This past weekend, dh and I went to the Red Wine and Chocolate Winery Tour, put on by the Olympic Peninsula Wineries, with some friends.  We had done a winery tour with them about a year ago, but this one had the added attraction of CHOCOLATE.

We stopped at the Tides Inn in Port Townsend, where we were going to stay just to 'check in' since we didn't know what time we'd be back after touring the wines.  We couldn't get to our room, but at least they knew we were there. The Tides Inn is the motel that was featured in the movie, An Officer and a Gentleman.  they even have "An Officer and Gentleman Suite" which, according to a housekeeper we saw cleaning the room, was the actual room used in the film. 

We met our friends at the Public House Grill so we'd have something in our stomach before heading out to drink wine.  Our friends have done this winery tour many times, so we followed their lead by driving to the furthest away winery and making our way back to Port Townsend.

We started at Harbinger Winery, where we were greeted with a chocolate covered pretzel.  We checked in, got out passport for our winery stamps and our official wine tasting glass.  We tasted 4 red wines here, and each wine had a special chocolate to go with it.  We had a raspberry wine that was delicious, and I couldn't resist talking dh into buying a bottle to take home.

Our next stop was Camaraderie Cellars.  What a gorgeous setting!  People were gathered around a firepit outside, and inside was crowded with people tasting wines and sitting around the indoor fireplace.  We tasted several wines here, had some chocolate cookies and some chocolate mole sauce (depending on which wine we were tasting).  We joined a group led by the wine master and went into the cellar and learned about the wine making process - fascinating! 

Our last stop for the day was Olympic Cellars located in a big red barn.  This winery seems larger than the other two, and the "tastes" were a little less generous.  We still enjoyed their wines and chocolates, and came out with one of their delicious red wines, a sweet syrah.

By this time it was 5pm and we'd run out of time.  We drove back to Port Townsend and went to our rooms, to rest up before dinner.  We met our friends at The Belmont, where had 8pm reservations.  It was a busy place!  We sat at the bar for a little while waiting for our table, which we were assured was the "best table in the house" (lucky to have friends that go there frequently and are well known by the host and bartender).  We did get seated at a table at the window.  Even though they had run out of several items from the menu, we all had delicious meals.  I had 3 Masted Filet Mignon, which is described as "4 oz. choice filet mignon, topped with fresh Dungeness Crab and Sauce Bearnaise and 3 prawns, grilled with garlic and olive oil" ....delicious!  We enjoyed eating and drinking and were the last people out of the restaurant.

The next morning we met our friends for breakfast at the Hudson Point Cafe.  I had delicious cranberry walnut french toast with ricotta cheese.  Gave me some ideas of other breads that could be used for french toast.  I was imagining the apple strudel bread from Costco made into french toast - yum!

Since the wineries weren't quite open, we drove to Fort Worden State Park and took a walk along the beach.  It was a beautiful (cold) day. 







Back to wine tasting....

We drove to Fair Winds Winery - dh and I decided this place was our favorite.  We would've loved to buy more of their wines, but just limited ourselves to one bottle of their Port O'Call. After sampling several red and white wines, we were invited into the back cellar and listened to a presentation on their process of making wines while we enjoyed the enormous chocolate fountain.

Last stop before heading home was the Sorensen Cellars.  This one, I think, if our friends' favorite winery.  We had several red and white wines here, and enjoyed some decadent artisan chocolates by Yvonne Chocolates.  We didn't buy wine here, but we did get a small bag of dark chocolate.

We said good-bye to our friends and headed home....

Sunday afternoon my girlfriend and I went to our minor league baseball stadium to a Joe Biden Rally.  The doors opened at noon, but it didn't start until 2, so we went just before 2.  My friend has plantar fasciitis and can't stand for long - so we figured we'd take our chances and go late so we'd miss the line. 

Even at 2 o'clock, the line was around the parking lot and up the next block - amazing!  We took cuts in line (because we couldn't find the end!) and walked steadily to the stadium.  We were able to find seats out in right field and knew we were going to be looking at his back while he spoke - oh well   We felt fortunate to even have a place to sit. They said it was the biggest crowd (estimated 12,000) that Biden has had at a rally.

Our US senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray spoke, and our governor, Christine Gregoir, (who is up for re-election) spoke and introduced Joe Biden. 



Ironically our baseball stadium is called "Cheney Stadium" and he thanked the crowd for changing the name to the "Obama Biden Stadium" for him, "because if it was 'Cheney' stadium, it would be in an undisclosed location and we would never find it" - haha

He gave a great speech - very inspiring.

Afterwards, as we were walking with crowds out of the stadium, my girlfriend and I were talking and I mentioned that my dh actually voted for Reagan back in the day - and now he's embarrassed about that. 

A man came up next to us and said "Did I hear correctly that you voted for Reagan?"

I laughed and said that my husband had, but now he's the staunchest liberal you'd ever want to meet - and besides, I voted for Jimmy Carter and cancelled his vote