Something about the way the river and mountains around Rogue River are makes it truly an oasis like place in the mountains. The River is powerful as it goes thru the middle of this small town. We've now stayed at the Best Western Inn on the Rogue twice.
It is one of the most clean and restful motels I've ever stayed in anywhere. You just become overwhelmingly relaxed as you pull up and it stays with you until you get back on the highway.
Directly across the street from the BW Hotel is a spectacular bridge that crosses the Rogue and takes you into this quaint little downtown area. For such a small place, there are several really good looking and upscale restaurants, although we've never taken the time to have tried them.
The reason for not trying other restaurants is that right across the parking lot from the hotel and little grocery store is one of our most favorite places on the road. Karen's Kitchen is small but the atmosphere inside from the folks who work there to the incredible food are quite special..
On our first visit to RR in 2008 (due to my flat tire), we spent Sunday afternoon thru Tuesday morning here waiting for the Tuesday morning opening of the closest motorcycle shop in Grant's Pass. We ate something like 6 straight meals at Karen's on that first trip, so we were excited to have another chance to experience Karen's.
We almost always sit at the counter of these diners as its much more fun to be able to observe everything from the best seats in the house. From the counter we got to know the waitress and the chef and prep staff. The chef, as it turns out, spent lots of time cooking for the rich and famous in Los Angeles, including a stint at the Peninsula Hotel there. His brother invited him to visit RR where he lived at the time, and that was all it took for the chef to decide this was the place he should live. I'm sorry folks....I am terrible remembering names, and only have Marie's name cause I wrote it down.
So...from the Peninsula to Karen's Kitchen....and he brought his great skills along to blend with the diner's menu and make some truly amazing food!
The waitress had tried living in the big city of Portland but had returned home to RR herself a few years earlier.
Peter ordered his favorite Karen's dish; southern fried chicken. I had my favorite BLT.
During our meal, an 83 year old woman came in and sat at the counter to my left. I didn't take note of her except to see that she seemed to know everyone in the restaurant and had a favorite place at the counter to sit.
I had asked the waitress about fishing locally, and she immediately suggested I just ask this same lady because she grew up in this area and knows the area intimately well. The waitress explained that she is a Southern Oregon born Native American.
What followed was a special treat for both Peter and I. Hulda (that's correct spelling, she had Swiss father and Native American mother), but her middle name of Marie is what she goes by. You can see Marie in the photo below with the waitress, chef and prep man and Peter. Marie is seated in front of Peter.
She answered my question by launching into a series of jokes with the ease of a woman firmly comfortable with herself and quite at home. We knew we'd found something special in Marie.
I don't want to short change the other folks there, everyone is awesome, and we hope to be back many times to visit and enjoy the food and especially the atmosphere.
Turns out that Marie had been born in an Native American village near Brookings, Oregon on the coast. She grew up in a very remote area that required her and her siblings and parents to have to swim the river often just to get to the other side. As she explained, there was only one boat in the family, and school and stores were on the far side of the river, so if the boat was gone; the only choice was to swim it.
She had eventually married and moved with her husband to this area. She had stories of worldclass sized tomatoes from her garden and reported that she was currently tending 500 tomato plants in her yard.
All the while that she was talking about the area and her experiences here, she would throw in these jokes that would completely catch you off balance and bring on smile after smile as we listened to her.
There are very few people that I could just sit and chat with for very long, and Marie would certainly be near the top of that list.
We decided to take a walk after dinner to work off some of the food, making note that we 'had' to come back prior to closing time so we could get some of the great looking deserts that they have in display cases near our seats.
So we walked across the street to the wonderful little park that The City of Rogue River maintains. It's on both sides of the bridge that crosses the river and goes into town. The bridge itself is a work of art. It has a viewing platform about half way out that allows a great view into the rushing river waters below.
Our previous visit had us get some of the fried chicken from Karen's and then have a picnic across the street at this park.
You can imagine the fishing here would be spectacular, and you'd have a really hard time finding a more serene setting.
We returned about 8:15 in time for desert. Of course, this is Karen's Kitchen....and when we left after dinner, they had told us to be back prior to closing at 8:30, but then telling us that we could call them even after closing, and they'd let us in for our desert if we wanted (and if they were still there).
Wow....warm apple pie ala mode.....yum...........So many times when you order this; it is 'not quite' warm, or maybe the pie is slightly warm but the ice cream overpowers that.....at Karen's it was 'perfect'. Peter had some of the strawberry pie that had been staring us in the face during dinner. Awesome!
The BW Hotel includes a buffet style breakfast that is quite good. However, both Peter and I felt like we just plain had to make one more stop at Karen's Kitchen for breakfast before we rode out of town that morning.
As we walked in the door; we were blown away by finding Marie and her morning breakfast club sitting at the counter having breakfast. It was soooooooo nice to hear Marie say to her friends; "Here are those young guys I was telling you about." ('young' is not a word I hear often to describe me these days).
She had come prepared in case we had breakfast there. She brought her photos of the huge tomatoes from her garden, and also the shot of her 12 year old granddaughter and the 120 lb halibut she had caught up in Alaska. Here's Marie's crew that morning ..
With Marie in the center, Peter behind, the others are the morning breakfast crew at Karen's counter.
You just don't find this kind of place every day and we're both truly hoping to get back there again soon.
After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel, loaded up our bikes, and began the ride to my home in Olympia and my final day on the road on this trip.
