Crow Valley Vineyard

The drive to Russ's friend (Steve) in Crow Valley was, let me say,,,,,,,,,interesting.  He had emailed Russ with written instructions, which Russ emailed to me as we were leading.  I punched in the address Russ gave me as the email never came in.  We left McMinnville thinking it would be a two hour drive to Crow Valley.  Crow is south west of Eugene.  Everything was fine, the GPS led us down  Highway 99 through some more beautiful vineyards.  There was one I would have loved to have stopped at, but we wanted to get to Crow before dark.  The name of the vineyard was called "Namaste".  Namaste is an ancient sanskrit greeting used not only in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, but is also used by anyone who  does yoga and/or meditation.  Namaste is recognized as one of peace, honour and respect.

Anyway to move on to our "interesting" drive to Crow.  When I put the address into the GPS, Crow did not come up as a choice.  Russ said to put in Veneta as the town. It was accepted and off we went.  We travelled down narrow twisting roads, with very little shoulders.  Hoping we would not come across any semi's on this route.  Once thing about not being on the I-5, there are very little large semi trucks, the speeds are no more then 55 MPH and it is a much more beautiful route.  After driving for a couple of hours,  the GPS indicated we were about 4 minutes from our destination.  All of a sudden, Vonnie comes over the walkie talkie (we had two sets between the six of us, so that we could talk freely without using the phones,,,,,which was a good thing).  Vonnie said that we had to stop and turn around as we had missed the road.  We were on a very curvy narrow road, but Ray did manage to pull over in a spot that he would be able to navigate a safe turn.  Kathy and Brent drove past us looking for a spot as did Vonnie and Russ.  Ray can turn that 5th wheel around on a dime.  Well okay maybe on a silver dollar.  But he had pick a spot right at a long angled driveway, so his turn was even easier than it would have been.  It was about this time that I noticed that we had no cell service.  And I had also still not received the email with Russ's detailed instructions from Steve.  We waited on the side of the road in a small straight stretch for the others to catch up.  This time Russ took the lead.  I also turned off the GPS as I figured that Russ had the email and his navigator (Vonnie) would be able to guide us back to where the GPS didn't tell us to turn (GPS, are not always 100% correct).  We go back into the town of Veneta, and turn off the main road.  We follow Russ for about 15 minutes and it appeared that we were in the middle of nowhere.  Russ finally pulled over, got out and came and asked if our cell phone was working.  We still have no service.  None of us did.  So we continue following Russ and finally came to an intersection.  A few miles down the road, we see a vineyard up on the hill.  Ray and I are back in the lead when Vonnie radios us and says there is a "sign" on the road for the vineyard we were going to.  After driving past where the address should be twice, and having to turn in the middle of the narrow road again, Ray and Kathy notice there is a very long driveway that appears to have more then one address to it.  It was not clear at all.  Kathy and Brent start up this driveway and come to a gate with a very big dog. So they back down.  All of a sudden we see a fellow driving down in a blue car, waving at us.  Long story short, we follow him up the driveway that is a pan handle lot within a pan handle...... . The driveway is heavilied  treed and very dark. The guy keeps waving out his window to follow.  Branches were hitting the roof of both our 5th wheel and Russ's trailer.   All we were thinking was, where the heck is this guy taking us!!  We finally see the sign for the vineyard and turn into the yard.

We were so relieved to have arrived, but were all so tired.  I think Russ was the most tired of us all.  The stress from trying to get somewhere he had never been.  Originally we had planned on doing our Thanksgiving dinner, but had changed our minds earlier in the day as we had thought that we would not want to cook after a long day.  So the plan when we arrived was to go back into town with Steve and his lovely wife Kathy, to a restaurant.  But the last thing any of us wanted to do was get back into a vehicle.  So after we set up camp, we did cook the turkey we had brought, and invited Steve and Kathy to eat our mixed up Thanksgiving dinner.  Our camp spot was in the filed beside the vineyard and next to an outbuilding with electrical hook ups.  It was almost like being at the Merritt Mountain music fest, without the music!!

We had a great evening being entertained by Steve.  He is a very intelligent man with lots of stories!  We drank a few bottles of wine and as you can see by Vonnie,,,,,we had a great evening and our stressful journey here was forgotten.

Crow Valley vineyard grows organic grass for some local wineries.  Their signature winery is Teutonic Winery.  Teutonic is famed for producing some of the world's finest Reisling.  Some, or perhaps all, of the resiling grapes come from Crow Valley vineyard.


We lucked out arriving when we did, as it was harvesting day the next morning.  It had rained over night and the fields were full of muck, so just the guys went into the vineyard to watch the grapes being hand picked.

Fall colours in the vineyard

The pickers,,,,,handpicking

Look at those grapes!!

Steve loading the grapes onto the truck

Along the way, before we left Washington, Kathy bought Ray, who loves Crows, a beautiful crow we all named "Goober" (don't ask).  Goober will appear here and there in our photos along the way.  So watch for him.

Kathy and Brent left us on Tuesday morning.  They were headed back to Seaside where they wanted to fly their kites and spend a quiet night before heading home.  It was fun being with them and we will all miss them.  Drive safe you two!