Edgefield

The weather forecast this morning called for rain likely during the morning, so we opted to walk. Some of the highways have nice bike lanes that make good hiking lanes too, but the historic highway into the Gorge is quite narrow and has almost no shoulders, so we turned around.

This sign is by the east end of the bridge near Sandy Riverfront RV Park

Yesterday on our bike ride we passed a place called "McMenamins Edgefield" on S. W. Halsey St. It caught our attention because we heard music, but the place was set back from the road, and we couldn't see what was going on. I looked it up on the Internet and found out that there is free live music every night at 7:00 p.m. Yelpers offered very positive reviews of the Winery, which is the venue for many of the live music events.

We biked over to check things out this afternoon. It's quite a place: historically the county poor farm, the 74 acre property has been restored and re-purposed to a resort destination. We decided to go over this evening and do some wine tasting and listen to the music of the Flat Rock String Band.

We chose the Classic Favorites Flight, which includes their 2010 Pinot Gris, 2009 Chardonnay, 2009 White Riesling, 2009 Pinot Noir, and 2009 Black Rabbit Red. They were all good, but nothing really special. We're planning to go back and try one of their other tasting lists another time, possibly with Chris and Shawn and Annie.

They also have movies in a theater in the Power House, and they screen free outdoor movies. We walked around the grounds, enjoying the gardens. I found a few ripe blackberries and mulberries. It will be another week or so before it will be blackberry picking time.

We didn't get any photos. Ken forgot his camera, and his cell phone was out of power. I left my cell phone at home, but it wouldn't have helped, since its camera takes only blurry pics.

We spent a lot of time again today taking the bike rack apart and trying different possibilities for locking it to the truck receiver, with no luck. Ken did discover that the bike rack really has a 5/8" hole, but a threaded tube has been welded inside to receive a threaded pin, which we have never used. We called a welder to see about the possibility of taking that threaded tube out, but he wasn't in so we left a voicemail. So far he hasn't called back. I'm sure glad that we still have plan B, which is to keep the insert inside the truck when we're not using it and to use our jury rigged bike cable receiver lock when we have the rack on the truck.