Weekend Rewind - Winery Tour

Last week I mentioned that this past Saturday I was going on a winery tour with my mom, grandma, sister and aunts to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday.  Girls, we had SO MUCH FUN!  I knew we would but knowing it and actually having it are two different things.

A couple months ago my sister and I discussed doing something special for my mom's birthday.  We threw around a couple of ideas and settled on this winery tour.  I did a little research and realized we could also stop at a cool antique store that I've been dying to get to!  I figured out the route and sent out the invitation.

Saturday morning we all met at my mom's favorite coffee shop in town.  After everyone grabbed their drink we took a quick selfie before heading out.

After an hour and 10 minute drive we arrived at our first stop, Apple Tree Antiques.  Oh my goodness, that place was so worth the drive!  Amazing antiques!  Everywhere you looked there was an awesome Hoosier cabinet!  Beautiful quilts!  Stained glass windows!  Glassware!  Antique bed sets! Antiques, antiques, antiques!!!  We wandered through their two buildings then snapped another selfie.

Our group got smaller by 3 at this point because my aunt and two cousins had to head in the opposite direction to get to their grandson/nephew's baptism.  The rest of headed to our first winery stop, Hershman Christian Winery.  It was a neat old stone building that was built in the 1800's. On the same property was an old stagecoach stop and this building was a winery and a smokehouse.  The proprietor was full of info and knowledge, about the building and about the wine!  There were somewhere between 12 and 15 wines to sample, and she started at the top of the list and worked her way allllll the way down!  I sampled two wines here - Elderberry Blossom (ick) and LEMON!  Yes, LEMON!  And no, it didn't taste like a lemon. It was so perfectly sweet and delicious.  My one aunt hates lemon flavor and smell but we forced her to try it and she actually liked it too!  

From here we hopped in the car and headed to the west about 40 miles for lunch.  We ate in Keosaqua at First Street Grille.  Their burgers are ranked in the top 10 burgers in the state - good enough for me!  Of the six of us, 5 got the Bacon Cheeseburger.  My grandma got the cheeseburger salad, which was a cheeseburger chopped up on a bed of lettuce, basically.  It looked amazing but I forgot to snap a picture.  Then it was off to winery #2!  

Crane Winery was another big hit.  This stop and the first had my kind of wine - what I call "Juice Wine".  It's all the fruity wines, like Cherry, and Raspberry, and LEMON.  We walked in and all of us spotted a bottle called Chocolate Cherry.  Intrigued, it's what we started off with.  Holy yummy!  It was perfectly sweet and delicious!  I ended up buying a bottle of that to hold on to until I'm done nursing Tenley.  

On a whim we decided to stop in Eldon at the sight of the house in the American Gothic painting. Did you know that was an actual house? And that it's in Iowa?  We were just going to drive by and say we saw it but I decided we needed yet another selfie there.  :)  Tenley sat this one out because she was asleep in the car.

Finally we made it to the last winery, Cedar Valley Winery.  It had your "real wine", the kind with bite that I don't like, so we did a quick sampling and then loaded up to head home.  We ended the day with our last selfie.  You can see we are still having fun at the end of the day!

I am so glad we celebrated my mom's birthday this way.  It was so fun - we laughed non stop, gossiped until we were all caught up and drank and ate so many good things!

My grandma turns 80 this year and we are talking about taking a girls weekend trip away to celebrate this special gal.  I can't wait!  I have the best family!  My aunties/grandma/cousin's are cooler than yours! Ha ha!  (I need the emoji with the tongue sticking out!)