Monday, Monday...

Mon. Nov.1: We didn’t hurry to get on our way this morning. Then, just before we were ready to go, we realized that we had lost ability to connect to our email through ATT. A bit of research showed that we hadn’t paid the bill which had come due while we were gone. Marv paid it with credit card and it was re-established within a few hours. When we hit the road Chuck and Mary first drove us by a Mansion/Inn they had wanted to check out. We found it but they weren’t serving lunch on this Monday and it was early for us to eat anyway so we just drove by to see it. It was a gorgeous day for driving through the lovely and historic countryside. We dropped by the Nissley Vineyard and did their informative self-tour. Nissley’s “Rhapsody in Blue” was featured at the Democratic Convention and dedicated to Barack Obama. Mary and Chuck have three bottles of it in their collection! We followed the tour with a wine tasting and Marv and I ended up buying a case (unheard of for us) of four different wines we liked. Then they took us to their favorite furniture place, George’s Woodworking. Anthony gave us an in-depth tour of the showrooms, workshop, and “museum”. His affection for the late George and the intimacy of the operation were clearly evident, and the workmanship of the pieces is outstanding. We spent a long time there before winding our way back for Chuck and Mary to set-up their Democratic table at their local precinct for tomorrow. We had a quick lunch of Sloppy Joes and then went out again. This time we drove to a favorite toy store of Chuck’s, which features a huge selection of tractors and farm equipment. We then went to the 125 year old Wilbur Chocolate Factory in Lititz. After watching their video on all things chocolate and looking at their modest collection of memorabilia we each bought a bag of their chocolate “Nibs”, yummy little kisses the shape of chocolate chips, but about 3 times bigger. We finished there and walked around the historic town but, since it was after 5:00, most of the shops were closed. They had hoped to eat at the General Sutter Inn, but it was closed on Mondays. Instead we drove home and relaxed a while before going to Gus’s Diner for supper. After that we went home for a hot game of 3-D Blokus, which the engineer in the group (Chuck) lost big time!! It had been a really fun, relaxing day.