Fruit Loop

Mark and I spent a wonderful day Sunday exploring part of the "Fruit Loop" near Hood River. Cherries are the big fruit of the moment so we sampled several varieties, later returning to one stand to buy our favorite, which was also the best price. We sampled cherry jam, some absolutely delicious roasted red pepper, ginger, garlic salsa (it was expensive so we wrote down the ingredients and are going to try to make it some time), merlot chocolate sauce on strawberries...We bought cherry cider, which was very good but quite intensely flavored--a little bit goes a long way, and some hand pies which were like homemade Hostess pies. It wasn't just eating though. We petted goats, saw a couple of very relaxed llamas (yarn made from their recently sheared fur was for sale on the table next to them), and watched the smoke from the wild fire near Mt. Adams grow bigger as the day went on. Other than being about 10 degrees too warm, it was the perfect day.