More fun and wine with my man

 Saturday (9/4) continued....

David was surprised at how much time you could spend at these wineries with tastings and the conversation. I know I have enjoyed our time and it's nice to see him relax and enjoy the journey. 

Today we headed to the small town of Van, TX to see a small Oil Museum there. No tour last the one in Kilgore but it has some cool things outside and inside. The young lady manning the place was very pleasant and while David looked outside at things I didn't totally know what they were she showed me some displays inside. 

One of the pictures I was looking at she told me was the original school house opened in 1916 with 95 students. The Professor, his wife, children and 4 teachers lived in the building until 1928 when it was destroyed by fire. No excuse for being late if you live where you work. The picture was of the of the rebuilt school on the same site. With the discovery of oil on the school property and surrounding areas the life of the community and the school.  Even today the royalities from the oil pay for all school supplies and lunches for the students. 

The school house are now used for storage and admin, faculty if I understood right. Overall the trip to Van was interesting. I should have pulled my sun glasses down. Not sure why I didn't. Dummy.  We left the museum and went to look for something to eat.  

We ended up in Ben Wheeler, TX at the Moore General Store and Restaurant. This is also a place where Max and Heather Stallings play. Their one of our favorite Texas Country artist.

Always wondered where this place was. 

Cool wall in Ben Wheeler. David walked down the street to see what he could see. He came back telling me to come on that there was a winery a few buildings down.   Alrighty. I'm always game for wine.

It was a cute boutique and wine bar. The owner was really nice. I can't remember her name but we sat there for about an hour, talking, tasting and having a glass of wine. Well David ended up with a wine slushy. It was pretty tasty but I preferred wine. 

Vintage Cork 917 

From here we headed on to The Lavender Mermaid Bed & Breakfast.  We were in the SunFlower Cottage. It had a mermaid theme and I found 1 sunflower picture but lots of mermaids around. This was our place for the next couple of nights.

David needed to stretch out for a bit. LOL On the night stand I found 2 chocolates for us to enjoy that was homemade. They were very tasty.   The front porch had bright yellow chairs to relax in. David sat out there in the mornings while he drank his coffee. I sat out there our last morning with him.

 This was our view off the porch. Never saw any wildlife. We could hear music from a neighboring house but that's it.

After freshening up we decided to run into the big town of Pittsburg for dinner.  David had found a Mexican food restaurant for us to eat. We drive up and this woman is standing out front smoking and looking like she'd lost her best friend. As we get out of the car she tells David that her Chef had walked out a couple hours earlier and the staff and one other cook was trying to prepare food and get it served but one customer has been waiting an hour.  She then said we might want to find somewhere else to eat.  Poor Lady.  We left there and went to our 2nd choice for dinner at the Anvil Restaurant & Brewhouse.  We ordered burgers I think. I've managed to forget. The food was good. I had to take a picture of the menu. Check out the 2nd appetizer.  "Redneck Cheese Board"

David started laughing and made a comment to the waitress about it but she didn't seem to understand why he thought it was so funny. Ooops. 

I guess we didn't offend her to bad because she checked on us often.

Each morning between 8-9 we'd get a knock on the door and we'd find this big yellow lunch box cooler. Inside was the menu and breakfast.

 

The next morning was a similar menu.

David took me to one of the quilt shops I found in Tyler on Saturday called A Nimble Thimble. I should have taken a picture of all the eye candy.  So much fun fabric to touch and admire. I bought some T-towel fabric and a white layer cake. For my non-quilters a Layer cake is 42 - 10" squares. But there was lots more I could have bought had my quilting budget allowed. LOL

Then David found a place for us to go have a drink. He was thinking it was a craft beer place but it ended up being a local sports bar. It was nice but I can not remember the name of it.

 

I wasn't really taking a picture of David but. I was trying to get a picture of the two guys past him.  Sitting at the bar with their masks on. They had food and beer. They'd lift their mask up quickly and take a drink or a bite. I don't remember exactly where we were. 

 Sunday after our breakfast we went driving around. We drove to a winery that was further out called Enoch's but when we got there the tasting room was closed. We walked over to the restaurant that some yummy smells coming from it and asked about tasting wine. Apparently the tasting room had closed last April and hadn't reopened due to Covid.  They let us have a seat in the restaurant to have a glass of wine. Our waiter came over after we ordered a glass and just learned that we wanted to do a tasting and he was willing to do that for us but we said it's okay.  The wine we chose to drink was tasty. While enjoying our wine we ordered an appetizer of Crab cakes. Those things were so darn good. All the food we saw being served looked so juicy and good. 

Beautiful grounds. I want to come back for food one time and enjoy some wine on the patio when it's cooler. This was the tasting room area. Maybe next time.

We keep taking pictures where we have to look into the sun. 

     

Next we head to Los Pino's which is right around the corner from our cottage. They've opened up one in Fredericksburg now but it was nice going to this one. It wasn't crowded.

David is giving me the evil eye since I'm including him in the picture. LOL

We really enjoyed our time here. Nicole took care of us and made sure we found a wine we liked. Like that is a problem for us. She was a sweetheart.

They even have a restaurant there that we want to go back and try. She poured me a off dry Blanc du Bois and told me to taste it the she combine the off dry and the dry Blanc du Bois and told me to try it now. Wow! It was good. More wine went to the car. LOL 

This is the drive into the Bed & Breakfast. If it hadn't been for the sign on the road we might have thought Siri was taking on a wild goose chase.

Our next stop was dinner at Vaugh's on Lake Bob Sandlin. Even though it's Labor Day weekend the lake was crowded. So when we sit down at the table the waitress came right over and took our drink order. When she came out with the drinks she sat down a bowl of cole slaw, hushpuppies, and beans. We're like we haven't even ordered food yet and she goes that this is comes no matter what you order. It was all very good and we ordered the special of shrimp and fish.  I was so full.

Before leaving we took a picture with the lake in the background.

Monday 9/6 came to fast. Our trip is about to come to an end. Noooo!

As we were loading the car I took a couple pictures of the grounds. Of course The Lavender Mermaid B&B had a mermaid fountain.

Oh and remember I told you I'd share a picture of the quilt for our great nephew Parker. Well here it is. The pattern is called Roman Holiday from a book "Quick as a Wink 3 yard Quilts" by Donna Robertson. To make the front you need 3 - 1 yard cuts. It measures about 44x62. I added an inter brown border that the pattern didn't call for.  You'll need 3 1/2 yards for whatever you use for the backing if fabric is 44/45" wide or 2 yards if using the 108" wide fabric. I love this pattern. It's goes together quickly and it's a nice size.

     

My quilter Donna @Donna's Lavender Nest used the Woodland creature quilt motif. You can see the deer, bear and tree.

Time to head home but I made a slight detour to Quitman, TX first. On our last two trips David has helped me look for quilt shops for me to stop at while we travel around. I've followed this quilt shop on facebook for a long time and I definitely wanted to visit and David said sure plug it into the map.

Here I am at Stitchin' Heaven. Yahoo! So So much color and pretty fabric etc.....

The famous cow you always see when Stitchin' Heaven is around.

 

In the same parking lot was this big beautiful white building with small houses in the same big parking lot as the quilt shop. Come to find out it's their new retreat center with flow over cottages. Or you can rent one of the cottages separately.  This is now on my bucket list of places to go retreat at.

So fun looking and the pictures of the inside on line look real nice.

On on route we took we had to go down..... Bunny Rabbit Road. LOL I wanna live on Bunny Rabbit Road.  And before we knew it we were back in Bryan at Pamela's house picking up our Lilley girl. Who probably thought we had abandoned her. I think this is the longest that both of us have been away from her.  She was happy to see us. 

So we get unloaded and I spread out our purchases. LOL. Now David sees how it happens when Pamela and I hit Fredericksburg. LOL

That's 21 bottles of wine, 1 bottle of bourbon and 4 cans of bubbly wine.

David did an awesome job planning and providing a wonderful Anniversary Trip.  Thank you so much David. Here's to another year of adventures. xoxo

That's it folks.

Until my next blog post...... 

  “On our anniversary, I want you to know how much I’ve enjoyed annoying you all this time & how excited I am to keep doing so in the future.”