Travels with Whit.
Our goal was to start Christmas shopping and to just get away, out of the city, since both our husbands had plans that weekend. Keeping things low-key, we drove a few hours away to the Brandywine area in PA.
That said, we took our time checking in. We bundled up and sported around, shopping, lunch, girl's stuff.
Another thing: we never travel with a map. Which means we're always reliant on out of scale, cartoon tourist maps. That have, like, 2 roads on it out of many. Important ones.
Whit was trying something on at one of those overpriced, old-lady kind of stores. Everything blousey, animal prints, chunky stupid jewelery. I spotted a tourist guide--
Wait. Good lord. We are the Golden Girls. This is horrifying.
-- and picked it up for our driving map. I opened it to find the one big road seemed to only point us in one direction. To the large mansion-like drawings of the wineries. The sun started sinking, and we headed for the vino, I mean, all we are ever trying to do is recreate the trips we used to take.
Instead of rolling, mustard-colored hills with the dry, hot air, we drove through snow-covered hills with bare trees and horses. Pretty. As expected, we got lost, very lost. And punchy. We'd study the amusement park map and pull into some farm to turn around. For no reason, Whit kept singing this stupid song which naturally turned into a dare to try & casually incorporate that dumb chorus into conversation.
At last we came upon a fancy, scrolly vineyard sign and wheeled ourselves into the long entrance way. At the end of it was a grand old building, all lit up with spotlights. We were relieved and exchanged excited eludications.
As we rolled closer, we realized it was actually a brand new, well, house. A makeshift sign pointed us to park near the basketball hoop in the paved driveway. The giddiness became worse.
The wind was biting, so we raced from the car to the front-- wait, no, another sign directed us to the back door. I almost fell on the ice. There was one other car in the lot.
We pulled open the shiny brass doornob, and walked down a set of gray stairs. We pushed open another thin door and voila! We had arrived.
We had arrived to someone's basement-- quite literally. Cement floors, cinderblock walls, and two middle aged guys standing around a card table looking cold. Another heavy-set couple was halfway through their tasting, looking a little awkward.
Diving right in, they took our money and started us with the white wine. The boombox belted out the Chipmunks. A few wire racks littered with wine tchotskies and things. I watched Whit saunter over and take a big whif of a scented candle. "Oh!" she exclaimed and set it down.
The proprietor mentioned that his mother-in-law lived upstairs. Every five or so minutes, you could hear a toilet flush. I was completely uncontrollable at this point, unable to look at Whitney, all cheery and polite with her festive scarf on.
It was time for the wine treat. We were encouraged to rinse our cups to try the dessert wine, and then further instructed to first eat a peice of chocolate with it. Whitney unwrapped her hershey treat and popped it in her mouth: crrrunch, crrrrrrunch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her jaw working extra hard to get the stale sweet down, and then took a long swill of the wine. It was too perfect. And, damn, if she didn't do it: she placed her glass on the table, looked up and said, "Well, Wang Dang. That is some wine!" I was toast.
I also bought 4 bottles of something, as payment for being so rude.
Our goal was to start Christmas shopping and to just get away, out of the city, since both our husbands had plans that weekend. Keeping things low-key, we drove a few hours away to the Brandywine area in PA.
That said, we took our time checking in. We bundled up and sported around, shopping, lunch, girl's stuff.
Another thing: we never travel with a map. Which means we're always reliant on out of scale, cartoon tourist maps. That have, like, 2 roads on it out of many. Important ones.
Whit was trying something on at one of those overpriced, old-lady kind of stores. Everything blousey, animal prints, chunky stupid jewelery. I spotted a tourist guide--
Wait. Good lord. We are the Golden Girls. This is horrifying.
-- and picked it up for our driving map. I opened it to find the one big road seemed to only point us in one direction. To the large mansion-like drawings of the wineries. The sun started sinking, and we headed for the vino, I mean, all we are ever trying to do is recreate the trips we used to take.
Instead of rolling, mustard-colored hills with the dry, hot air, we drove through snow-covered hills with bare trees and horses. Pretty. As expected, we got lost, very lost. And punchy. We'd study the amusement park map and pull into some farm to turn around. For no reason, Whit kept singing this stupid song which naturally turned into a dare to try & casually incorporate that dumb chorus into conversation.
At last we came upon a fancy, scrolly vineyard sign and wheeled ourselves into the long entrance way. At the end of it was a grand old building, all lit up with spotlights. We were relieved and exchanged excited eludications.
As we rolled closer, we realized it was actually a brand new, well, house. A makeshift sign pointed us to park near the basketball hoop in the paved driveway. The giddiness became worse.
The wind was biting, so we raced from the car to the front-- wait, no, another sign directed us to the back door. I almost fell on the ice. There was one other car in the lot.
We pulled open the shiny brass doornob, and walked down a set of gray stairs. We pushed open another thin door and voila! We had arrived.
We had arrived to someone's basement-- quite literally. Cement floors, cinderblock walls, and two middle aged guys standing around a card table looking cold. Another heavy-set couple was halfway through their tasting, looking a little awkward.
Diving right in, they took our money and started us with the white wine. The boombox belted out the Chipmunks. A few wire racks littered with wine tchotskies and things. I watched Whit saunter over and take a big whif of a scented candle. "Oh!" she exclaimed and set it down.
The proprietor mentioned that his mother-in-law lived upstairs. Every five or so minutes, you could hear a toilet flush. I was completely uncontrollable at this point, unable to look at Whitney, all cheery and polite with her festive scarf on.
It was time for the wine treat. We were encouraged to rinse our cups to try the dessert wine, and then further instructed to first eat a peice of chocolate with it. Whitney unwrapped her hershey treat and popped it in her mouth: crrrunch, crrrrrrunch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her jaw working extra hard to get the stale sweet down, and then took a long swill of the wine. It was too perfect. And, damn, if she didn't do it: she placed her glass on the table, looked up and said, "Well, Wang Dang. That is some wine!" I was toast.
I also bought 4 bottles of something, as payment for being so rude.
