0034 - Get outta dodge

Today we went exploring and journeyed into Crossville in search of Stonehaus Winery and some Amish bulk stores. We were expecting something more along the lines of Messina Hof or Haak Winery, an actual winery with a tour and tastings, but it turned out to be more like an outlet store with a few grape vines out front. Still... wine tasting for free is fun for the whole family (well, the portion of the family that is of legal age).

And cheese. When Mike pitched the options for today, he had me at "cheese." The grocery stores around here have generic blocks of cheddar, sharp cheddar, monterey jack, and mozzarella. Don't get me wrong, I bought them... because they're cheese. But I miss bleu cheese, Havarti, and smoked gouda. I miss options. I miss cheese. I wanted cheese. I must have cheese.

GIVE ME CHEESE! *cough*

And so off we went. In search of cheese.

But first... lunch.

Cancun Mexican Restaurant. Sigh. Why do we try? At least they had margaritas and beer, although for the first time in my life I wanted to ask for more margarita, less grand maranier... what's happening to me? The salsa came in a carafe with two bowls, which I thought was neat... it needed lime juice, salt, cilantro and onion and it would have been a lot better. I made the necessary modifications. I think it was basically thick tomato juice with a little cumin and salt in it. Honestly, out of the three mexican restaurants we've been to, this was the best. That's all I can say.

And onto the winery.

Stonehaus was cool. They had cheese, if I didn't mention that earlier. Havarti with dill... bleu cheese... smoked gouda. Did I mention the cheese? They also had this amazing vidalia onion mustard. It tastes like the Snyder's pretzel pieces with onion and mustard, and I love those.

They also have wine.

Lots of wine.

We tried damn near everything they had. My favorite was the Orange Squeeze. I've never had orange wine. And they had musadine wine. Muscadine is a southern grape that I hated when I was growing up because it has a different flavor than normal grapes, very distinctive, and I hesitated to try it in wine form, but it was free right? So I tried it and it was very good, very true to the flavor of the grape.

They also have fudge. They get you coming and going. :)

For dinner we tried the Granville Marina & Cafe. The food was good, the view is amazing... they were just overwhelmed. There was so much activity going on, people just kept coming in, and they kept pulling tables into the dining room. If the lady next to us hadn't gotten up to make a trip to the salad bar, Mike would have had to ask her to move in order to get out. If they had just opened and had no experience running a restaurant I would have said okay... but they've been around for a while. And...

I wasn't that hungry. I originally wanted a loaded baked potato. They were out of baked potatoes. I ordered catfish, and for my side I ordered a fruit cup. The waitress came back to tell me they were out of fruit cups - I know how my friend Beverly feels now. So I ordered broccoli salad. She came back and told me they were out of broccoli salad. For fuck's sake... tell me what you DO have... I ordered water, took forever to get it. Mike never got his last beer. I had to get up and go to the register to pay, I never got my to-go box, I used the styrofoam container they used to bring my lemon slices and they couldn't find a top for it, so they gave us a large drink container. The atmosphere was completely different by the time we left. When we walked in it was a bright sunny day and people were in a good mood, there was plenty of room. By the end, you could almost cut the tension with a knife, I was so ready to get out of there. The table next to us was not happy at all, and as I made my way to the register - which was rather difficult given the proximity of the tables to each other - I saw a lot of dissatisfied faces.

On the upside, the catfish was good and might even pass my mom's sniff test. Which is rare.

Tonight there will be fireworks around nine. I think we'll be able to see it from here without venturing down the road. I keep forgetting it's 4th of July weekend... we are losing track of time being here.

Oh - and this kinda terrifies me.