journey vs. destination

Steve and I went camping last weekend, but we enjoyed a lot of wonderful distractions that made up the bulk of the trip.

Oh, such pretty plants at the roadside…

Grapes! WINE grapes!

What was once a stable (ergo this beautiful door)…

… is now a WINERY! Gray Ghost winery!

Free tour!

Something awesome that is hopefully in my somewhat near future: Gray Ghost’s grape harvest is entirely done by volunteers. People on their list get a phone call at the beginning of the week, announcing that the next Saturday or Sunday will be a harvest day. They say yes, arrive at the winery in the wee hours, get a free continental breakfast, and spend the morning harvesting beautiful grapes at a winery in the countryside. Then, once the grapes are picked, they are treated to an all you can eat lunch, complete with lots and lots of wine, and a complimentary bottle to take home. Best of all, the following year, they can look at the bottles and be all, nonchalantly, “Oh, that wine. I harvested that.” And they say it’s done by “volunteers”?! Seriously, I’m surprised they don’t charge for such a cool experience. I signed myself, my boyfriend, my sister, and my best friend up for the list.

The winery is family-run and everyone was so nice. And the tour was so interesting! I love learning about wine: it’s like being in kindergarten again. I have no background knowledge whatsoever.

So a tour:

The first machine! Does it have a name? Maybe… This is where they put the grapes when they pick ‘em. They go up a conveyor belt and the ones that are overripe or underripe are pulled off. They are put into a big bowl with small holes in them; the grapes go through the holes but not the stems. This allows them to separate the grapes from the stems with a minimum of stress on them.

Then they hang out here for a few days.

 

Then we went to the coolest place ever. The next two rooms you see are buried under 12 feet of concrete, which gives them a wonderful cool, cavelike feeling. The underground cellar also has a very carefully laid foundation, because any vibration is bad for the wine as it ages in cases/bottles. They tested it in last year’s earthquake, and it all went well!

If you look carefully, you’ll see the barrels have red stains on top. I asked about it, and our guide (the owner!) said that the equivalent of one bottle of wine is lost from each barrel every three weeks due to evaporation. So, they have to check in on them and top them off to limit the amount of oxygen that gets in. They intentionally top them off to overflowing. Thus the wine stains.

 

Then, in the same underground building was the wine library (!). It was where they stored all the wines they had “retired” (they saved the last bottle from every year/vintage), and also kept the (many) prizes they’d won.

They also had a portrait of the civil war confederate general who was dubbed the “Gray Ghost” and is the namesake of the winery (and a distant relative of the owner). And there’s a mini cannon. Which is always pointed North (*eye roll eye roll*, lest we forget this winery is in Virginia.)

 

We ended the tour by seeing the single machine that bottles all four thousand cases a year of the wine they make. Crazy efficient, right?!

The tour was super fun. The tasting was even funner! (And FREE).

Steve ended up buying a bottle. The first Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever liked. We’re saving it for a special occasion.

A brief look around the grounds (so pretty! I wonder if they do weddings!) and I giggled my way back to the car (hi my name is Ileana and I’m a huge lightweight).

  

We pulled over again almost immediately upon seeing:

 

AGH PICKING BLUEBERRIES IS SO FUN. It’s always such a head trip to see something you traditionally buy in plastic boxes growing. On a plant. This is a wonderful and worthwhile thing that should be done often. (And, uh, hello, eating berries off the vine- something of which we did a GREAT DEAL- is like the healthiest thing ever. Ripe, no distance traveled, no exposure to the air off the vine, etc. etc.).

 

The farm (Muskrat Hollow farm, if locals are curious, off of Rte. 211) was clearly well on its way to a vibrant season.

We’ll have to come back for blackberries!

 

It’s sooooooooo pretty in the country! I know this is used for irrigation and serves a practical purpose, but it’s just so idyllic.

LOL:

Not what we non-farmers traditionally think when we see “rabbits for sale”, eh?

Ended up with an empty milk carton’s worth of blueberries for $8.50. I love pick your own. Everyone wins.

Next step of camping trip: oops, the Shenandoahs are full! Yes, shockingly, when you arrive to the national park at 5:30 on a beautiful summer Saturday, the campsites are all actually taken.

Fortunately, a little creative hunting brought us to the exceedingly lovely Outlanders River Camp. No, we were not camped next to the river (unsurprisingly, those were taken). We were camped in a crowded little area next to, respectively, some heavy drinkers with a coked-out friend who slept all day (really? People like that go camping?), and on the other side a family who was horrible and kind of gave me some intense childhood flashbacks.

But then a quick romp and we were to the river!

 

Ohhhh Shenandooooooooooooah!

Best part: Steve went along the water line and then all excitedly and silently beckoned me over to see…

 

… we kept sneaking closer and closer…

 

… a BEAVER! SO COOL!

 

Back to our tent to watch the sun set over the mountains (on their respective sides, the young ones were coaxing the cokehead to come out and watch the sunset; and the horrible family had blessedly gone to dinner).

 

More importantly, vittles! Purchased at the same P.Y.O. farm.

 

I was kind of a mess getting ready to go and went “Eh, I’ve got underwear and a tent. Everything else is frosting.”

So keys were used as cutlery. (And, er, rolled up clothes were used as pillows).

Appetizers:

Fat tire is the kind of beer I dislike the least, so I had a few sips, but was troublingly dehydrated so left the rest for Steve, along with his “delicious” PBR. Oi.

Fire vroomed up. Steve brought four bratwursts, all of which he ate (I helped grill, as I am much more patient than Steve and didn’t want him to get food poisoning from undercooked sausage).

Poor planning let to a not-particularly-protein-rich but still quite tasty dinner for me of grilled corn tortillas, potatoes, and squash.

Photographed in the dark by turning on the flash and pointing my camera at the table.

 

Sooooooooooo we woke up the next morning pretty hangry. And early, thanks to an extremely angry bird. We both were like “If we had a gun, we wouldn’t have to shoot him… we could just scare him a little.”

Stopped at a Mexican place (“Huevos rancheros!”, we exclaimed. Closed.)

Stopped at a place called Rainbow Palace or something equally awesome (“Hippie types in the former Confederacy!”, we exclaimed. Closed. Their sign was hilarious. “Usually we open at 9 or 10, unless we’ve been up late the night before. We’re open for lunch, and then in the afternoon we’re sometimes here, sometimes not, usually on Mondays… etc. etc.)

Finally, ended up going into Luray (which Virginians will associate with its famous caverns) and stopped at the first place we saw that had “Breakfast” on the sign.

SUPER cute.

 

This (very very nice) family had restored an old house and turned it into a cafe, and it’d only opened a week or two previously. Very ornately decorated.

Iced coffee gave me will to live.

Pretended to make conversation while really being like “Food. Food. Food. Where is the food?” in my head.

Blessedly the veggie quiche was vair large. And accompanied by a cucumber salad and a breadstick.

 

Steve and I “shared” this muffin. In that he ate a bite of it. In my defense, I gave him most of my breadstick and some of my quiche.

 

We were still very hungry.

Breakfast dessert was in order.

Him: the best coconut cream pie of all time.

 

Me: an entire bowl of oatmeal?! Whatever. I had been chew-my-own-arm-off-unable-to-think-straight hungry. It happens.

 

Grinned at the spellings on our check.

 

Great kesh! (Steve insisted that I conceal the price of the food for modesty’s sake. I said okay.)

Enjoyed a lovely chat with the owners, who then sold me these two cupcakes for the princely sum of $1.64. For BOTH. I told them in DC a single one would be $4. And these were great! Chocolate-peanut butter and mocha with vanilla frosting.

 

And we ate them on a mountain :)

Chincoteague part 2

So I casually mentioned in my first vacation post that my poor Steve was sick.

This was not an exaggeration. Round about 4 in the morning on day two, unable to swallow, Steve crawled under the tent flap (an agreement we made for entering and exiting to minimize the amount of mosquitos that got in) and had to light a fire to get hot water to then mix with honey (a bizarre Swedish remedy that is the only thing he was willing to dose himself with).

So not the most restful night of sleep.

Plus the *$&@ing peacocks.

They were loud. And they were… peacocks! Like, what?!

Anyway, I used the remains of his predawn fire to make a breakfast fire. There was a kettle for tea

And there were OATS! Lacking adequate preparation, I cleverly commandeered a stick to be my potholder.

The contents were GORGEOUS. Oats and milk (brought from home by Steve), plus water, and GORGEY straight-from-the-farm blackberries and peaches.

Heat control was obviously a bit more of a challenge on an open flame ‘n all, but actually it was fun. I am used to a crappy electric stove with anemic burners.

Oats were subliiiiiime.

Now, the day reached infinite temperature heights (it was 90s, for sure), but since all this was happening at oh, 6:30 in the morning, it was still pleasantly cool enough for oatmeal. Great oatmeal!

Showers were exceedingly necessary (thank goodness for campgrounds with bathhouses). Imagine being covered with dead bugs, bug bites, bug spray, sun block, grass clippings (from crawling out of the tent) ash (from grilling), sweat, and who knows what else. I was FILTHY. That shower was INTENSE.

Then the two of us did our various tasks (including, in my case, buying immense quantities of bug spray with the highest DEET percentage they made), and then I decided coffee would be a really excellent addition to my morning.

So we made our way to…. well they did have coffee :D

SUGARBAKERS! Such a very great name for such a very great place. You enter and are absolutely dazzled by heavenly aromas and the sight of freshly made, immensely portioned baked (and fried!) goods.

I had an intense and passionate moment with my coffee. Steve bonded with this glorious donut.

You know what a doughnut is supposed to be? DOUGH! Really really delicious light and fluffy dough, fried and rich with oil. Glazed in sugary goodness. Wow I am drooling on my keyboard.

Things that people are into in Chincoteague: driving around. They just go up and down the main streets. Just… cruising. In a variety of hilarious ways.

We did not have a vehicle as ridiculous as that (though they were ALL OVER THE PLACE), but set out to explore on our bikes, beginning with a pass up and down Main Street.

A really really amazing thing about Chincoteague: on the end of the island is a beautiful place where the bay opens out to the see. You can see across to the city lights of the mainland, and have the tranquility of breezes coming off the water.

At this beautiful place? A trailer park. The owner has been offered gazillions of dollars by developers, and refused. I love it I love it I love it.

Was I trespassing when I took this picture? I really couldn’t tell you.

Then we biked back down Main to the OTHER end of the island (admiring the local high school with its hilarious mascot: an aggressive looking pony). Thoroughly exercised for the time being, we did the wander-through-charming-seaside-shops. Including this intensely pink intensely sugary place.

Steve got a big ol’ slab of rocky road fudge. Being merely human, I had a nibble. Just picked out some walnuts. Some chocolatey, marshmallowy walnuts.

A bit more shopping and we grabbed lunch at this place. I’d been there before, and remembered it being sort of wholesome and family-y, which indeed it was (my Greek mother is Maria, the Greek owner of this place is Maria. That alone was instant bonding).

Parched from an intense quantity of sun (y’all should see my hilarious shorts tan!) I immediately pounded back a healthy amount of iced tea.

Then Steve and I, hungry beasts that we are, spent a hilariously lengthy time poring over the menu. We are SO INDECISIVE. Perhaps especially when hungry. After hemming and hawing and changing our minds (our poor waitress kept having to cross things out) I ended up just going to the salad bar.

Mostly green and fresh things…

… and some picnic-y carb-y mayo-y salads to keep up morale.

Steve got an intensely giant eggplant parm sub. Man it was good. I helped him :D

And so MORE biking. We returned to the lovely sandy beach of Assateague. It was kind of intense, because apparently the very loud and low flying plane that had flown over our campsite that morning had indeed been the bug-zapper that we’d seen signs about that day. Though Assateague is protected and doesn’t get sprayed, there was clearly some migration, or something happening with water flow… because the beach was a SEA (literally) of dead mosquitos. I felt some schadenfreude, not gonna lie.

After the beach, MORE biking (I mapmyfitness’d it, and we biked about 26 miles total that day!) around Assateague.

More of the nature trail, where we saw painfully beautiful and graceful snowy egrets.

There was a path where you could allegedly get a view of the wild ponies, but there were no bikes allowed for part of it and HOLY COW the mosquitos. Steve, being a runner, just ran, waving his arms in the air. I walked, but held my aerosol bug spray and just sprayed it in a circle around my entire body. It was intense. Saw a couple ponies… from very far away. Hi ponies. Bye ponies.

More biking, back to the main road, tired and more than a little hypoglycemic.

So it was time for Build Your Own Cookie.

I know. I know. You see that sign on the street and you cannot drive (bike) by. We’d actually already done a drive (bike) by around lunchtime and it hadn’t been open yet, so we were thrilled after a sunny, beachy, bike-y afternoon that it had opened.

The brilliant, simple concept:

Get a homemade cookie. Put some ice cream on top. Put some toppings on top of that. I KNOW.

Decorated with awesome recycled plastic!

Steve and I were indecisive and not in agreement over ice cream flavors (we really just take food too seriously. Well no that is not possible).

So we decided on just total decadence. Always a good choice :D

Behold: a chocolate chip cookie with chocolate peanut butter ice cream with hot fudge. And whipped cream and a cherry. And what she called a “gummi screwdriver”. Wow.

The nice thing about Steve is his appetite. I decided I wanted to only eat a tiny portion, and I accomplished this by simply pausing between bites. I did my pace and he did his and I ended up eating three or four bites. Perfect! :D

(Don’t worry Steve, if I really want half of something I’ll fight you for it).

Next: tropical drinks. That much sun and sweat, you want a nice chilled pina colada. Perfect: The Chincoteague Inn restaurant. Where the locals hang out.

Hard to beat sitting directly next to the pier and the water.

That guy on the left was hilarious- some Jamaican transplant who recommended the “seafood boats”, urged us to call in sick from work the following week, and offered to “help us out with anything we needed”. (Is that a euphemism for selling us something, perhaps?)

If you like pina coladas!

I do!

You know what I really like? OYSTERS!

Chincoteague oysters are sold all over the Chesapeake Bay area. They are happy little buggers, which I could tell because they were so delicious :D Steve tried to give me more than half (ice cream guilt?) which we then argued about for quite awhile (seriously, we take food SERIOUSLY). My half-half dozen was just the right amount, and totally sublime.

They had any number of deliciously indulgent sounding sides for entrees, but I was noble and got a salad (with bleu cheese- for some reason, I love ordering unhealthy salad dressing when I go out to eat. Wild, I know).

Straightforward and nice.

Which primed me for corn on the cob (my other side, totally excellent) and UNBELIEVABLE FRESH LOCAL SCALLOPS. Wowsa wowsa. Whole lotta Old Bay, whole lotta butter, broiled until unbelievably delicious. Isn’t that serving size UNREAL?! At restaurants in most places, you get like two! So awesome!

Steve got a club sandwich the size of his head. I enjoyed stealing his pickle.

A stroll around town in the moonlight capped off the evening nicely. Is there anything more heavenly than sitting on the dock of the bay wasting time hanging out with a cute boy?

Well, yes, there is. Fresh ice cream.

Island Creamery is an institution. Witness the homemade waffle cones. Imagine the smell of this:

Oh yeah. Steve got one, filled with “Pony Tracks”. (This picture is blurry of the ice cream but captures the very nice ambiance of the patio. Win some lose some)

And I got a scoop of cherries jubilee the size of a wiffleball. Bliss.