Reunions

Day 3: In which Wineapalooza heads to Florence...and gets a tasting break.

Chris knows me well. Which means he knows better than to try to get me to be up early and out the door doing "things" (anything, anything at all) three mornings in a row. So Day 3 started with a sleep-in. Breakfast in bed at the hotel. Much coffee. Check out was at noon, or I'd probably still be in bed at the Marriott in downtown Portland.  We had a leisurely day ahead of us though. We were going to meander our way down to Florence, OR where we'd meet up with my high school buddy and best friend Corby and her new husband...who just happens to also be her high school love. They dated the summer after we graduated from high school--he was three entire years older than us (really significant back then!) and the "cool guy in the band." She was giddy. But it didn't last (who could get over that age difference?? ;-) ) and they broke up. They each went on to marry other people, they each had a son, then a daughter, then a divorce. Then he looked her up and ....boom! They were back in love and before you knew it, almost 30 years after their first date, they were married and she moved up to Oregon with him. That was two years ago and this would be the first time I'd see her in her new happy life. So, I was excited to get there....but there was driving to do and wines to be tasted.

Our one and only wine stop that day was a good one--Ankeny Vineyard, in Salem, OR. (Notice the dog on the mural on the building? Yeah...you know I had to stop in.) Since we were only stopping at one winery, we knew we'd need some serious numbers. How about 7? We tasted 7 wines. We greatly enjoyed the Ankeny Sunset (bottle on the right above) which is a rose blend of 84% Pinot Noir and 16% Marechal Foch...which, you guessed it, is one of Chris's Forgotten Grapes. We also really liked the pure Marechal Foch (which Chris's notes call "zippy" and also brambly and "syrah like with a little zin kick."). Tasty stuff, but we had to get back on the road to get to this:

Kevin, Corby, Teresa & Chris

It was so great to see them! And, it's possible, there was wine with dinner. There was also quite a menagerie of animals at her home, so I got a kick out of that and got my animal fix (they even have two beagle mixes--but they're huge! twice Seamus's size!).

The giant (and old, but happy) beagle

The less happy (but pretty adorable) cat

Pet ducks! They're hilarious

The wild deer come right into their backyard! These two fawns weren't too far from mama

Mama deer getting a snack from Corby

A nice, relaxing vacation day. But tomorrow...it's wine time again. Tough, tough work...but somebody has got to do it!