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....

Solo road trip, Fort Meigs and Cedar Point

It's been a CRAZY month, with a lot of travel and time away from home in recent weekends.  I've had a ton of fun with AWESOME people, but coming back to reality has been a little tougher than expected.  After two consecutive weekends of travel in May, reality has felt a bit more lonely lately.  Life is not without its ups and downs, and being lonely is the primary reason I started this journey.  More than ever, I am reminded that Happy is NOT a state of mind, it is a CHOICE.  Sometimes I feel like my brain doesn't naturally make this choice, but whether it's fighting nature or not, most days I choose to be happy.  Sometimes, I feel like as soon as I'm happy with being alone and going my own way, I am presented with a challenge that makes it unbelievably hard to continue feeling that way.  Maybe I'll give in for a day or two.  But, give me what you've got, world!  The more times I choose happiness, the stronger that foundation is.

Today's entry is about my road trip to Ohio a few weeks ago.  My brother just finished up his Masters degree at Bowling Green (Congrats, Kev!), so it was my last chance to solo road trip out to Ohio and visit the Roller Coaster Capital of the World!

My road trip out was 9 hours of rocking out to Eric Church (of course), Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban, and even a little Jake Owen.  Me and Mako enjoyed our first long trip alone together, and the 9 hour journey was almost painless.  The only snag was when I saw an animal playing happily with a branch on the side of the HIGHWAY, which freaked me out a bit.  It must have been a dog, but it was black and fairly big, so it might have been a bear.  Since that sounds cooler, that's what I'm going with.  I called the Turnpike commission to report it, so I hope the animal was safely evacuated from the highway.  The end of the trip got pretty tough since I was tired after working a half day and driving all the way out there alone, but I made it, and felt pretty empowered too.

                                  showing Mak some love!                  my trusty steed

The next day, I was on my own, and in need of more steps (the Coast2Coast FTK Challenge stops for no one!), so I decided to find somewhere to explore.  After looking at some guidebooks, I decided to head to Fort Meigs for a little history AND a little walking around.  I was very surprised when I got there to discover that it was actually MY fort since it was pronounced Fort MEGS!  Here's me posing with signs in excitement:

                                      Look at me- I'm a part of history!

Fort Meigs was built in 1813 to protect Ohio during the War of 1812.  It was built on the Maumee River Rapids.  It was ordered to be built by General William Henry Harrison, and survived two sieges, before it was torn down and rebuilt on a smaller scale to be used as a supply depot.  It was pretty outstanding looking, especially if you take into account that it's basically in the middle of a neighborhood in Perrysburg!  I really enjoyed walking around and imagining what life was like at the Fort.  Here's a little tour of Fort Meigs:

 Very big musket!

 Shout-out to my favorite fort visitin' buddies, Tammy and Rachel!

 Behind one of the mounds used for further protection inside the fort walls.

 Very neat interactive exhibit, where you could listen to different fifes and drums when you chose a meaning.

 Officer's quarters, pretty nice digs!

 Since I'm a sicko, my favorite part was the journal of medical care and the "Wheel of Fate."  I died of a battle wound...certainly the honorable way to go, but I learned that was NOT the way most soldiers died.

 You can see the rapids above, and below.

 Ever since seeing castles in Europe, I love these little tiny windows, that are just big enough for a gun or weapon.

 I got caught in the rain, and it was not pretty!

 Had to get creative with my picture-taking since I was all alone!

Across the street.  Must be cool to live right next to history!

After some quality time with my brother, Michele arrived for the CEDAR POINT part of our trip.  We stayed up much too late just talking, teen sleepover style.  I'm so thankful for great friends.  Not many people would take an 8 hour trip just to meet me to ride some roller coasters!

We arrived at the park around 1 pm the next day, which was also their Opening Day.  It was pretty cool on the way in, because you ended up driving through some marshy areas, and just when you'd think you'd arrive at the beach (if you were in NJ), you see all the roller coasters in front of you!  We were instantly shocked with how small the park looked, and I read somewhere inside that it's only about a 3.5 mile loop all the way around... with FIFTEEN roller coasters AND other rides!

 Here's my preparation sheet of all the roller coasters we needed to hit!  You can take the Academic Advisor out of the college, but....

 SO EXCITED!

A little bit of home!

We started the day with the Raptor, which was a bit like the Incredible Hulk, but without the blastoff.  We waited about 45 minutes in line for this one, which made me a bit stressed that we wouldn't be able to hit all 15 roller coasters during the day.  It was a great, exhilarating start!

From there, we headed over to the Blue Streak, one of the more "classic" roller coasters in the park.

The short wait at the Blue Streak did ease my mind a little bit about being able to get on all the rides.  The Click-clack on the way up the hill did NOT ease Michele's mind though... great view of the marina area though!  This one was decent for a wooden roller coaster, but nowhere near my favorite of the day.

Next, we headed across the walk to the Iron Dragon.  I was pretty excited for this one, because with its suspended cars, it reminded me of the Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens, which was my first roller coaster ever, and was always one of my favorites until they tore it down a few years ago.  The Big Bad Wolf was always shut down for repairs, and wouldn't you know it?  The Iron Dragon shut down for a few minutes while we were in line.  It looked like a cleaning issue, so we were careful to avoid that car for our ride!

It was a nice easy one, and felt a lot like the Big Bad Wolf, but seemed much smaller.  Definitely a great first roller coaster though, and not bad for us almost 30 year olds too!

Next up was the Mantis, which was a standing up roller coaster.

Points for originality, but this one was a bit jerky and hurt my head a little... which admittedly is not hard to do for a short person such as myself.  I also found it very weird that you could feel so much vibration from the ride in your feet, and it wasn't my favorite sensation.  It's worth a ride though since it's so different.

From there, we headed to the legendary Millenium Force!  The park boasts that Millenium Force has won best steel coaster, every year since it was built.

 Yeah, that's the way UP.

Awesome view of the marina at the end.

I'm NOT someone who gets easily nervous about roller coasters... and I was totally gung-ho about this one.  But when we got ALMOST to the top, and we were right over Lake Erie, I actually turned to Michele to tell her that I actually couldn't look because I felt scared!  That did NOT ease Michele's nerves about going up, but it was only about a second before we reached the top.  We both LOVED this one, and it was Michele's favorite of the day.  Definitely a ride I would love to do again!  Everyone cheered when they came back to the station, and we were no exception!

After a fun walk through a petting zoo area....

 Walking and repping Childhood Cancer awareness and the Coast2Coast FTK Challenge!

baby goats!

...and some lunch, we got ready to get on the Maverick, which was even recommended by one of Michele's friends.  Unfortunately, the Maverick was closed, and when we came back to it later, there was a 2 hour wait (even though it was closed literally 15 minutes earlier when we walked by).  This made the Maverick the first casualty of the day.  We were disappointed, but we soldiered on to...

...The Cedar Creek Mine Ride.  This one was okay, but it was a bit like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney, but not as smooth.

Then.... THE MEAN STREAK.

I'll let Michele tell you about this one:

 The Mean Streak was probably the worst roller coaster I've ever been on.  I would never do it again.  At the bottom of each hill, your whole body would bounce off the seat AND the headrest, and it felt like stabbing migraine pains in my head throughout the ride.  I tried to take deep breaths and relax, but you should never have to do that to get through a roller coaster.  I thought for a minute that we'd have to call it a day on the roller coasters, but we are troopers so we continued on.  For several days afterwards, I had pain in my sciatic nerve, which I've never had EVER, so yeah... avoid this one at all costs!

Despite my protests, Michele made me go on the last wooden roller coaster next, the Gemini.  This was also a pretty old ride, so I feared the worst.  But, it was actually a great wooden roller coaster, and it would have been even better if we didn't go on that mean Mean Streak first!

After that, we hit Magnum XL 200.  For a roller coaster built in 1989, this one was nothing to sneeze at, and was surprisingly fast.  The major hill was also pretty big.  We were impressed with this one.  While it didn't stand out among roller coasters all around for its uniqueness, it WAS one of the best rides of the day.

The line also gave a great view of the roller coaster that Michele had been worried about all day... The Top Thrill Dragster!

For my Jersey friends, this is actually the original Kingda Ka, Six Flags built theirs just 20 feet or so higher to beat out Top Thrill Dragster for the highest roller coaster honors.  It may not look like much here, but it is extremely intimidating and for the first time since probably my first roller coaster ride, I felt a little shaky about getting on it.  I had been riding coasters all day with my phone and sunglasses in a pouch around my waist, but decided to get a locker because I wanted nothing on me (besides my clothes of course) to deal with this ride.  Once you're buckled in and waiting, it's pretty nerve-wracking.  Let's just say "I love you"s may or may not have been exchanged, and teenagers may or may not have made fun of once of us from the ground right before we blasted off.  You shoot off from 0 to 120 mph in just 4 seconds, and it's definitely a crazy feeling.  It's pretty incredible because when you start to hit the loop to go up, you can actually feel the coaster start to slow down as it uses some of those mpgs to get it up the curve.  This was maybe the first roller coaster ever that I found myself marveling at the engineering of it.  That being said, it lasts 17 seconds, so it's not worth more than a 30 minute wait... especially because they do not run the ride in windy OR rainy conditions.

We did it!

After this, we had to accept the sad reality that we would not make it on all 15 roller coasters in one day, and we had to prioritize of the remaining coasters.  Wicked Twister and the new Pipe Scream are more like rides on a roller coaster track, so we found it easy to eliminate them.  Next time!  That left the Corkscrew and the Gatekeeper, so we opted for the more unique Gatekeeper.

 I've borrowed the incredible photo above, to show off what is so unique about the Gatekeeper.  The middle area in yellow is the only part of the car over the track, and nobody sits there, so basically every person is flying through the air on this ride, and right over Lake Erie.  We did this one at dusk, so it was even more exciting to be flying around in the dark.  The ride was incredibly smooth, but still thrilling.  This one was my favorite.  I love a roller coaster that can make me feel like I'm flying... after all, isn't that the point?

We didn't make it on every roller coaster, but we had amazing weather, 11 total roller coaster rides, and I got to spend the day with one of my best friends.  We'll put this one in the win column!

 Gorgeous end to a great day!

I paid for all the fun, since we stayed out late, then I stayed up even later packing my brother's belongings to come home, and I had sciatic nerve pain the next day too.  It was a rough ride home, and I actually, at times, thought I couldn't make it.  But it was absolutely worth it.  I hope to make it back to Cedar Point someday, but in the meantime, we are hoping to make it to Busch Gardens in the Fall.  I think the best kind of adventure is the kind that inspires even more adventures!