J.O.

We were headed back from our weekend trip, just a few miles to go and we'd be home. 

Both my cell phone and Hubby's both sounded with a text.  Hubby was driving so I got to mine first.

Just to let u know   jim died in a motorcycle accident last night

???!!!

I read it again - out loud to Hubby.

???!!!

What???

He was riding home last night and went off the road close to his house and was pinned underneath   he was dead on the scene   i just wanted 2 let you guys know ... i just found out about an hour ago

The text came from a friend of ours in Wisconsin.  The text was about another friend of ours.

Hubby and I were in disbelief.

As soon as I got home I tried to look up online in the Fond du Lac news about anything on the accident.  I couldn't find anything.

This morning I checked again and finally found the article.  Only it didn't identify any names.

At work I did another search and they had finally released a revised article, releasing the identity of the man in the accident.

Yes.  It was in fact Jim.

Now, it's real.

We met Jim when me moved to Fond du Lac.  Hubby had visited the local race track and made some friends and one of them invited him to be on their bar's pool team.  Jim and his dad was on that team.  Eventually Hubby had joined both the Sunday night and Wednesday night teams.  And when Summer came they all played in the softball league too.  I regularly attended as a spectator until eventually I joined my own bar sports team for Darts.

Jim was a stubborn and angry young man.  By that I mean, that their pool team would never win the Sportsmanship Awards at the end of each season.  Jim was very competitive and whenever he would mess up a play he would often either slam his stick to the floor or toss his hat across the room and loudly mutter a few expletives while at it.

That was Jim.

Eventually he met Sarah.  And he calmed down significantly.  She was great for him.

Jim was an avid biker.  I remember before we left Wisconsin he borrowed Hubby's old Suburban.  He and some of his biker buddies were traveling to South Dakota for their "bike week" and they were going to pull all their bikes on an open trailer.  I remember how as beat up as that Suburban was it still managed to have no problems, but the trailer was actually the problem and actually blew out a tire instead.

Eventually we moved back to North Carolina.  We visited a few times when we could.  We were fortunate to travel back to Jim and Sarah's wedding two years ago.  Two years ago next month.  I feel awful for Sarah.  They were both so young and just starting their life together.  It makes you think about the little things, and making sure you "don't go to bed angry" or make sure to always say you love them when you say your usual goodbyes just to go to work each day.

I wish we could have gone back up to Wisconsin again this past year.  We had planned to do so last August, but I was 7-8 months pregnant, not feeling up to it, and I wasn't working at the time so money was tight.

Jim and our other friend, Shooter, had previously talked about coming down this way, possibly to Myrtle Beach's "bike week" and coming to visit us on the way.  I wish they had been able to.

Now I regret that we won't be able to make it up for Jim's funeral.  We enjoyed the time we had with him.  He made our lives all the better during our tour in Wisconsin.

At Curtis' Going Away party, 2008

The Wednesday night Pool team

Seven

It's been seven years.

Since I married my best friend.

Happy Anniversary!

A Vino Vacation: Part Two

In continuation from the first part of our weekend, this part actually contains the Vino!  And again, we opted not to bring our Canon so all photos are taken with my phone.

After our morning breakfast at our hotel we made our way back downtown Hendersonville to meet up with our tour guide, Kimberlee, from Travels in Wine tours.  There were seven couples in our group, four of us celebrating our wedding anniversaries this weekend.  <3  Love was in the air!

We all jumped on the party bus and made our way to the first stop, an Urban Winery right there in downtown Hendersonville.

Falderal Winery was a great introduction to our tour.  We learned what a small-scale winemaker looks like and how they operate.  Out of the four wines we tasted I loved the first, called Sandburg's Goat White.  We even left with some to-go glasses and a bottle to take home.



We had to brown-bag our to-go glasses.

The next stop was a 35 minute drive out to the Green Creek Winery which has its own vineyard.  There we were greeted with some snacks to start, cheeses and crackers and some shrimp with a yummy lemon chardonnay sauce.  We also tasted four wines as well.  I swear to you that the second wine smelled and tasted just like liquor.  I think we determined it tasted like a whiskey or bourbon.  Wooh.  We were also served the owner's signature Chardonnay cake, and YUMMY it was. 

I had to snap a shot of the sign in the bathroom about employees washing their hands AND their feet.

After the tasting we were served our BBQ lunch and I was so excited to see the western Carolina tomato-based sauce as opposed to the eastern Carolina's vinegar-based.  It was delicious.  Green Creek also offers some wine ice cream too.  We tried six different flavors.  I like the raspberry and chocolate flavors the best.  Unfortunately we didn't prefer any of the wines at this vineyard so we didn't leave with any bottles.

The third stop was also a vineyard/winery and it had the most beautiful scenery.  Overmountain Vineyards not only produces and sells their own brand but they sell majority of their red wine grapes to the Biltmore.  We tasted a new grape known as the Petit Manseng as well as some Muscadine wine.  Again, I wasn't too fond of the wines offered.  I prefer a dryer red and this is the point where we found out that most of the reds in the area won't be available until this Fall because they tend to sell out quickly.

The final stop of the tour was considered the "comic relief".  The husband/wife team from Parker-Binns Vineyard were, in fact, hilarious.  And they had a beautiful garden!  Hubby enjoyed the Pearidge Red so much that he got a to-go glass along with a bottle to take home. 

I enjoyed the blackberry wine mostly because it was paired with yummy chocolate.  And since Hubby doesn't care for chocolate I got his!  I also enjoyed browsing around their wine room. They had these cool cork boards made from real wine corks. Now I know what to make from all the corks I've collected!

Once the tour ended we had made some new friends.  We exchanged our information with another couple who are locals and plan on being in our area next month for another drinking event.  Needless to say that went into our calendar.  :)

We headed back to our suite to freshen up and then trekked back to Asheville to make our dinner reservations that night.  I had booked dinner at The Admiral which was recommended to me by our tour guide.  Apparently it is really hard to get in without a reservation in advance.  The restaurant itself is downtown and looks like "a dump" from the outside, and to be honest it looks like a dive in the inside too.  But a dive with linens and an upscale atmosphere.

We were shown to our table for two which we found had a lovely card wishing us a Happy Anniversary, a nice sunflower bouquet and some cocktails they called Pros and Poms {Prosecco and Pomegranite}.

Now I have to mention that I allotted two hours for us to spend there because with most fine dining restaurants you wait forever for your food.  But we were in and out in less than an hour!  And that was great.  I ordered the duck breast and Hubby the steak.  Both were DELICIOUS.  You can tell the chefs were classically trained based on the food and the presentation.  We opted not to get a bottle of wine or any other alcholic beverages since we indulged all day long.  But we did treat ourselves to a chocolate torte.  Mostly me again, since Hubby doesn't care for chocolate.  Hehe.

And with it being such a long day we ended the night there.  We headed back to our room to call it a night.

...Brown Chicken Brown Cow...

All in all, we had a lovely weekend.  A very much needed vacation, just the two of us.  But we were eager to get home the next morning to see our boy.