Jim and I just got back from our weekend trip to Michigan and we had a fabulous time!
First of all, we absolutely loved our room - here was the view from our deck:
I attempted to take video of the room as it was so gorgeous, but I ended up not saving it somehow - on the positive side, now I know how the video features on my camera work! The room was beautiful; very large, with a fireplace and a huge bathroom with a nice big jacuzzi tub!
Friday night we explored neighboring New Buffalo and had dinner at Casey's, which was excellent, and I had my introduction to one of the local wines from Tabor Hill (the dry Riesling.) This was really tasty and much better (in my opinion) than their sweet demi-sec wine that I had tried previously as a gift from someone who came back from there.
We spent some time by the fireplace in our room that night - you can see I was having a great time after a few glasses of wine...
On Saturday, we decided to do the full winery circuit and visited Tabor Hill
and bought a number of their white wines to come home with us for our "stash."
Next up, we followed the winding winery roads
to Round Barn winery, which is one of the only wineries that make vodka from grapes (called "DeVine", and it apparently beat out Ketel One and Grey Goose in taste tests in Chicago - it was very smooth). We ended up making quite a few acquisitions at Round Barn:
The lady at Round Barn told us that we could take our glasses to their sister winery, Free Run, for a tasting there, so we went there and walked into the open door, but the lady working there told us she wasn't opening for another 20 minutes as she didn't have bottles open yet (?) and to come back. We ended up not going back, though. Here's me in front of that winery when we thought we were going to get into it!
Next we went to Hickory Creek on the way back, a smaller no-frills winery where we bought one bottle:
There were two more wineries we didn't visit, but may next time. It's a good thing Jim doesn't really drink wine, so he could be our designated driver!
Next we went back into town in New Buffalo and went to Sit & Knit, the LYS owned by the lovely Kim Olesker, who I had previously met at Stitches Midwest at her booth. I bought her husband Jack's new book, Cast On, Bet's Off and actually got a signed copy. I started the book yesterday afternoon and really like it so far - it is fun to read and is sprinkled with lots of knitting and local Michigan area references. I also bought a crochet book and the very hard to find "Wonderful Wallaby" pattern booklet. It was so funny that Kim asked me if I had it, out of nowhere, when I had spent the good part of an afternoon trying to find an LYS that carried it!
We had a fabulous light lunch at the Pumpernickel Deli at the corner of Red Arrow Highway near our hotel (corn chowder soup was FABULOUS as was the cherry tea!) then went back to the Sandpiper to hang out on the beach for awhile.
I was really impressed with the pretty shade of blue of Lake Michigan's water (it is prettier up there than in Chicago) and the whiteness of the sand. It was COLD, however, with a strong wind. But gorgeous!!
Later that evening, we went to Frankie's around the corner and had a great dinner. This restaurant came highly recommended by a friend of ours who visits the area often (and just bought a house there, closing this weekend!) and she was right on target (as always!) It was great.
I can't say enough about what a great time we had, and I really look forward to coming back - probably in the summer next time, or maybe in earlier fall, like September or so. It was lots of fun and we really enjoyed exploring the wineries in the area - it was like going to Sonoma or Tuscany, on a nearby, smaller scale. For a 1 1/2 to 2 hour car trip, it was unbeatable!
