Coup Fere!

Coup Fere

What a nice weekend. The weather was perfect and the company was great (Cha Cha and Splenda). We were able to drive with the top down all the way down and all the way back to and from the bottom of our state. I did get a bit of sunburn from the open top but who cares? Compared to ticks and poison oak/sumac sunburn is a tiptoe through the tulips. Another great thing about the drive was that it is still cool enough that all of the bugs that kamikaze themselves into our vehicles on summer drives haven't decided that it is too hot to live. They aren't ready to fly themselves into our windshields and headlights and grills and such to get out of the heat. The road went without incident except for the one time that some old-timer pulling a trailer tried to put us in a ditch. We were in the left lane of a two lane freeway and he was in the right lane. I was about in the MIDDLE on the left side of his trailer when he decided to come over into my lane. I always picture the worst case scenarios when driving and have my counter-measures predetermined so, I was ready. I went onto the left shoulder after taking my foot off the gas. As he noticed me in his rear view mirror I flipped him the bird. He saw me. I slowed down and settled in behind him. He got ahead of the semi he was passing and went back to the right lane. As I passed him he gave me the "sorry" wave and then I felt bad about the MIDDLE finger deal. It was just a reflex and I would have expected the same had I been on the other side of the equation. I said to Cha Cha - "looks like we've had our glitch for the mission." Fortunately, that was the only road issue the entire trip.

We visited about nine wineries on the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail in the heart of the Shawnee National Forest (pretty gutsy for a guy susceptible to poison trees). We visited about nine of the vineyards. We would have gotten to more but Splenda left her wallet at one and we had to retrace our wine steps to find it. Luckily it was her wallet because she was the only one getting carded. If I had lost mine the search would have been more extensive. Ironically, we found the wallet at the only winery that didn't card her all day. If you're thirsty come on over - be have eight new bottles of wine in our rack (nice rack!).Turns out that we also won a $15 gift card at Blue Sky Winery because of Tonalist winning the Belmont Stakes. Splenda and her boyfriend went out and enjoyed our winnings last night. They gave us cards as we entered and if your horse won you won. We had California Chrome too but that one didn't win. I did the mileage for the trip and calculated the fuel economy and am disappointed that we average only about 32 miles per gallon with the Fiat. I guess that is okay but come on. Maybe the top down was giving us too much drag? Maybe 77 miles per hour doesn't spell fuel efficiency. So many guesses. It is what it is and it is 32 miles per gallon.

I saves a turtle's life on the wine trail. There was a very small turtle crossing the road. I am guessing he was a baby but, he could have just been a very small turtle. While we were driving to try to find the next Easter egg winery I turtle was moseying across the road in our path. I stopped the car in the MIDDLE of the road (we were in the woods and there are no shoulders there), put on my flashers and got out the pick up the little guy/gal. As I approached he/she battened-down the hatches and

Made it to six of these and several others

I was rooting for California Chrome to win the Triple Crown. Now, after the whining of co-owner Steve Coburn, I am glad he didn't win. He didn't have anything to say about the "unfairness" of the race before the race began. Nothing to say until he lost. At least, if he did, he didn't say anything about it when he was calling himself the next John Wayne and mugging for the cameras before the race. I was a huge fan of the story of him and his partner buying a broken-down race horse for a song who gave birth to California Chrome. I realize Coburn was caught up in the moment, similarly to me flipping off Mr. Green Jeans when he cut me off on the road Friday. But, I wouldn't have done it on national television. I feel bad for the jockey and the other owner. I am a competitive person and have played many sports over the years but I was always magnanimous in my losses (which have been plentiful). I have always appreciated people who lose well. That says a lot more about a person than whether they are a good winner or a sore loser. Maybe Coburn was having so much smoke blown up his butt that he "knew" his horse would win.

It was nice having a four-day weekend. Now tonight is my Wednesday already. It is 15:32 already so I am going to wrap-up here soon. Nice thing is that I am very tired so I will be able to gets some sleep before I go in at 22:00. We have not recorded a new Dirty Laundry Podcast yet. Cha Cha has been very busy with some projects for her paying gig. I think I am going to end today. We may not record a new show until Thursday at this point. For some reason we had 45 downloads in The Netherlands yesterday - Thank You Netherlands! Have a great night. Thanks a lot for stopping by. I will probably blog tomorrow. TTTT...MITM (out) TA!