Top spots to visit in 2014

So where are the best places to visit in the United States in 2014?

CNN provided suggestions in a recent article, 50 states, 50 places for 2014.

Here are their suggestions for the Pacific Northwest states:

Idaho: Craters of the Moon National Monument
Located in eastern Idaho, Craters of the Moon National Monument is a 750,000-acre preserve filled with dormant volcanoes that last erupted 2,000 years ago after 13,000 years of activity. Early astronauts trained here in preparation for moon walks. I've been here a couple of times, but never crawled inside the caves that dot the landscape.

Montana: Miles City Roundup
The Miles City Roundup celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. There's the usual rodeo events that attract top rodeo cowboys. The Bucking Horse Sale takes place at the same time. It is 64 years old this year.

Oregon: Hells Canyon
Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America, at some places more than a mile separates the canyon bottom with the area's highest mountains. Hells Canyon offers spectacular scenery (been there, done that) in the eastern part of the state, and is the dividing line between Oregon and Idaho. The canyon is popular with those who like to run river rapids. (The Snake River runs through the canyon.)

Washington: San Juan Islands
It's pretty hard to beat the San Juan Islands when it comes to scenic beauty. CNN suggests taking a ferry ride from Seattle north to the islands, particularly when it's whale-watching time. My preference is to drive to Anacortes and ferry hop between the islands. Ferry hop long enough and you'll end up on Canada's Vancouver Island.

Harris Beach State Park

Harris Beach State Park

Harris Beach State is a gem on the southern Oregon coast. Located on Highway 101 north of and within the city of Brookings, the park makes a pleasant stopover, particularly if you are traveling in an RV. You just can’t beat the winter full hookup rate of $22 per night.

Harris Beach, however, is more than a pleasant place to spend the night. It’s home to the largest island on the coast of Oregon, Bird Island. The island is a National Wildlife Sanctuary and is a breeding site for the tufted puffin as well as other rare birds.

The park also offers great watching of the gray whales that migrate along the coast every year. The park designates a week each in December and March as whale watching weeks.

The park is named after George Harris, who migrated to Oregon in the 1880s to raise cattle and sheep.

Cranberry Sweets

Bandon is a pleasant stop on Oregon’s south coast. It has one of the country’s top golf courses at Bandon Dunes. We’re not into golfing, but we definitely enjoy Old Town Bandon with its quaint shops and boutiques as well as getting shrimp cocktails to go and eating them on the city pier while watching playful seagulls. We especially like visiting Cranberry Sweets, a candy shop we discovered on our honeymoon trip to San Francisco.

Lots of cranberries grow in the Bandon area, which makes it a natural for cranberry jelly treats that were first made in 1962. Cranberry Sweets has since expanded to more than 150 jelly candies, cookies, salt water taffy and chocolates. Flavors include marion berries, raspberries, key lime and licorice. Pumpkin pie is a holiday favorite; they even make fudge out of cheddar cheese.

Cranberry Sweets provides ample free samples of almost everything on sale. The array is mind-boggling and reminds me of the old potato chip slogan, “bet you can’t eat just one.” You lose if you agree to a bet like that. You can also watch candies being made almost every day

Spirit Mountain Casino

Spirit Mountain Casino

Like Indian casinos everywhere, the Spirit Mountain Casino in western Oregon was established to create economic diversity for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. It reportedly is Oregon’s busiest tourist attraction, since more than three million people visit it annually.

Besides 90,000 square feet set aside for gaming, the casino has more than 250 hotel rooms, live big-name entertainment, five restaurants, and an RV park. The casino bills itself as the Northwest’s top casino. If customer service is any indication, I certainly can’t argue with that claim. Every casino employee treated us with utmost respect and went out of their way to make sure we felt welcome. We stayed in their \free RV park, and only did minimal gambling, though we did eat all our meals at their restaurants. The food was plentiful and good. The casino offers free on-demand shuttle service throughout its complex.

The casino is located on Highway 18 between Lincoln City and McMinnville and Lincoln City where it connects with Highway 101, the Pacific Coast Highway.

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is made up of 27 tribes from Oregon, Washington and northern California, though not all are involved with the casino

Richland's alphabet soup houses

An A house today

Richland, Washington's alphabet houses were quickly constructed to house thousands of people working on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

The one- and two-story ranch style homes formed the nucleus of the community which grew out of the desert as people converged to construct the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Japan to end the war.

B house today

The community was quickly designed, with street construction starting in March 1943. The first house was completed a month later. Before construction started, Richland had only about 20 homes, hardly enough for the 16,000 people coming to work at Hanford.

Each house style was assigned a letter, with B being the most common, followed by A. Both were duplexes. Housing was assigned based on how many people were in a worker's family. Some houses had only one bedroom, others had three. Though almost all of the houses had chimneys, few had fireplaces. Instead the chimneys were used to vent from the coal and oil used to heat the homes, the local historical society says.

Dozens upon dozens of the houses exist today, just about everywhere you go in Richland. While the houses essentially all looked the same back then, today's owners have added decorative touches such as paint schemes, porches, window shutters and carports. As you drive around Richland, it is amazing to see the changes made by a little creativity.

Two PNW colleges among most beautiful campuses

Two Pacific Northwest colleges are on Travel + Leisure's list of the 30 most beautiful college campuses in the United States. The colleges, which originally were listed in a 2011 magazine article, were picked because of outstanding architectural features as well as natural beauty.

Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, made the list because of its park-like campus with "verdant forests, sweeping pathways and stone walls." The article notes that a tree walk is lined with native trees that early  explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark saw when they made their great journey from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean in the early 1800s.

Another Pacific Northwest college on the list is the University of Washington in Seattle. The article singled out the Gothic style Suzzallo Library because of its 35-foot high stained glass windows and vaulted 65-foot high vaulted ceilings. Also noteworthy are the 30 Yoshino cherry trees that bloom every spring in the Quad and the spectacular views of Mount Rainier from the Drumheller Fountain.

Barnard Griffin winery

Barnard Griffin is a small, quality winery operated by a husband-and-wife team located in rural Richland, Washington.

Rob Griffin has been involved in the Washington wince scene since 1977. He and his wife Deborah Barnard have been making wines under their own label since 1983.

Winemaker Griffin has a master’s degree in viniculture and enology from the University of California at Davis. He came to southcentral Washington in 1977 to serve as the first winemaker for Preston Winery located a few miles north of Pasco. He met with quick success, with his 1977 Chardonnay winning Best of Show at the Seattle Enological Society’s Northwest Wine Festival.

Barnard Griffin Wines Started in 1983

He and his wife began making wines under their own label six years later, with their first bottlings consisting of a total of 400 cases of Chardonnay, Fumé Blanc and Riesling. Griffin went on to become winemaker and general manager at Hogue Cellars in Prosser, before the couple went full-time with their winery. They have been at their present facility at 878 Tulip Lane in Richland, Washington, since 1996.

Barnard Griffin has used colorful tulips on its label since 1983, and bottles lines of White Tulip and Red Tulip wines in addition to their white and red reserve lines. The winery’s production is more than 75,000 cases a year.

Winery Wins Many Awards

The number of awards the winery has won attests to the quality of their wines. Many of their awards come from California wine festivals, making the wins particularly sweet because California is better known for its wines than Washington. In early 2009 alone, Barnard Griffin wines have won at wine festivals in Riverside, Monterey and San Francisco. For the fourth consecutive year, Barnard Griffin won a gold or better for its Rose of Sangiovese at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

Barnard Griffin was named the Pacific Northwest Winery of the Year by Wine Press Northwest in the spring of 2006.

Wine Grapes Come From Throughout Mid-Columbia

The grapes for Barnard Griffin wines came from throughout the Mid-Columbia region, from the Wahluke Slope to the north to the nearby Red Mountain vineyards.

The on-site tasting room is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The tasting room also houses a small art gallery, where glass works by Deborah Barnard are on display. There is a fee to taste wines which is refunded when purchases are made. The winery also has a small wine bar/eatery and offers live music on weekends.

How to Find Barnard Griffin Winery

Barnard Griffin is one of three wineries on Tulip Lane. It is the middle one, bounded on the north by Tagaris Winery and on the south by J. Bookwalter Wines.

Take the Queensgate Road exit off of Interstate I-182, which runs from Interstate I-82 in the west, past Richland and on to. From Queensgate turn onto Columbia Park Trail, then left onto Windmill Road, and finally right on Tulip Lane. Watch for the winery signs on Columbia Park Trail.