Christom and St. Innocent Wineries Bike Ride & Sandra’s 40th
The original plan this weekend was to go for a road ride on Saturday and then climb Mt. St. Helens for Mothers Day on Sunday. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans for us. Instead, we were fortunate to get a call from our friend Nicole from Shedd, OR who was interested in coming up for a visit Friday night. That led to us connecting with Chris, Marissa and Colleen who we rarely get to see. Read on..
Nicole came up Friday night and after climbing with Chris they both came over for some dinner at the Oregon Public House and drinks at our place. I didn’t go climbing with them because Emily and I met Tom, Everett and Andrea at the Old Gold for some cocktails there instead, and I’ve realized that I’m just not that into rock climbing….
Marissa, Kalin’s fiance, met us at our place at 9am and we all headed down in our two trucks to Salem to meet up with Colleen. She had planned out a wine ride in the area for us and we met her at Wallace Marine Park. From there we jumped on our bikes, road out of town and biked about 8 miles out to our first Winery named ChrisTom after the two owners, Chris and Tom.
It is one of the older wineries in the area and we each paid a hefty $15 for a tasting of 5 different wines. I guess that is something I just don’t get… how expensive it is. Wow… ok, they throw in some local cheese.. wow… Could get two hefty glasses of wine for $15 at a restaurant. They were good though!
The view from Christom was great with Jefferson in the distance and flowers all over the landscaping. The woman explained to us the historical giant wooden doors that were shipped from a winery in Europe to Christom and is what their business symbol is based off of. She had been there for over 20 years and had exceptional wine knowledge she conveyed to us. After cooling off in the shade near a nest of baby robins for a bit we posted up in adirondack chairs on the back lawn while others played a round of corn hole behind us. Very relaxing.. just wish I had more wine… and that their alpaca was friendly enough to walk over and see us…
We then headed off down the road a short ways to the St. Innocent winery. Along the way Nicole spotted a big dead snake on the side of the road so I put it in my pizza rack to try to scare Emily. Wile riding I kept thinking it was going to fall through the bars into my spokes and send me flying! When we got to the winery Emily spotted it and without much fear exclaimed “why do you have a snake”… because she is Emily, and apparently snakes don’t phase my wife.
St. Innocent was also beautiful. A nice lady with a thick accent (French?) served us outside on the patio. They had just started offering up a plate of food to accompany their 5 wine tasting so Emily and I split one and the others shared two plates as well. When the plate came I honestly thought it was just the first round of food, not realizing that it had 5 distinct foods on it which was apparently the whole meal.. Thankfully, Emily stopped me from digging in. I was also lucky enough to find a free wine tasting on the Yelp app after I “checked in” as I usually do at new places we visit.
We relaxed there in the sun for a while before heading back on our bikes, returning via a different road that the woman at St. Innocent suggested. Good advice as it had a wonderful downhill back into town that we all enjoyed. From there we said our goodbyes and I headed back to Portland with Marissa and Chris in the truck with Emily and I. It will be great to do dinner with everyone sometime soon as Marissa, Kalin and Chris all live in Portland near us!
In the evening Emily and I with Leo headed over to Eric’s where there was a surprise 40th birthday party for Sandra. No dogs were allowed except for Leo, which seems to be typical nowadays for us. He gets special permission as he is very well behaved and kids love him. Andrea had done a great job with decorations, food, and a cake. We asked what we could bring but were told nothing as they already had so much food!
It was a fun night of drinking with friends. Eric somehow found yet another copy of our lawsuit that we got to make into paper planes and throw into the fire. By the time 11pm hit we were all pretty lit so we headed home while others continued on to the Barlow for more drinks. Tom had a hall pass from Andrea for the night so he was happy to let loose. Great to see Chuck and Laura again and to hear that Porter may have found a house!
On Sunday Em and I woke up pretty spent from the night before so instead of an ambitious mountain bike ride like I had originally planned we headed off to the Scapoose trails to ride a measly 5 miles of the spaghetti web of trails there….
The original plan this weekend was to go for a road ride on Saturday and then climb Mt. St. Helens for Mothers Day on Sunday. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans for us. Instead, we were fortunate to get a call from our friend Nicole from Shedd, OR who was interested in coming up for a visit Friday night. That led to us connecting with Chris, Marissa and Colleen who we rarely get to see. Read on..
Nicole came up Friday night and after climbing with Chris they both came over for some dinner at the Oregon Public House and drinks at our place. I didn’t go climbing with them because Emily and I met Tom, Everett and Andrea at the Old Gold for some cocktails there instead, and I’ve realized that I’m just not that into rock climbing…. 
Marissa, Kalin’s fiance, met us at our place at 9am and we all headed down in our two trucks to Salem to meet up with Colleen. She had planned out a wine ride in the area for us and we met her at Wallace Marine Park. From there we jumped on our bikes, road out of town and biked about 8 miles out to our first Winery named ChrisTom after the two owners, Chris and Tom. 
It is one of the older wineries in the area and we each paid a hefty $15 for a tasting of 5 different wines. I guess that is something I just don’t get… how expensive it is. Wow… ok, they throw in some local cheese.. wow… Could get two hefty glasses of wine for $15 at a restaurant. They were good though!
The view from Christom was great with Jefferson in the distance and flowers all over the landscaping. The woman explained to us the historical giant wooden doors that were shipped from a winery in Europe to Christom and is what their business symbol is based off of. She had been there for over 20 years and had exceptional wine knowledge she conveyed to us. After cooling off in the shade near a nest of baby robins for a bit we posted up in adirondack chairs on the back lawn while others played a round of corn hole behind us. Very relaxing.. just wish I had more wine… and that their alpaca was friendly enough to walk over and see us…
We then headed off down the road a short ways to the St. Innocent winery. Along the way Nicole spotted a big dead snake on the side of the road so I put it in my pizza rack to try to scare Emily. Wile riding I kept thinking it was going to fall through the bars into my spokes and send me flying! When we got to the winery Emily spotted it and without much fear exclaimed “why do you have a snake”… because she is Emily, and apparently snakes don’t phase my wife.
St. Innocent was also beautiful. A nice lady with a thick accent (French?) served us outside on the patio. They had just started offering up a plate of food to accompany their 5 wine tasting so Emily and I split one and the others shared two plates as well. When the plate came I honestly thought it was just the first round of food, not realizing that it had 5 distinct foods on it which was apparently the whole meal.. Thankfully, Emily stopped me from digging in. I was also lucky enough to find a free wine tasting on the Yelp app after I “checked in” as I usually do at new places we visit.
We relaxed there in the sun for a while before heading back on our bikes, returning via a different road that the woman at St. Innocent suggested. Good advice as it had a wonderful downhill back into town that we all enjoyed. From there we said our goodbyes and I headed back to Portland with Marissa and Chris in the truck with Emily and I. It will be great to do dinner with everyone sometime soon as Marissa, Kalin and Chris all live in Portland near us!
In the evening Emily and I with Leo headed over to Eric’s where there was a surprise 40th birthday party for Sandra. No dogs were allowed except for Leo, which seems to be typical nowadays for us. He gets special permission as he is very well behaved and kids love him. Andrea had done a great job with decorations, food, and a cake. We asked what we could bring but were told nothing as they already had so much food!
It was a fun night of drinking with friends. Eric somehow found yet another copy of our lawsuit that we got to make into paper planes and throw into the fire. By the time 11pm hit we were all pretty lit so we headed home while others continued on to the Barlow for more drinks. Tom had a hall pass from Andrea for the night so he was happy to let loose. Great to see Chuck and Laura again and to hear that Porter may have found a house!
On Sunday Em and I woke up pretty spent from the night before so instead of an ambitious mountain bike ride like I had originally planned we headed off to the Scapoose trails to ride a measly 5 miles of the spaghetti web of trails there…. 
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