He Always Had Some Mighty Fine Wine

After Saturday's trip back in time, Ken and I took to celebrating her birthday on Sunday. This involved a number of very important activities. The first one consisted of me trying to convince McKenna that she would make a good hat:

Sadly, McKenna did not agree, so hatless I went off to church with Ken, where they provided celebratory materials for Ken and the other churchgoer whose birthday was that day. They also all sang Happy Birthday to both of the birthday girls, which was very sweet of them.

After church, we headed out on our merry way to go winery-hopping up the side of Lake Cayuga. The first winery, Americana Vineyards, was a particularly appropriate stop given the holiday.

They also had a cafe, so we were able to get brunch before we started tasting. If you're ever in the area, I would highly recommend the smoked salmon omelette and the pimosa (a mimosa made with pineapple juice instead of orange juice).

Our meal was supervised by Theo, the winery cat. He spent the entire meal underneath the chair next to Ken, and seemed quite perturbed that we were disturbing his nap.

There were also a pair of chocolate labs roaming the grounds, keeping the winery safe from trouble.

The wine itself was very good. Some better than others, but that's standard for most wineries.

All of the bottles had very cute patriotic labels, and would make very good gifts. I would highly recommend the Revolutionary Red.

Next, we traveled a short while to Bellwether Hard Cider, which produces a variety of hard ciders.

This place was awesome. All of their ciders were great, and we left with several bottles. I am waiting for a good reason to open them, particularly the Cherry Street variety. The cidery was also run by two dogs, including the unfortunately-named Sugie, who seemed to be quite put out by all of these people disturbing his naptime.

Soon we left Bellwether and traveled to Lucas Vineyards, the oldest winery on the Cayuga Wine Trail.

This winery was super crowded, but we were still able to get a place at the tasting counter fairly quickly. They featured a number of wines, including quite a few with nautical-themed names. Apparently the founder was a tugboat captain. Despite some pretty good sales, we left this place empty-handed, as we had already bought far too much at the two previous places. On the way out, though, we did stop to visit some baby wine grapes.

The last winery we visited was called Sheldrake Point. This one was the closest to the lake, and boasted the best view.

This one also featured a great variety of wines, most of which we tasted. More importantly, this one had a bistro overlooking the lake, so we decided to take a dessert break. The menu at this cafe was great, and the drink menu was even better. Ken drove, so she had a lavender lemonade, and I had this lovely concotion that was called a Champagne Supernova.

On the way back home, I was able to get some good pictures of the boats on the lake.

After a mini-siesta at home, where we caught the end of 1776 on TCM, we headed back out to dinner at Corks and More. This place? Coolest place ever. They had machines like this throughout the restaurant, where you could purchase either a taste, a half glass, or a full glass of over 40 different wines. Between the two of us, we probably tasted about 3/4 of the wines they had.

Corks and More also had a great menu of appetizer-sized portions of various bits of awesomeness, including about 12 different crostini recipes,

a cheese tray with prosciutto,

and shrimp stuffed with crab and cornbread.

There were also quite a few fashion violations here, including a gentleman wearing jorts, sandals, and pulled up sweatsocks; and a gentleman sitting outside on the patio drinking a Miller Lite. Now, there's nothing wrong with Miller Lite, but good lord, you're at a wine bar. Drink wine! His dining companion was rather like me - she kept taking pictures of everything and everyone, and managed to do so all while holding and not spilling her wine.

After dinner, we went down to a park by the lake to wander around. Ken wanted to take a picture of herself in her super cool new Anthropologie dress, and I just like to take pictures of things. I also like to play fashion model, too, although sitting on that post was not a good choice. This is me almost falling off of said post.

I was able to get some good shots of the lighthouse in the distance, though, which was a lovely way to end the evening.

And then we went home, and decided that since McKenna didn't want to be my hat, she would get a new hat of her own. The contempt in her eyes when this happens never ceases to amuse me.

Take A Holiday From the Neighborhood

This past weekend Tricia and I went to visit Sara, Josh, and Penny in New Jersey. After an eventful drive through Delaware and up the Jersey Turnpike, we arrived, and were greeted by the welcoming committee.

Much to Penny's dismay, we immediately set out on our first quest. We had tried to order tickets on the internet to see the revival of Hair, but had no such luck, so we decided to try the TKTS line.

I had only ever been to the TKTS place in Times Square, which is an absolute mob scene. The one at the South Street Seaport was like a dream come true - the line was short, it didn't smell like tourist, and best of all, they had what we wanted:

We made it to the window fairly quickly, and easily got our tickets for the next day, which were better seats than the ones we had looked at on the internet.

We were very excited!Next, we wandered over to an outdoor restaurant to get drinks,

and then we went shopping.

We also saw one of the most horrifying things I have seen in awhile - the return of the Grow-A-Frog kit, on sale for an exorbitant sum of money at Brookstone.

Apparently they dress them up in fancy tanks and sell them without appropriate warnings, such as "These little bastards won't die," or "Don't put two in the same tank or they will eat each other."

We went back to Jersey City for dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant Sara and Josh liked, and then retired to their house for an evening of playing with Penny. She was very excited to have visitors.

Sara also told us that it was our job to drink the last leftover bottle of wine from their wedding. We were happy to oblige.

Eventually, though, everyone got tired and was ready for bed.

Saturday morning, we set out bright and early into the city.They post very useful information in the New York transit system.

After a short walk, we reached NBC Studios, one of the happiest places on earth.

We waited in line for the tour to start,

taking the last few pictures we were allowed to before going in.

The tour was super cool - we got to see Jimmy Fallon's studio, the SNL studio, and where they film Nightly News with Brian Williams, among other things. There was also a rather annoying group of moms on the tour who had dragged their pre-teen daughters with them, and felt the need to point out every single thing to them, no matter how obvious, or how little the kids cared. However, there were no super cute but inadvertenly offensive NBC pages on this tour like the last one - our tour group had two pages, Matt and Kristin, and there were no elderly people with eyepatches or middle aged couples with bad taste in Tonight Show hosts for them to accidentally insult. Sadly, there were no celebrity-sightings, so we had to settle for a giant wall of NBC stars instead.

After the tour, we went to the basement of the building for lunch.

and then back up to the NBC Experience Store. This store was full of awesome stuff - I got a Dunder Mifflin badge holder, a Dunder Mifflin tote bag, a coffee mug, a Friday Night Lights shirt, and a couple of birthday/Christmas presents for later this year. Sara got the most awesome onesie for the baby, too, among other things. And I saw a Seinfeld shirt that I really wanted, but they didn't have it in my size, sadly.

I also saw my favorite kind of bird - an NBC peacock.Next, we walked over to Times Square and Broadway to see Hair. This was one of the few Times Square pictures that turned out well - there were many, many people in my way for most of them.We also saw Michael Scott's favorite New York pizza joint.

While we were standing in the monstrous line to get into the theater, Sara posed with the Statue of Liberty (not the real one).

Finally, we reached the theater door:The show was fantastic - I've wanted to see Hair since I saw the episode of Head of the Class where they wanted that to be their class play, but the school wouldn't let them because of the nudity and subject matter. Fictitious 80s high schools can be so picky. And it was great - very well done, even though most of the understudies were on for this performance. And the best part was, our tickets were in the hippie-free zone. The actors spent a fair amount of time running through the audience, but we were far enough from any aisles that we were untouchable, and we liked it that way.

After the play, we stopped at a hotel gift shop so Tricia could get band-aids for her shoe bites, and I could buy inappropriate postcards to send to Kathy to hang on her classroom wall.

We also saw what may very well be my mother's dream come true. Don't tell her that they probably don't just play Law and Order reruns all day.

We also passed a restaurant that is owned by some Food Network person I wasn't familiar with,

and we took a detour to the Ann Taylor Loft by the subway on a hunt for pretty dresses.

When we got back to Jersey City, Sara changed into her super cool new shirt, and we set out for dinner.

We went to a very good Italian place in Hoboken (of which there were many...it was pretty much the first one we came across), near where Josh rightfully earned himself the title of Parallel Parking King. Even I was impressed, and I can parallel park anywhere.

After dinner, we wandered over to a park by the river to see the city at night.

By then, it was getting late, so we headed home so we could get up early the next day and Tricia and I could beat the beach traffic. Which we did (yay for the Pennsylvania Turnpike instead of 95 through Delaware!), but not until after Sara and Josh cooked us bacon. I love bacon. And I love Sara and Josh and Penny for entertaining us all weekend!

**Gold star to whoever gets the title quote first...it's not that difficult, someone must know it!***