Summer's back Sunday

Well.....as I type this at 4 in the afternoon, the current temperature is 86*. Quite far from the 38* morning just 3 or 4 days ago! Isn't that called the splendor of Mid-west weather?

We had a magnificent time on our "Hays wine fest" this weekend!!!!! We met at the hotel and ventured on to Augusta MO, which is actually 45 miles further South. What we should have done (and will know for next time) is booked a room in Washington MO and then went. Yes, that is how close to St. Louis we were!!!! Our first stop, which was late morning, was at Montelle. OMG what a fantastic place. I would call it "first class". Very nice, the view was something else and it was huge! Oh...and I found THE BEST wine I've ever had!!! :)
Here is their website. www.montelle.com The only bad thing is you're not allowed to bring in your coolers and food to this place. They promote their restaurant and deli. Which......is fine IF you don't have coolers full of dips, cheeses and meats. We had everything from fruit to meat trays!!!!!! Anyhow, we stayed there until about 1:30 I'm thinking. We really enjoyed it. There really wasn't too many people there when we got there, which made the (HUGE) tasting bar easy to get to. By the time we left, it was like opening day of trout season. It was shoulder to shoulder. We decided to leave there and hit the next one so we could get out our eats!!! We were starved and some of us needed to eat to soak up the suds! heehee (there was 14 of us and 3 pretty sober drivers...so take your pick who it needed to eat!!) Next stop (headed back towards the hotel) was the Balducci Vineyards. www.balduccivineyards.com This place was nice too. I mean not in the "first class" way but very open and lots of tables set up. It was actually just an old barn which has been made into a winery. There's info on their webpage. When we got there - we pushed tables together out in the open and whipped out all of our snacks. We pretty much devoured them! LOL Then started opening up new bottles of wine to check out their stuff! heehee A wedding party came. Pretty cheap way to have your reception I tell ya! Was kinda cool to see a bride all dressed up, her maids and all the dudes.
We were there quite a long while and decided to move it up to Blumenhof Winery in the little village of Dutzow. www.blumenhof.com It was a nice LITTLE place that was packed. Am and I didn't drink anything there. I decided it was time to mellow out! I was NOT out of hand, by any means, but I just decided to sit out at that place! We were there for a couple hours or maybe not 2 and then headed back to our hotel. Its actually in New FLorence right on the intersection of I-70. 15 miles before Hermann. We checked in and then ended up walking to the truck stop cafe up the road. (Melody, it's where we used to eat breakfast). It was called Maggie's. OMG you should see their cream pies! I am NOT kidding when I say normal height pie and 6-8" of merangue. Sure looked good. Everyone got some except us. Am did get ice cream. They said the pie was awesome!!!! We sat around chit chatting until about 10:30 and wrapped it up. Got up this morning (well.....I didn't sleep whatsoever which is a hotel norm for me), showered and ate breakfast down in the lobby. (yes, Mel, they serve breakfast now) We all left at 9:15. Kind of nice to get out of there so early. We were home by 10:30. Rudy (dog) was soooooooooooo excited to see us!!! So now we know he's fine if we have to leave him over night.

That is the brunt of the weekend. It's hot..........and I'm tired and now it's 4:20 so I'm going to wrap this one up! Hope your eyes aren't sore! lol

p.s. Am wasn't pissy at all........he ended up taking his headphone radio so he was completely tuned into the Mizzou game AND the Cardinals game. In fact - he was quite popular w/ strangers asking what the score was! Funny how you just assume because one has on headphones that they have a game on! LOL