You spent a day where?!

On Saturday, a subset of the book club that I'm in decided to take a day trip to Bloomington Indiana which is the home of Indiana University, where the boy's parents live, and roughly 90 minutes south of Indianapolis. I believe the main draw of the trip was Oliver Winery, but in addition to that it became a trip of Greek food, wine tasting, antique shopping, wine tasting, goose avoidance and adult bookstore perusing capped off with chocolate cake.

Did I mention that there was wine? Basically that's all that the invitation had to say.

"Emily, we're going someplace with wine."

"Done. I'll drive."

Nicole* planned the entire thing from start to finish. A fellow blogger was included in the journey, and her take on the day is here.** I loved that the entire day was decided and I only had to be told where to drive. The food was excellent. Downtown Bloomington was an eye opening experience for me. (I expected something more like my hometown. I suppose I should have expected more from a progressive college town.) Still, it was a pleasant surprise to wander through independent shops and the beautiful architecture. The winery was also a pleasant surprise. Had it not been so beastly hot, I'm sure we would have spent more time sitting down by the water on the landscaped grounds. I also heard that you can take your own picnic lunch, buy a bottle of wine and eat outdoors - an idea I found ideal until I was reminded that there are wasps outside. Especially outside where there are pretty flowers and bottles of wine.

Nicole drove us through IU's campus which I had heard was gorgeous. And even though I was seeing the campus through wine-colored glasses, my impression was that it lived up to its reputation. Of course, instead of taking pictures of the pretty campus, I was taking pictures like this one. Oh, and Nicole became the third person EVER to drive Curvy - a fact I was surprisingly okay with. That wine stuff is powerful.

But gooooooooood.

After we left the winery, we had some time to kill before dinner. Now, I'm not so much an antique shopper, but, as mentioned, Nicole cleverly planned that portion of the day AFTER the wine tasting. Turns out, I really didn't it mind so much. In fact, post-wine antique shopping yields pictures like this one. (I would like to note here that I normally am violently opposed to wearing fur. Did I mention there was a wine tasting? Turns out you were allowed to sample between 6 - 8 wines. Guess how many I sampled.) Two of the girls came away with some cute jewelry and I found out that I hadn't had quite enough wine to buy an $85 mink stole. I'm sure that those Visa people are relieved.***

Overall the day was fun-filled and there was a lot of laughter. I keep forgetting how little time I spend with girlfriends anymore. I think I'd like to go back and spend a day solely in downtown Bloomington. But then again, I seem to remember the wine tasting being pretty fun on its own...

Note #1: All beautiful artsy pictures were taken by Nicole whose talent knows no bounds. All other pictures were taken with a point and shoot that Nicole was foolhardy enough to put into my hands while I was drinking wine. I then felt free to pass it around as I deemed necessary.

Note#2: There were five of us on the trip. I would include a group picture, but it turns out that the Witness Protection Program can place people anywhere so it's better to be safe than sorry.

*I would link to her, but perhaps she would like to keep her anonymity?****

**This blogger was the reason behind the adult bookstore perusing... a fact that I did not see in her blog. It occurs to me that it may be embarrassing to her that I'm pointing this out, but I'm an equal opportunity embarrass-er. Stick around long enough and you'll be on here too.

***And I'm sure Candy would have stopped me. Right?!

****I have learned that some people like to be anonymous and go to great lengths to keep said anonymity. Such as wearing sunglasses in adult bookstores. I don't have the heart to tell them that magic sunglasses don't work.