A Tale of Many Tiny Adventures, and 13 years of friendship.

Well, perhaps more than any other blog, this one has been a long time coming, because it's a summary of many adventures this year with my dear friend, my issue girl Rachel.

Long, long ago, in the summer of 2001, I went to Europe on a music tour.  I only knew one person on the tour, but I didn't know that I would meet one of the greatest friends I've ever had, Rachel.  On our very first day at Millersville University for practice, we both were crying our eyes out, our parents bonded, and we became fast friends.  We recently got together to relive our trip through our very juvenile journal entries, and amazing photo albums.  While going through them, we realized that one of us had marked the occasion of our becoming BEST friends in our journals sometime during that trip.  How amazing that we are still great friends to this day (and we are even more amazed after reading how immature we were back then!)

somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean, as we were falling deeply in friendship love

Now that Rachel is back home where she belongs, I've been loving being a part of her and her little boy Mickey's life.  And here's what we've done this year:

My second wine tasting EVER:

Rachel, her mom Lynne, her sister Sara and I headed out for a day of grown-up fun this Spring.  I had been wine-tasting just one time before in college, and still had no idea what kind of wine I liked, and in preparation for the big Finger Lakes trip in May, I really needed to get my act together when it came to wine.

We visited Sharrott Winery first, which was DELICIOUS.  My favorite wines there were their Blueberry wine, White Peach Sangria, and Red Sky (which is one of the few red wines I have EVER liked- they call it a party in a bottle!)  I tried some drier whites and some sweet whites here, which helped me to conclude that the sweeter whites are where it's at for me.

 Rachel in her natural habitat, not letting food go to waste.... cheese purse!

After our tasting, we had a glass of wine on their gorgeous patio.  Cue to me and Rachel giggling like school girls.

After Sharrott, we headed to historic Smithville.  I had never been before and it was the cutest little place!  We went to Tomasello for a second tasting where I tried a bunch of fruit wines, and a few sweet whites.  I was not a fan of what I tried there, and the gal conducting the tasting seemed like she could care less.  We were not too into it, but we had lunch at Fred and Ethel's tavern which was the cutest historic tavern.  Loved it!

For Rachel's 29th birthday (as she will not let me forget, because she's SO happy it isn't 30!), we headed into the city for dinner and GayBingo!  We headed out to an awesome BYOB place, where we proceeded to recreate the giggling like schoolgirls portion of wine tasting day.  It was a great time, but it DID make the Bingo that much harder because... LOOK how many cards you play....

But, of course, the Bingo isn't really the main event at GayBingo, it's the DRAG QUEENS!  They were so much fun, and the whole night supports the AIDSfund.  I highly suggest that you check it out at some point, especially because of this most worthwhile cause, but also because it's such a good time.  We also really enjoyed the man candy that helped out on stage... including the Temple Men's Gymnastics team who was raising money to try to keep the team going.  Our group didn't win any money, but we DID have a great time.  I am still wondering if me or Rachel might have had the right numbers but been a bit too buzzed to know it...

Event page: http//www.aidsfundphilly.org/events/gaybingo

homemade masks to fit the Carnivale theme

Rachel celebrating 29 years of life, and a life-long love of drag queens!

Last but not least, Atlantic City with my sharky boy Mickey!

First up, we visited the Atlantic City Aquarium.  There weren't a ton of sharks here, so Sharky Megan was disappointed, but they did have a cool touch tank.  Mickey was a bit nervous at first, but once he touched one, he was all about it!  He also got to touch a starfish and he loved that too.

They also have a great observation deck at the top, complete with views of the marshes and bay side of Atlantic City and a ship's wheel that Mickey enjoyed.

me and my sharky buddy enjoying shark time!

...and turtle time!

Making a new friend!

From here, we headed to the Absecon Lighthouse.  I had never even seen the lighthouse before, but imagine my surprise because...

it is RIGHT in the middle of the big casino buildings!  I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise to see this, since lighthouses are not always right at the water, but it just looked so weird to me in the midst of modern day civilization!

We took some fun pictures, and we snooped on a commercial shoot that was going on... apparently with lottery winners from NJ.  It was all very official with craft services, wardrobe areas, and the like.  The inside of the lighthouse keeper's building was also pretty neat and very old.

After this, we headed to visit LUCY THE ELEPHANT!  Growing up in South Jersey all my life and spending some time down the Jersey shore in the summer, I should definitely have seen Lucy before this, but this was my FIRST visit, so we of course did the tour up into Lucy's body.  I found it very cool that Lucy had been someone's house at some point.  We also loved Lucy's painted toenails.... pretty sweet.

Aunt Sharky Megan, Mickey and Rachel concluding our awesome adventurous day!

Next up for us is a Pirate Cruise in September... the adventures continue!  ARRRRR!!!!

The Ponies

Original adventure on adventure list: Camping at Assateague Island in Maryland with the ponies
Actual accomplished adventure:  1 hour visit to Assateague Island in Maryland with a slight glimpse of ponies

You can almost see this pony... but it's just the powers of camera zoom.

For those who don't know (and I've been seriously alarmed by how many people didn't know when I talked about this adventure), Assateague Island is an island in Maryland with wild ponies.  You can camp there, go to the beach, kayak, and hike.  Brittany and I visited the National Seashore park, which was actually surprisingly affordable, if you are local enough to go to the beach there (just 30.00 for a car-load of people for the entire season- compared to 25.00 or so dollars a person on some of our NJ beaches).  It cost us just $15.00 to get our vehicle in for the day and we got some handy hints for pony spotting from the park ranger manning the gatehouse.

We stopped in after spending the night in Ocean City, Maryland at a Bachelorette party (Congrats, Meg!), so we were exhausted and slightly dehydrated, but DETERMINED.  We started on the bay side, where the park ranger told us she likes to sit in the bay in her beach chair and wait for the ponies to come to her.  It was really neat to see crabs and fish in the water. Since it was so shallow, we spent a bit of time with our feet in, just enjoying the view.  From here, we glimpsed our first (and only) ponies in the slight distance.  They were pretty far back from the viewing area and the parking lot, so apparently, ponies are no fools and not trying to be hanging out with people.

We visited the beach and found plenty of people but no ponies.

We also walked along a boardwalk through the marshy bay area.  From there, we got a view of the ponies where they pretty much looked like ants.  But, we also got to see a VERY large congregation of turtles sunning themselves, and also, a mom and baby turtle swimming around in one of the waterways there.  We also saw quite a few birds.

On the way out, we got a view of more ponies... probably the closest we got to a pony the entire time.

Hopefully, next year I'll have the opportunity to camp at Assateague, as I imagine the camping area may attract the ponies because I KNOW people feed them, even though it is NOT permitted.  As with any opportunity that you have to view wildlife, it is hit or miss.  I can't blame the ponies for wanting to steer clear of people as I'm sure they are regularly bothered and harassed by people.  Next time, I will make sure I have at LEAST a whole day to spend there, to sit quietly and wait for a better sighting.  Patience pays off, and we didn't have the time or energy for it during our visit!

photos enlarged AND zoomed in, so you can actually see these ponies better than we could in person!

The Finger Lakes and Lots of Wine!

I've had so many fun, exciting new adventures lately that I must keep updating the new ones.... I'll get back to the few winter adventures I missed eventually, but I'm too excited about my latest adventures to wait any longer to post!

So, up until this point, I had very little experience with wines and wine tasting.  Me and a few friends visited a few wineries a few months ago (blog post to come....), and I did a wine tasting and tour in college, but other than that, I would just pick a random white wine and hope it was a sweet one!

My college roommates, Kyla and Amy had established a tradition of visiting the Finger Lakes every so often, and invited me to come for the big "Dirty Thirty Wine Weekend" where we would all celebrate our thirtieth birthdays together.  The Great Floods arrived before us, but thankfully, didn't wash out our little slice of heaven on Keuka Lake in Penn Yan, NY.

Incredible early morning view of Keuka Lake from our deck!

What a gorgeous place to wake up to in the morning!  Unfortunately, our little beach was completely covered along with the fire-pit, but apparently, it was a lot worse in other areas.  I looked up pictures of flood damage last week and couldn't BELIEVE this was the same town we stayed in just the day after all this happened.

Friday night's great big adventure was actually getting to the place we were staying.  It was incredibly dark around there, we spent about an hour on backroads, and once we got to the little street going down to the lake house, I thought we would drive into the lake at any minute.  And parking there in the dark- forget it!  Luckily, we were able to park up towards the road for the night.

Me and Cait keeping ourselves awake at a rest stop in NY!

Around 10 AM, we headed out in our LIMO to start drinking wine... yeah that's right, at 10 AM!  These girls don't play!  In the next 6 hours, we visited SEVEN wineries around Seneca Lake.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, let's go drinking at 10 AM!

1) Anthony Road Wine Company:  Our first stop of the day!  We absolutely loved our guide here.  He was funny and pepped us right up at 10:15 or so in the morning.  I did NOT appreciate their Yankees wine label (BOOOO!), but the wine was good and I left with a bottle of Tony's White, which supposedly has notes of pear, lemon, and lime.  I have to be honest, my palate is not that discriminating, but it tasted good!

 The gang at Anthony Road.... special appearance by Kyla's face.

Anthony Road's view!

2) Seneca Shore Wine Cellars:  Seneca Shore considers itself to be a "medieval" winery.  I liked the medieval outfits and decorations in the place.  I tried a few fruit wines here and had the first fruit wine I've ever hated... strawberry.  I suspect I may just not like strawberry wine.  However, I bought a bottle of the Royal White, which billed itself as very "grapey."  I was very impressed with the description, and felt like a fancy wine snob because that was exactly the word that came to mine when I drank it!  This place also resulted in my first "dump" of the day into the wine bucket.  I came to realize that occasionally dumping out a wine I didn't love was the only thing that would allow me to be standing at the end of the day.

So medieval!

3) Serenity Vineyards:  This place was a pretty new winery, with a lot of drier choices, so some of the gals sat this one out.  I decided I would develop my palate and like drier wines, so I decided to try things out.  I did find one of their wines very interesting.  One of their Riesling's claimed to have a "petrol" and minerals taste, and when we asked, yes, it's supposed to taste like gasoline.  It was kind of like sniffing a Sharpie marker, where you know you shouldn't like it but you just can't stop sniffing.  I opted out of buying this one though, and alas, I am still no lover of dry wines.

#tinyadventure :)

4) Fox Run Vineyards:  The tastings here were set up in two different "flights," where you choose if you'd like to go for dry wines, or sweet wines.  I'm not sure if this is just the BEST way to do tastings, or if they are just the best, because I really liked every wine I tried here.  I actually bought three bottles of wine here, the Fox Trot Red (my ONLY red of the whole trip), Ruby Vixen (my only blush of the whole trip), and a bottle of white, because it was in the blue bottle, and those are my faaaavorittteee!

Fox Run Vineyards... not a bad view!

 Roomie Amy and I with our spoils.

After our tasting at Fox Run, we settled in at a picnic table for a lunch of crackers, cheese, grapes, and cookies, and no wine.  We all drank water.  We decided we were REALLY showing our age here for both being prepared, and also, for hydrating ourselves before our next stop!

Kyla and I with the fox

Our lovely, super prepared group of 30 year olds!

5) Belhurst Castle Winery:  It's a CASTLE.  Need I say more?  I didn't love the wine here, but the place is gorgeous.  I also learned here that I do NOT like dry, dry champagne.  Definitely worth a visit for the ambience though... see?

 Roommate selfie!

 Roommate photo... I miss our townhouse!

6) Ventosa Vineyards:  My last drinking stop of the day.  I'm sure the wine here was great, but by this time, I had had enough and everything tasted the same to me.  I passed my tastings on to the other girls after I had a sip.  The place was very nice, and very Tuscan looking.  I did pick up a bottle of Semi-Sweet Riesling which apparently has notes of honeydew and green apple.  It was my favorite that I tried, but I definitely need to taste it with a fresh mouth!

7) White Springs Winery:  This place has a carriage in it.  Yeah, that's about all I got from it.  We didn't have time for us all to do tastings here so I sat this one out :)

I had grand ideas of swimming in Keuka Lake behind our condo, but once we arrived in Penn Yan, it was clear this was not the weekend for swimming.  Saturday's high was only about 75 degrees, but somewhere, a few wine tastings in, I decided that I WAS swimming in that lake, even if it was probably only 70 degrees in the lake too.  I thought I'd quietly sneak out in my bathing suit, but my friends followed, as well as one of the owners of the house from their deck above.  Thankfully, he just informed me that I could use the ladder on the dock and went back inside!  After a short countdown and some hemming and hawing, I jumped into the lake holding my nose, then hit some kind of lake seaweed, inhaled lake water, and came up gasping at the cold.  I swam to the floating dock, back to the regular dock, and then got up exclaiming that I was sure I was going to get the brain-eating amoeba now from the lake water.  I think the wine in my system kept me just warm enough and I spent the next hour relaxing in the sun on the back deck.  Heaven :)

 After I was infected with the brain-eating amoeba...

 Rejuvenated... I recommend jumping in a freezing lake after a day of wine tasting!

 Unbelievable views....

Sunset on Keuka Lake

The next morning, we packed up, but decided to hit a few more wineries on our home lake, Keuka Lake, before heading home.

8) Keuka Spring Vineyards:  We actually got here a bit too early to taste wine, but no worries, we got to actually sit and enjoy the GORGEOUS view from Adirondack chairs.  Insanely gorgeous.

 Caiti enjoying the view

 Heaven.

After that nice bit of relaxation, our tasting was also delicious, and I left with a delicious bottle of their Vignoles.  It was probably my favorite wine I tasted the whole trip.  This winery was one of my favorites!  I would love to live close enough to just go hang out on a gorgeous evening with a glass of wine and this view...

9) Rooster Hill Vineyards:  I really liked the glass we got here.  Nobody bought a bottle from here.  I'd skip it if I went back.  But... we enjoyed the Rooster out front...

Roomie selfie again!

10)  McGregor Vineyards:  This was quite possibly my favorite winery for the overall experience (although it's neck and neck with Bully Hill!).  We got to sit in a pretty, down to earth back room, with great views, and they actually gave us a snack with our wine!   I bought a bottle of the Sunflower White, which I really liked there.  Unfortunately, I tried it at home and wasn't totally in love.  I should have sprung for the delicious Semi-Dry Riesling there!  It was nice to take a load off, relax a little bit, and drink our tastings a little bit slower than some of the other places.

 Perusing the many choices...

Great view from McGregor Vineyards!

Lovely views from the hill by McGregor Vineyards

11)  Bully Hill Vineyards:  This is a VERY popular winery with pretty good reach... rumor has it their wines are even available in NJ, but I haven't gone looking just yet (only because I have enough wine from this trip to last me for a few years...)  Bully Hill has an amazing gift shop, a tasting room, and then also a tasting area where you can pay for individual samples if you don't want to do the regular tasting.  Our "guide" here was entertaining, and had fun with our preferences.  He also brought out some champagne to celebrate a couple that was tasting with us, and even mixed in a little sweet wine, so that even the sweet wine lovers could enjoy our extra tasting!  I pretty much loved every wine here, and like many of the other places, the view was gorgeous.  We also ate lunch here, which was delicious and made for a relaxing afternoon.  Again, showing our age, we all opted out of drinking wine with lunch... long drives home ahead and all!

 Bully Hill's view

 Not everyone gets to be a boy AND a girl, I'm so special :)

On the way out, Cait and I actually saw a FOX at the gas station, thus making my purchase of Fox Trot Red super appropriate.  It was a pretty thrilling end to a great trip.  I'll be enjoying my many, many wine glasses and 10 bottles of wine for a long time to come.

 Our little fox friend... SO COOL!

Special thanks to all my Dirty Thirty friends: Amy, Kyla, Rosie, Rachel Mary Sue, Stephanie, and Caiti for the fun adventure and for appearing here in this blog!

Cheers!

P.S. You didn't think we would leave PSU unrepresented, did you?

WE ARE....