Trip to the Valley

On Saturday Ann and I packed up the car and our faux mini schnauzer, Rosie, and hit the road to visit Daughter#2 who lives in Harrisonburg nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. It's a beautiful drive heading west on I-66 and then south on I-81. The mountains are all around. The main reason for the trip was to transport Daughter's#2's bridesmaid dress for the upcoming marriage of her older sister, Daughter#1. We also returned a few odds and ends that she had left during her visit home for Christmas.

We arrived just before lunchtime so we sat down to chat and enjoy a cup of tea before we set off to Clementine's for lunch. I had a portobello mushroom sandwich with goat cheese and marinated roma tomatoes. Here Daughter#2 munches on her black bean burger. She is still recovering from gum surgery so her lunch choices were somewhat limited. I also enjoyed a bottle of two of some fine Belhaven Scottish Ale.

After lunch, we walked across the street to drop into Harrisonburg's tourist information center to locate the address of a winery that is nearby. The nicest old woman asked if we needed help and then talked our ears off for a good 15 minutes or so. In a good way though. She was full of information and ideas as our elders often are if we take the time to listen. The winery we were looking for was Crosskeys Vineyards. It's fairly new from what I understand and close to Harrisonburg. It took us less than 15 minutes to get there from downtown. Here Daughter#2 and I stand out front of their main building. The wine tasting room is to the right in this picture. It was a gorgeous place, but did I mention it was freezing out?

Same view but a little closer shot of Ann and Daughter#2 before we headed inside.

We didn't take the tour because of the temperature outside. We noticed when we pulled up that the tour included a trip outside to see the grape vines and it was just too cold. We did do the wine tasting and sampled five of their wines. We all thought their Chardonnay was excellent as well as the Cabernet Franc. Enough so that we decided to get stay and enjoy a glass or two as seen below.

After the wine tasting, we returned to Daughter#2's home and the dogs, who were ready for dinner and a run in the fenced yard. As we were getting ready to drive home, The Son In Law got home from his band practice/recording session. We missed having him along, but there are other weekends plus we have a trip planned with them in the near future.

For anyone who might be interested in seeing more about the aftermath of the Air Florida crash that I discussed in my past post, particularly the rescue part, check out Daughter#2's comment on how to view additional footage. There are four links but I only linked to the first.

Friday Wanderings

The nice thing about my Friday off under my compressed work schedule is that it is also payday. So not only do I have a day off, but I also have some money. So this morning was mostly spent paying bills and doing some Christmas shopping on line. We still have have some more to do, but with only six more business days before Christmas, we're put ourselves in a position of having to use express shipping in many cases. Procrastination gets expensive. We still need to d our cards as well.

After the bills were paid and skipping out on exercising, we headed down to Occoquan for lunch and some more shopping. The town of Occoquan has been around since there was a United States. The town of Occoquan sits on the Occoquan River which flows into the Potomac River about a mile downstream. Its now more of a tourist destination than anything else with lots of little antique and gift shops. Its a quaint little place. We had lunch at Madigan's Waterfront. Ann and I both enjoyed some crab chowder and crab cake sandwiches. After lunch we bought a gift or two for the kids. We then headed to the other end of town to Ye Old Dominion Wine Shop. That's its actual name. Its a wine shop that deals exclusively with Virginia wines. We thought while we were in Occoquan we would buy a few bottles. While its possible to get Virginia wines in most of the local grocery stores, their selection is often very limited. We also like to patronize local businesses when we can. One of the nice things about the shop is that they always have wine tasting going on. A nice way to broaden my very limited knowledge of wines and lets me taste wines I probably wouldn't try on my own if I had to buy a bottle to find out if I liked it or not. They also bring in representatives from the local wineries to host tastings on weekends, which is a nice touch. They had a spiced wine as one of their selections today. You could taste the cinnamon and nutmeg and other spices. I could see where it would be very tasty indeed warmed up while sitting in front of a cozy fire. We ended up buyng a Riesling and a red blend and headed home. Where we proceeded to take nap. We got up in time to watch the Virginia Tech men play in the NCAA soccer semi-finals. Unfortunately they lost 2-0 to Wake Forest. Still for them to go this far was quite an accomplishment for the team.

The Son had won tickets to a Capitals hockey game at his office Christmas party a few weeks back so he is off at the Verizon center tonight along with a very nice girl that he has reconnected with from his high school days. With him gone, I got to cook dinner again and we decided to take the easy route and just grill up some Brats. After walking the furry kids, we settled in to watch the Div-1AA football finals, but we just couldn't get into it especially with Appalachian State jumping out to a quick 14-0 lead.

Tomorrow evening we are suppose to get a significant storm. For us it means more rain than snow, but for Daughter#2 it could be 3 to 6 inches of snow with some ice thrown in for good measure. It sounds bleak for those traveling I-81 here in Virginia. Since she works for VDOT she is already on call for snow duty. It could be a long day/night for her. I keep telling her to let them train her to run a snow plow, but she doesn't sound too excited about the idea. She's content to keep track of the plows and the amount of sand/salt they use. Stay warm little one.