Sunday, July 5, 2009

Not Quite 50

We had a fabulous weekend. We took the trailer down to the Thousand Trails campground just south of Chehalis on Thursday morning. It is my favorite campground. It has so many trees with moss and ferns and just lush green all over the place. They have added a dog park area which is great. We made kabobs with chicken, red pepper, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and baby red potatoes. They were quite scrumptious. For desert we had a mixture of strawberries, raspberries and loganberries.
On Friday, I woke up older. I am officially 49. I feel no different. We decided to go to some wineries and out to lunch. We went to Widgeon Hill Winery first since it was only about 4 miles from our campground. It is a small operation but has some good wine. Jodi, the winery dog, met us at the car while Rhett set up the wines in the small tasting room. He shared that his dad had started making the wine and when he passed a couple years ago, Rhett took over. He wants to stay small and since he has another job, he probably will. We really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of a very unpretentious place. We bought a Chenin Blanc, Tunupa Red, merlot, cabernet, and a syrah. We are both looking forward to some great food to enjoy with this wine.
We headed in to Centralia to get lunch and go to our next winery. We ate at the Olympic Club. I had a Smoked Mozzarella Sandwich with grilled onions, tomatoes, & pesto on grilled rustic bread. It was yummy. My folks had the bean soup which was different from what they expected, but they both enjoyed it. Steve had French quarter chicken sa ndwich Cajun-spiced chicken breast with blue cheese, lettuce, & tomato on a traditional bun. He ate it all so it must have been good.
We then walked a block to our final destination. Heymanns Whinery is not a spelling error. Bob Heymann was our pourer and he was great. Not only is the wine really good, he has wine and beer making supplies and books and accessories and gifts in his shop. He was generous with his pours. We bought his chardonnay, raspberry chardonnay, cranberry, merlot and syrah. We also bought a book and a game. The book, Wine Trails of Washington is going to be fun. We asked lots of questions and we got stories. It was great and I highly recommend a visit.
We drove back to camp and met Sydnee at the campground. We had a great dinner of marinated flank steak, grilled zuchinni, and yukon gold potatoes with sour cream. For desert we had brownies.
On Saturday, Steve went golfing and Mom, Sydnee and I went to the outlet malls in Centralia. We got incredibly lost but eventually ended up on the right road. Shopping took longer than planned (always) but we got back to camp so Sydnee could head home to her celebrations. We made dinner of pork tenderloin with cabbage steamed and dressed with a sause of butter, dry mustard, vinegar and salt and pepper. It was good. I like to sprinkle a little cinnamon on the pork before I grill it. Tasty. We had strawberries for desert. Mom & dad had them plain, we put ours on brownies.
It was a great weekend and we didn't starve.