Being a Wednesday in the off-season, we basically had the entire car to ourselves, which was nice, and I found the change of pace and the beautiful scenery relaxing. The train used to wind itself up the hill through evergreen forests and fruit orchards -- the Hood River Valley is famous for its apples -- to the small town of Parkdale, but a flood at the end of 2006 caused more than $1 million in damage to the tracks, so for the time being the train only goes as far as Odell.
Now, I grew up in Oregon, but I had never heard of Odell. And now I know why.
There is so little of interest in Odell that as we disembarked, the conductor encouraged us to visit the Chevron to see its collection of antique toys. So, there being nothing else to do for the 30 minutes in which we were deposited in this backwater, we dutifully trudged over to the gas station and gazed politely at a few shelves covered haphazardly with rusty, dusty junk. I did manage to find one highlight.
Truly, we agreed, this had been the longest half-hour of our lives, as we stood in a parking lot petting a random black lab that had appeared from nowhere.Once back in Hood River, we had a delicious lunch at a restaurant whose name I forgot to notice. The service was good, but our waitress had some issues with pronunciation. When I asked about the red wine options, she said they had a merlot (correct) and a sangiovese, which she pronounced san-JEE-oh-VESS-ee. Close enough, I guess.
Then as she was describing the specials, she mentioned that one dish came with "nokey." What the hell is "nokey", I wondered; but not wanting to appear ignorant in front of my co-workers, I refrained from asking. Fortunately, someone else took the leap for me: "What is nokey?" "Oh, nokey are small Italian potato dumplings."
Ah. Gnocchi.
For dessert she offered us pot de creme, which, truthfully, she called paht-duh-cream. I'm told it was delicious, but I opted for the cream broolee.
6 comments:
Your company sure seems to have very enlightened working practices.
--Matthew
omg.
my ex dad in law would break down laughing if he saw that lunch box.
my wife had one as a girl, and one day he took her thermos to work with coffee(his broke).
the ribbing was so bad, by lunch time he had to go home with a broken hand (he punched his machine).
gotta know him. he's a large 'john wayne/ronald reagan' type, former combat vet(army ranger) from korea, who vowed to God never to hurt another man. ever again. forever.
one guy pushed it too far, so he struck (intentionally) past his head, striking the machine.
he still laughs about it.
Been to Odell! We took the kids on the Christmas train, which promised that Odell was a lovely little town with a Christmas tree farm. Um, 10 pre-cut trees leaning against a sign is not a "farm."
Tourist attractions tend to use words like "charming" and "lovely" rather liberally. (Up here, we've discovered anything on the Washington coast that is described as "resort" should be embarked upon with extreme caution)
I've been to Odell Lake (central Oregon Cascades, about an hour east of Eugene) but I never knew there was a town called Odell. The lake is beautiful.
Scusa, ma io parlo italiano, e so che gl'italiani dicono "gnocchi" come "nyokki." Oh, you deleted your comment. Well, good. I particularly like snotty know-it-all people who are wrong, LOL.
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