Day of Love 2017 ( and sacrifice)

A storm chased us all the way from Indianapolis to Cincinnati, we would get a bit ahead, it would rain on us, we would get a head again and it would catch up again.

When we arrived in Cincinnatti it was dry, much to my relief,  becasue my hair does does not do well in the rain.  I had started out with "bad hair" on a day I wanted to be cute at our Valentines's day celebration at the "Sensational Sonoma Wine Tasting" hosted by Le Petite France.   We got in, got our wine and the natural fireworks began and it was lovely!  At one point the rain was coming down almost horizontally. I was glad to be safely ensconced inside.  I have written before about our wine tasting dinners at Le Petie France, and a little grumpily, but this time was pretty stinking good.  Attendance was down, but the company was good.  We were at a table of 9 and conversation was rampant.  I may even have a date with one couple when I am in Paris in May! 

On arrival we had Copain, Tous Ensemble, Rose. The label was beautiful in its simplicity but this is the sort of wine that gives wine a bad name.  I think most folks think this taste, flavor, or "Twang" if you will, is dry wine.  This wine was not dry nor very good, and YET I did swill down 2 glasses, to my dismay much later.

The first course was a Dry Creek Vineyards Chenin Blanc and it was devine!  The fruity, floral honeyed nose was almost enough for me.  But drink it I did!  It was served with oyster chowder, & was a  very good pairing.

The next wine was a Landmark Overlook Pinot Noir served with smokey morel brandy linguine. When I first lifted the glass to my nose I was very disappointed, and tasting was not much better.  But it opened up like a rose and as the linguine and pinot went down, it became amazing.  One just had to be patient with it.  The pasta was good too!

Next was Goldschmidt Kate's Cebernet Sauvignon, it was served with salmon in a red wine beurre blank,  with crispy goetta  (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetta), a meringue like dolop of whipped potatoes and roasted oregano carrotts.  By now, I have been trying not to diet but REALLY cut back, I was stuffed and a bit tipsy.  The entree was delicious, the salmon cooked to perfection, the sauce was perfect with it and the wine was nectar

The last wine was  Alexander Valley Vineyards, Homestead Red Blend. I am a sucker for Mouvedre and this blend contained Mouvedre so I was in tipsy heaven and about to get tipsier! it was acoompanied by what they called triple chocolate ecstasy.  It was a slver of thier delicious marquise, with some chocolate mousse on top and, tilted just so, was a chocolate covered strawberry.  It was sitting in some sort of sauce, but that was pretty forgetable.  

Jodi drove back to the Wingate up the street, where we got surprise, we had been upgraded to a suite! A satisfactory ending to a lovely evening.

You may wonder where the sacrifice comes in.  Well Jodi HATES fish, the look of fish, the smell of fish & two of the four courses was fish.  SO this was a pretty big sacrifice for her, to endure a whole three  and a half  hours of fish effluvia! 

Where is Golden Colorado?

So this Sheraton has been an interesting situation. It seems that IAFN has a proclivity for this hotel chain, however in the past it has at been a reasonable experience.  It should be as good as home if not better for me to spend my hard earned dollars.  This one has toilets that shock and startle me every time I flush.  That would be worth the "Green" of it if they actually flushed everything down.  But let's just say they don't and leave it there.  Then there is the dog who chooses to bark at all hours of the day and or night.  Not constantly but just enough to wake a person up.  Oh and did I mention the strange sound I also hear at all hours of the day and night, also enough to wake a person up, coming from the room next door.  And then there is the vile office shop downstairs that sells LUGGAGE, WITH FLOWERS!  

Vile because this may just be a battle I am not going to win, or will win, depending on how you look at it.  O.K. I have pretty much decided to buy the darned thing.

I woke this morning to the barking dog.  Made some coffee, good coffee, well at least after I figured out what to stir it with! It just should not be this hard. 

We lazed around much of the morning, and then we did go down and buy that darned luggage, after that we went  ZOUP across the street, it was on my list and it was yummy!  I had a Southwest Chicken, chicken, cheese, red peppers and some onion on delicious bread sandwich and Hamburger Cheeseburger soup,

Jodi had a 3 cheese sandwich and cabbage tomato soup, we were both pleased!  

The plan was to go see the Unsinkable Molly Brown House and as we were finishing  up our soup I looked at the website for directions and noticed that it was closed on Mondays, now what?  I was fairly resigned to missing it, but Jodi suggested that we go to Golden today and see the museum tomorrow.  

So, after a quick trip back to the room for water and a preventive nose powdering, we took the tram to Union Station.  We bought tickets, it feels fairly confusing because we bought what we thought we needed and were told we bought too much.  We seem to have some frenicity around trains as the darned thing stopped but the doors wold only open on the opposite side of the train, so we scampered behind the train, and got on.  Only to be scolded by the conductor because we were not supposed TO GET ON YET! LORD, give people a  little power and it goes straight to..... 

The train ride was pleasant, it seems a nice set up, we got to Golden and I was already beginning to wonder because we did not seem to be in a city or town of any sort,but by a big ( quite nice) government center).  We looked at each other and sort of laughed, where is Golden Colorado?  How were we to get there.  But there were these little short buses that kept come with some regularity so I asked one guy and he said you need the "B" but it will take you into Golden.  So we stood there and before long here came this nice older man with pretty blue eyes that sort of took pity on us.  Took us where we needed to go and told us when to be back so we did not miss transportation.   The city has a lot of history relative to the Gold rush.  There is a visitor center and beside it a long paved path beside Clear Creek which is very nice to wander.

First we walked into the town centre, lots of shops, dining establishments and a few bars.  Jodi wanted something to drink, really she wanted more BRISK, a tea she has found here (at least this is the first time I have seen her drink it) and likes, but it was mostly "sit down a spell" kind of places.  So we walked back across the bridge, which was interesting as there was a lot of information about the bridge  on it.  

Once, in the early days,  too many cows were on the bridge and it collapsed, another a guy had his heard of 200 sheep on the bridge and it collapsed. Pieces of the news paper articles from the times were on the placards and were crotchety about the destruction of the bridge.  They were pretty funny, hence a weight limit!  

The pathway (actually the city) is strewn with bronze sculptures, a Cowboy fly fishing, children on a horse, a native American woman,  

a momma bear and her cubs,  it was pretty.  But best was simply the sound of the water splashing and dancing over the rocks.

After enjoying that we had about an hour and we went for refreshment, I tried to talk Jodi into a Coors,

this is its home, but she preferred a White Russian, and who am I to grump as I didn't want one either.  We had some fried zucchini and another opportunity to powder my nose.  

Our guy was there at the time he said he would be and we caught the bus back to the train and were back in the city lickety split.  It got cold while we were on that train, a portent of things to come I think.  When we got back we went for more of those lovely fries at the Burger bar we had dined in the previous evening.  Then back home to listen for a few to the chaos of pre election blah blah blah and off to sleep.