked about Boise is Jenna mentioned it barely ever rares and no humidity! Plus everyone bikes everywhere. Kind of reminded me of Amsterdam with all the bikes lines up and locked to trees.

Jackson Hole Rocks

Our last night before heading to Boise to stay with Jenna, we opted for a little civilization and stayed in Jackson Hole. Finally some food not cooked over our single burner stove. Let's just say we had a great time and meet some interesting people! We ate at the Gun Barrel...had bison carpaccio, elk chops, venison brautwurst and last but not least, bison prime rib. Good thing I never went on that skinny bitch diet, ha ha.

Went out to the Silver Dollar bar, then to the infamous Cowboy bar, and lastly to a local spot called the Tavern. Of course there is always an after party somewhere as well!

The great thing about traveling is the interesting people you meet. We were almost convinced to stay the weekend in the hole, but knew we had to travel onward....I'm sure we'll be back.

Hiking in the Tetons

We ended up taking an almost 10 mile hike. Needless to say, we were pretty tired afterwards! We went further than expected as we were trying to find a moose that was spotted down the trail. We did end up seeing him, however, he was napping, so we only saw the antlers. Well, we got lucky and saw 2 other moose on the way out. They were super close, and though pretty mellow, at one point we did quickly move out of the way as they were coming at us...

A shout out to all our hiker friends we met!

The GRAND TETONS

We left Yellowstone and are now in the Grand Tetons.  Got here around dinnertime and took a hike around Coulter Bay.  Of course we made our own path....you don't have to stay on the path in the Tetons!!!!

Fly fishing fun

For all those who like fishing, I thought this was a cool photo.

Where r the Grizzlies?

Well, we've seen just about all the wildlife in the park, but no Grizzlies.  Sarah is a bit obsessed with finding at least one bear...so we stopped a lot alongside the road and explored a bit in the woods by the streams.  Still no bears...but we did find some fox fur....

Old Faithful...not as faithful as ever

Although you have to see it, I didn't think Old Faithful was as grand as I thought it would be.  It didn't rise that high and "the show" only lasted for 2 minutes...if that.  Regardless, here are some photos.  Before and after.  Again, there is alot of steam so it is hard to view the actual geyser.

Midway Geyser Basin

This place ties for my favorite site in the park.  It was very steamy because of the differentials in temperatures (springs are hot, it is cold out...) but it was still beautiful.  As you can see from the first pic, the water overflows into the Firehole stream (hot mixing with cold).  The two biggest basins are the Excelsior and the Grand Prismatic.  Again, lots of thermophiles making the water pretty colors.  Here we also saw brilliant orange (one of my favorite colors...).  

It's really hard to show the beauty, that's why I included one of the signs.  We were supposed to do a hike to get an aerial view (like the one on the sign), but it was too steamy.  We wouldn't have been able to see it clearly.  Oh well...

Mammoth Hot Springs

There are alot of hot springs in Yellowstone with thermal activity - these photos are of the Mammoth hot springs.  The thermophiles (bacteria that thrive in hot water) create the unique colors in the springs.  And no, you can't go in....

There were alot of tourists here and we were getting a lot of strange looks and some chuckles since we had Lance and Tatanka out (Sarah was very embarrassed to be carrying Tatanka around).  Lance is thinking about surfing in the last photo.  He misses his board.

Grand Canyon Waterfall

The pinnacle of the hike was the waterfall.  At the end of the trail we decided to venture down to the bottom of the waterfall to check it out.  We were already exhausted (we're still sick and this was 3 hours into our hike).  It was totally worth climbing back up those 328 stairs though.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

All I can say is breathtaking.  There are alot of unique things we saw in yellowstone, but for the pure beauty of the canyon, this was one of my favorite things we experienced.  We took a more secluded hike up to artists point, then walked on the rim along the river.  In the last picture you can see Sarah (far away).  If you veered off the path, it was thousands of feet to the bottom....so you had to be careful when near the side :)  No guardrails here.

Mudpots

We came across these mudpots in a hike.  It was much cooler finding things this way than driving up to them and walking across wooden planks for viewing.  Unfortunately (and fortunately) most of Yellowstone is like that.  However, it is important because it preserves the environment. There is already alot of damage to the unique ecosystems here.  

This mudpot reminded me of a piece of art I had seen in the SoHo Guggenheim almost ten years ago.  I'm not sure of the artists name but the piece was basically a large basin filled with paint (the same color as the picture) that was bubbling much the same way as these mudpots.

Wildlife

We had the opportunity to see lots more wildlife in Yellowstone.  Some commentary...

Pic #1  The Elk's breeding ground is near the rangers cabins, so there was tons of them roaming around.  Apparently in a week or so they will start mating.

Pic #2  Can you spot our new traveling companion...meet Tatanka.  Tatanka was hanging out with the Mule Deer.

Pic #3  More Bison.  My zoom works great.  A herd was crossing the river.

Pic #4  Since Sarah brought her binnoculars (it is a must out here).  Up on top of a hill in the Lamar valley is a great place to spot the wildlife.  We hung out for awhile with lots of other wildlife enthusiasts.

Pic #5  A close up of a wolf.  This one happened to be very close to our car.  I thought it might jump in.