Lake Chelan, Cruishing grapes and other stuff

This past weekend was the annual hunting wives get away.  You may recall that I don't have a husband and are therefore wondering how I am part of a "hunting wives" adventure. It's really quite simple.  I came as a packaged deal when the MomUnit (who was a hunting wife) invited me to join this illustrious group. And so now, this "hunting wives" are really known more for them being Crabs and I'm a major player in the little band of crabs. Seattle SIL, the MomUnit, Mrs. Braspir and Blueberry make up the rest of the Crabs.

This weekend, however, it was just Mrs. Braspir and Seattle SIL that joined me for our girls weekend get away.  In past years we've gone to San Francisco and San Diego. This year we kept it close to home and headed to Lake Chelan.

The Crabs hit Chelan

Lake Chelan is a small resort town east of the mountains from Seattle. Lake Chelan itself is a narrow, but deep lake (about 1400 feet deep). It's 50.5 miles long and is the longest natural lake in Washington.  It's a beautiful area to me. Not quite the desert, scab lands of Eastern Washington and not quite the evergreen, woody area of Western Washington.

Lake Chelan - I think looking North

View of the lake from our hotel

Our plan for this weekend was wine tasting. It was Crush weekend (as one not so friendly restaurant owner pointed out to us when we inquired about reservations) which meant all the wineries would be open for tasting. And who doesn't like to taste wine?

We tasted at 6 wineries on Saturday. Caideras Winery, Lake Chelan Winery, Winegirl Wines, Four Lakes Winery, Tildio Winery (of which I called Dildo winery), and ending at Tsillan Cellars Winery. Of the wineries, Lake Chelan was my favorite. I bought two bottles of wine there which were fewer than I expected to buy.

Caideras was a nice little shop with a very friendly wine steward there. She chit chatted with us the entire time we tasted. Their wine was good, but nothing I felt I had to own.

Caideras Winery

Abby the Crab wants a taste

At Lake Chelan Winery not only did we have exceptional service but they were crushing grapes out in their vineyard and who doesn't want to crush grapes with their bare feet. So off we went. They were having a grape crushing competition - which I didn't want to participate in - but I did want to stick my feet into a barrel of grapes. So I asked if I could between competitions, and sure enough. I stuck my feet in. Gross is what I'd call it. But I can check this off my bucket list...even though it didn't actually exist on the bucket list.

Lake Chelan Winery - my favorite stop

These grapes were made for stompin'...

 

And that's just what I did...

Their grapes had crabs

After that we stopped at Winegirl Wines. This little place was COVERED in fruit flies.  I do realize that with wine, there's fruit, and with fruit there are fruit flies...but my goodness there were a ton of fruit flies. I mean when the wine pourer gives you a coaster type thing to put over your glass so flies don't get in it...there's a problem.  To top that off, I wasn't a fan of any of their wines. Interesting side note however...the owner used to be a Rat City Roller Derby girl and so the wine labels reflected that.

From there we had lunch. We figured we'd better get something in our stomachs before we were blotto! We ate at a delicious restaurant called Blueberry Hills (click that link for a virtual tour of the restaurant). The food was fantastic and the portions HUGE. Soooo glad I shared a French Dip Sammy with Mrs. Braspir. I swear they used an entire loaf of French bread for this sammy.

Stuffed and happy we headed up to Four Lakes Winery. The son of a friend of BigBro's owns this winery.  So naturally we had to stop by. I wasn't impressed with their wines either. And since all of the wines were sold out I didn't have an opportunity to buy any.

View from Four Lakes winery

Back down the hill into Chelan we stopped at Tsildio winery...which I kept calling Dildo winery...I'm sure they would not have been impressed with my name. I couldn't help it. For some reason their name reminded me of that. Their wines were good and I was tempted to purchase a bottle of one of them until I realized it was $34. Well over my price per bottle level.

Our last winery was Tsillan Cellars. Beautiful, big Italian style villa. Packed with wine tasters and thus made getting our next taste challenging.  They had some good wine though. Mrs. Braspir bought a bottle there I believe. And I almost did. But I opted to not and just stay with the two bottles I had already purchased.

All in all we had a blast tasting wine. But by the time we were at Tsillan Cellars we were done. We dined on Mexican food that night and I might add it was delicious!

The trip was a great one and while we missed having the other two crabs there (the MomUnit and Blueberry) we managed to have a good time on our own. We created some great "you had to be there" moments that made us laugh and laugh and laugh.  I do love these women and find myself thankful to have them in my life.

Looks like those apples have worms...

On a "change in my lifestyle" note - I was proud of myself the first night we were in town. We stopped to have dinner at a place called Tin Lily's - delicious food. And the type of place I'd normally make a bad food choice.  This time, however, I had a chicken breast (grilled) with a side of grilled veggies. Swapped our the starch they offered for more grilled veggies.  Seattle SIL just stared at me and kept saying, "Who are you?" I'm hoping that soon no one recognizes me.  Other food choices throughout the weekend I was proud of - not great choices, but still I shared most my meals with someone whereas I might have normally eaten (ate) the whole thing.