Tag: wine

What I did on My Vacation

We were on vacation this week and it didn’t come a moment too soon. I was in desperate need of some de-stressing. Our original vacation plans were to drive to Washington State and go on a serious week long wine tasting trek with some scenic vistas thrown in. But after going over the vacation budget and the cost estimates, we were a bit short and I am loathe to running up a huge credit card debt for a week of drinking and debauchery. Even though I am always up for debauchery and of course, drinking, I do have some limits.

After plan A tanked, we decided on plan B, a driving trip to New Mexico, going the NRA shooting center in Roton, New Mexico then driving on to Taos and tasting some of New Mexico’s wines. New Mexico is half the distance to Washington so I figured half the cost. Logical right? So that is what we decided on, drive to New Mexico, shoot up a bunch of ammunition, drive some wine and eat spicy food, what could be better?

Well fate decided that she had a better plan and evidently a sense of humor too. Not something I saw any humor in but I guess someone else might. There is a homeowner in this tiny burg that had let her property fall into extreme disrepair and the neighbors had been complaining. Original plans were made to condemn the property and tear it down. At the eleven hour the property owner showed up to a city meeting last fall to plead her case and of course our soft hearted codes enforcement officer, Mitch, fell for it. The city ended up giving her time to clean up the property and guess what, nothing was done. After many months of fruitless efforts to contact the owner, Mitch was finally able to serve her with a summons to come to court and guess what, the court date was smack dab in the middle of our vacation. There went plan B, straight down the tubes.

That left us with a very short window for any time away. We ended up with plan C, a quick sashay to other end of the state for a couple of days with Mitch and my camera. The two hooligans went to a pet spa to corrupt many new dogs and we got to sleep in hotel beds by ourselves, something very novel. We found out that we could sleep in a much smaller bed when it was just the two of us. We tasted a few Missouri wines though, I am not a fan of the wines here but I did buy an awesome t-shirt.

We found a few places to hike and got lost a couple of times hiking. You would think that being at a nature sanctuary with marked trails one would not get lost, but then one has never hiked with us. The nice lady at the Wildcat Nature Sanctuary even gave us a trail map and told us the direction to take and we still made the wrong turn, took the course backwards and ended up on the wrong side of the highway in the middle of a dry creek bed totally lost. Thank god we are smarter than most or you would be reading about a couple of idiots lost in the woods in southern Missouri.

All in all though the time away was short, we had fun just being away and hopefully my mental health has improved. By the way, here is the t-shirt I bought. It fits me don’t you think?

SAMSUNG

I Am Weak

I succumbed to the media hype touting “Black Friday Deals” even though I swore long ago to not ever participate in the lunacy of the mobs shopping on the morning after Thanksgiving.  Years ago, eight to be exact, our refrigerator went out on Thanksgiving evening loaded to the gills with enough leftovers to feed a small army.  Desperate to not lose the food Mitch jumped in the car and bought many bags of ice to fill the coolers loaded with food that wasn’t thoroughly chilled.

Very early Friday morning we entered the fray in order to find the best price on a refrigerator in stock in one of the many stores that sold appliances.  I could not believe the crush of people pushing and shoving each other just to save a few dollars on some totally useless prize.  There were men and women snatching up their finds bashing into other shoppers thoroughly thoughtless of their actions.  I didn’t hear one “excuse me” the whole day.  But I did hear, “watch it” and “that’s mine” a lot.  At Best Buy, the line to check out and pay snaked from the front of the store up and down aisles to the very back of the store.  I told Mitch there was no amount of money we could save that would cause me to stand in the line to buy the refrigerator.   Needless to say, we went elsewhere in search of a refrigerator.

We found one later at Factory Direct Appliance, and were helped promptly and courteously.  We paid and loaded up the fridge, swearing to each other that we would never venture out on Black Friday ever again.

But this morning I fell for the hype.  I ventured out well after the lunatics had pillaged the stores and had driven home with their plunder.  I had my own treasures to find.  Where did I go for my plunder?  Petco where I bought two bags of dog food and RedX where I bought a case of wine.  Got to stock up on the staples, winter is coming.   I have priorities you know.

I am so weak.