Getting Somewhere, Slowly

Whenever we wander in to a place where humans are visible at work processing food – treats, dairy products, baked goods, you name it – my sidekick says the same thing: “Look! Oompa Loompas!” It’s hard to argue with that assessment when the stuff they are producing is chocolate hazelnut toffee, after all, the stuff would do Willy Wonka proud.

Hazelnut Hill also makes dark chocolate covered hazelnuts, almonds, dried cherries, something called a razzcherry, all of the above in milk chocolate, hazelnut and almond butter, an oh, many delicious things. Some people might have been going a little crazy over the samples but that did not stop them from buying a bag of toffee, and one bag each of the chocolate covered cherries, raspberries, and hazelnuts. Oh. My. God.

They’re not fools there at Hazelnut Hill, they know that if you don’t fall for the toffee, you’ll fall for the spicy roasted hazelnuts, and then, you will open your wallet. They don’t chase you off the samples, they ask you if you’ve tried the cherries, and then, there you are tossing yet another bag of deliciousness into your basket.

The Willamette Valley is a bit of a farming paradise. We’ve stopped before to buy giant flats of strawberries. One time when driving through the valley in the summer, the smell of clover – for honey – was so sweet that we could smell it all the way out on the highway. There are great fields of mint, too, and blueberry farms, and apple orchards. There are ramshackle barns with ancient rusting GMC pickup trucks hidden in the shadow. There are horses wearing big green blankets to keep off the chill of the late fall afternoons. There are goats and sheep and longhorn cattle and cattle with no horns at all.

In the clear light of this November afternoon, we could see Sisters, a set of Cascade peaks, and then the closer we got to Portland, the snowcapped Mount Hood. A bit of fog tried to get into the valley from the west, but was stopped over a bright green field of grass.

In the town of Aurora we stopped in at the American Legion flea market but passed on the very cheap lunch and went for coffee, sandwiches, and pie at a twee little cafe decorated with old kitchen untensils all in red or green, maybe for the holiday season. The sandwiches were fresh, the coffee better than expected, and the pie very much home made.

It takes us forever to get anywhere. We have to stop and look at things. We have to get out of the car to poke stuff, to talk to people, to be invited to church bazzaars in which on the one hand, we have zero interest and on the other hand, we would not miss. A 100 mile trip can take us the better part of a fall day if the sun is shining, the views expansive, and the “open” signs visible from a few hundred yards down the road. Getting nowhere fast is fine for some, but getting somewhere at a glacial pace? That’s what we do best.