First of all, I apologize to those of you who were following along with the vacation blog, which ended abruptly. I had every intention of doing both the blog and vlog, but as the week went on, I got more and more tired and something had to give. In this case, the blog suffered.
Here are a handful of pictures that we got from the last couple days of the incredible trip:
Now, those of you who watched the vlogs might remember that I was expecting the “travel day from Hell”, as we were driving home from Seattle through the border and then taking an unfamiliar (and long) route home, as Hwy-1 was closed because of the epic flooding that we completely missed while we were away.
We encountered the most friendly border guard in history. Even though there were only 8-9 cars in the lineup when we arrived, it took about 45 minutes as the new restrictions means that most cars required a lot of time to get processed. It had just been announced that they were closing Hwy-7, our ONLY route home, for further repairs at 7 PM. We got to the border around 2, and we were hearing stories of people who had taken 4-5 hours to get home, attributed to the fact that the winding highway was currently operating with single-lane alternating traffic. Obviously, doing the math, we didn’t have a lot of wiggle room, needing to get past the closure point (and we had no idea where that would be) before 7 PM, or we’d be turned around and unable to get home at all that night. Ack!
Well, we arrived home at around 4:30! No delays of any significance. We got to a road said that indicated “single lane alternating traffic”, but that was never the case. It took us, probably, only about 45 minutes longer to get home than it would normally take us on Hwy-1. Bullet dodged. Another example of how incredibly lucky we were on multiple occasions this trip!
Now, one of the reasons we chose these dates for our trip was to celebrate my 52nd birthday. We try to avoid going to Disney on my actual birthday, as it always falls very close to US Thanksgiving and I lack the patience to deal with Thanksgiving crowds, so we were actually home 3 days before the official date. You know what that means, though?! BIRTHDAY WEEK!!!!!
For my actual birthday dinner, I needed 1/3 of a bottle of Chardonnay to put into the sauce. I went to my wine fridges to find a Chardonnay where I wouldn’t mind losing 1/3 of the bottle, and I pulled out this one, which was the “worst” Chardonnay I could find. And let me tell you, if you have a bunch of wine at home and this is the worst Chardonnay you can find, you are doing something right.
For the second Chardonnay of the evening, we upgraded a bit to the most reliable Chardonnay house in BC.
For my actual birthday meal, I was making Prime Rib, and I ran into the same situation. Needing 1/3 of a bottle for the Jus, I went into the cellar and pulled out something that I thought would be drinking well, but maybe didn’t have a ton of time left in it. This was a pleasant surprise.
For night three of “birthday week” we had a couple of Quails’ Gate wines that we have previously enjoyed and rated, along with another episode of their “Virtual Culinary Series” which is a lot of fun.
That’s it for today! Coming up, if we have any more great wine during “birthday week” I will be reporting on them. As well, we have a ton of great stuff to report on, including some wine that is going to show up on my “best of the best” list, and also on my annual “best of the year” list which is fast approaching. Stay tuned!!
Confessions of a Huge Wine-R 