A Vacation from Reality...Part One

For Valentine's Day this last year, I came up with a bit of a creative present for T. I planned a mini vacation for us. We've known each other for almost 2 years now, and we have yet to make it down to Bloomington, Indiana, to visit Indiana University, my Alma mater. We've talked about it forever, but we've never found the time. It's kind of sad considering it's only about an hour away from where we live. So I planned a trip for us on May 22nd (a random date for some, yes, but to me, that meant a date when students weren't around and post-graduation...see, I feel much too old these days to deal with this). Considering I made the hotel reservation in February, we've been waiting forever for this weekend to get here, but it finally arrived! We headed out Saturday morning...our first stop, Oliver Winery. I absolutely love this winery. In college, we'd go here all the time, do a wine tasting, buy a bottle and just hang out on their patio. It was always a really nice break from reality. So I packed a nice little picnic lunch for us, and we headed down south.

I was so worried all week about whether the weekend would actually be nice. Here in Indiana it has been raining pretty much nonstop for the month of May, and every time we make plans to cook out or work out in the yard, it never fails...rain. I've actually forgotten what the sun looks like. But it was really beautiful out, so the fates were working in my favor. (YES!)

So we started off with a little wine tasting. Now my family does this activity quite often, so I'm a little bit of an expert. We visit the wineries up in Southern Michigan almost every summer, so don't judge! You get there, and the wino person (I don't know what you actually call the people who serve the wine to you, so bear with me) gives the little speech about how you do the tasting, and I nod and smile and act like this is the first time I've ever heard this, not giving away the fact that I've been to so many wineries that I may come across as a wino myself. So we did a little tasting, and it was delicious.

We made our purchases, and sadly, no this bottle of wine was not one I purchased. However, it was extremely tempting.


We bought a couple of bottles to take home and one already chilled one for ourselves, and we set up our picnic lunch. It was really quiet since we got there early and were one of the few people at the place. However, this quickly changed as the bridal shower party from hell arrived and took over the entire deck area. I am pretty sure they didn't reserve the tables, but the death glares we got from the skinny girls in heels as they set up their friend's bridal shower were too much to handle for too long. So after lunch, we took a bit of a walk.

(Doesn't it look delicious? I was pretty proud of myself, and the wine was great!)

The grounds at Oliver Winery are really beautiful - there are picnic tables everywhere and a lake...it's just really relaxing. So we walked around for a bit. Of course, I saw a party with a picnic basket, so I decided to do my best Yogi Bear impression and ask "Hey Boo-boo, you want this pic-i-nic basket?" Over and over again until I drove T crazy. (Maybe it was the wine talking, too, who knows...)

It was a great start to our little mini vacation - next stop was Indiana University, Home of the Hoosiers! (More to come....)