Whine, wine, wine

It all started with a whine.

I was stressed out. I was sick, tired. Needed to get my brain out of the maze it was stuck in. Whine.

The answer was wine. Last Saturday morning, I was online at 8am, looking up B&B's in Niagara region. I found one that'd had a cancellation. I booked it. We packed. We took off with coffee in our travel mugs.

Gordon and I needed a weekend away. We dropped our stuff at the B&B (it was OK, but nothing special, but the price was right and it was available) and continued on to Niagara-on-the-Lake's info centre. I bought tickets for a Shaw Festival play and got a map for some nearby wineries.

We had to get away from NotL's crowds so we pretty quickly took off to the wineries. Strewn, Konzelmann, Stratus, Jackson-Triggs. Gordon bought a few, I bought nothing. We ate at The Old Winery, which was fine: relatively inexpensive with decent-sized portions and interesting thin-crust pizzas. Onward to Niagara Falls. We drove the lakeshore route and got out often for the lookouts and parks. Gordon wasn't so impressed by the flower clock. I wasn't so impressed by the hydro station. We did find free parking in a nature reserve and walked to the falls to see them lit up at night. We enjoyed very thick, rich chocolate brownie with ice cream -- OK, I enjoyed it. Gordon seemed to like his beer better.

Back to NotL for a sleep at the B&B. If we slept at all. The ceiling fan was not balanced and made much noise. In the morning, the owners were quite loud and we were awake early after having been out late. Colour us unhappy.

Breakfast was lovely, though. And it was in their gorgeous backyard. Coffee was lacklustre, so we went straight from there to Balzac's in the town centre. I love Balzac's. I'm really happy to support them as they make very very good coffee. I have no time for bad coffee.

We walked around the town this time, as the crowds of grey-hairs hadn't yet taken over the sidewalks. Gordon felt the town was a little much for him. However, he did go in the kitchen store (but thought it had nothing interesting) and bought decadent things in Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I bought disappointing ice cream. And then we were off, thanks to help from the info centre, to the Welland Canal locks, where we saw a giant ship go through. On to Twenty Mile Bench land.

We stopped at Flat Rock (bought), Calamus (bought), Featherstone (bought), Ridgepoint (they don't and won't make Ragazzi anymore, but I bought anyway), Stoney Ridge. We ate at Inn on the Twenty. We showed up early and we were so glad we went here. Highlight. Best meal I could think of.

And back to NotL for the show. Candida. It was good. Much food for thought and for the conversation in the car ride home.

And that was only the first wine...
Even BETTER wine followed.