Some friends of ours went in bidding with us on a wine tasting for 10, at a winery ,about 2.5 hours from us. We won the auction and spent last weekend with four other wonderful couples. ‘A’ and ‘R’ got to spend their own fabulous weekend at Dado and Dada’s. They went to the Museum of Flight, learned how to salsa, and ate paella!
Here’s how the ‘big kids’ spent the weekend…(Leigh, David, Scott, Liann, Christine, Steve, Lacey, Rob, Scott, Lisa)
We could only spend one night because everyone serves at church on Sundays. Because of this one night limitation, most of the properties would not let us make a reservation. We had two options. One was a plush resort, with rooms starting at $200.00, or a motel at $85.00.
With the spirit of adventure and thrift, we chose the motel (AKA "The Bates Motel" by the guys). The rooms were pretty horrid, BUT, there were two silver linings:
- We literally had the whole place to ourselves. A family checked in around 1AM, Saturday morning (yes, we were still up), but until then, we were the only ones.
- Since we were by ourselves, we had the whole deck to ourselves. And, here was our view:
Not bad, huh?!
Here we are, Friday night, for the wine tasting…
Apricot Tree
After the tasting, we had a tour of the property. Here is the guide showing us how they bottle and label the bottles.
We had planned on going out to dinner, but everyone wanted to get back to the deck and enjoy the view and friendship. So, some had already brought treats, others had to track some down. There was no grocery store nearby and our only option was the Shell gas station. Now this gas station was an amped up mini mart, with fresh produce, but our table was pretty ecclectic.
Scott and Liann…
Rob and Lacey…
The girls…(excuse my red-eye. I can’t get rid of it!)
Scott and Lisa…
(Bummer, I thought I also had a couple shot of Steve and Christine, but I don’t)
The largest jelly fish I have ever seen…
The next morning, we walked into town for coffee, then drove to a church fundrasier, a "Corndoggle". It was a rummage sale, and you could have lunch there (a hot dog and an ear of corn, etc., hence, ‘corndoggle’). We chose to not eat there, and everyone went their own way home.
At the Corndoggle
David and I took a different road home. We crossed a bridge and saw a bunch of fly fisherman. We got out and walked around a bit, enjoying the view. The salmon were HUGE!!
We stopped for lunch at the plush resort that we chose not to stay at.
The Alderbrook
Lunch was fabulous, and the server was slow to bring us our lemonade, so she comped the drinks and took 20% off the bill. No complaints here! We had this amazing appetizer, ‘Sweet Chili Chicken Wings’ with cucumber-peanut slaw. There was this unique breading on the wings, but the chef would not divulge more than ‘flour’…
I would definitely recommend coming here for a romantic Northwest getaway. It is lovely.
Driving over the Tacome Narrows bridge. What’s up with a $4.00 toll?! Whatever happened to $.25?? Mount Rainier in the distance to the left.
Fun weekend with great friends. Too much fun!
Very fun!! That jelly fish is cool!