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St. Francis Campers
Pat and Bill Allen were not back
in town and weren’t able to get there on Thursday so they were going to have to take pot luck to get near us. It so happened on Friday, a couple left that was next to us so I called Pat and Bill and they were getting
ready to head for the camp ground. I told them if they wanted the spot
they had better hurry. They dropped what they were doing and headed our way. As
luck was with them, the folks that were leaving had not checked out and when Pat and Bill arrived they got in next to us across
the road and we were all together. On Friday night Carol Woody came out to the
camp fire and had snacks and plenty of conversation. She couldn’t camp
since she had surgery the day before.
We had a pot luck dinner Saturday evening and Carol came back out. She
brought some baked salmon and we had chicken stew, green beans (fresh) Allen style, salad, ham hunks, ice cream with chocolate
syrup and nuts. The Allen’s son and daughter-in-law came for dinner. We
played cards and learned a new game “HAND AND FOOT” and it was a hoot. Man
did we laugh trying to remember the next play. God made it easy for those of us who didn’t fully understand it. He made it rain so hard we couldn’t run out of it fast enough.
Friday afternoon as I was waiting for the Allens to show up a little red truck pulled up by my camper and out
steps Bill Allen and right behind him comes this great big motor home and this little gal name Pat driving this big thing. She hollered to Bill to come back it in the camping space and he said “OH NO”
you wanted to drive so you back it in. And sure enough she backed that thing
right in the hole between two big trees. We now call her “Designated Driver”.
Friday we had a great looking campfire, but we had to back off and put a fan on us it was so hot. Saturday Pat and Lola said not to light a fire while we were eating because it was too hot. We had a little
breakfast Sunday morning and started cleaning up and packing to depart because it was raining and it didn’t look like
it was going let up for the day. The rain didn’t dampen anyone’s
spirit. All in all we had a great time.
Surely more folks will make it next time and I think we will give more lead time.
Gerry Sniff
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| Pat has it under control. |
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| And Bill thinks he has Pat under control, but not Carol. |
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| Where's the beef? |
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| Jack and Gail Grande with pup. |
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| Lola, where's the beef? |
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| Pat cooling it |
28 Attend Wine Tasting
(Small Group Event)
We had our largest attendance ever with 28 parishioners and guests attending. This
was our first blind tasting and I think everyone, including me, learned something.
Let's get right to the results, which were very interesting. Here's how we ranked
the wines we tried:
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Rudi Wiest Rhein River Riesling 2006 ($10.99)
- Chateau St. Jean Riesling Sonoma County 2006 ($12.49)
- Columbia Crest Riesling Columbia Valley Two Vines 2006 ($8.89)
- Firestone Vineyard Select Central Coast Riesling 2006 (($10.99)
- Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling Columbia Valley Eroica ($24.99)
- Hogue White Riesling Columbia Valley Late Harvest 2006 ($12.99)
Looking at the results, they are really anomalous. For example, the Chateau Ste. Michelle Eroica
finished 5th, but had the most 1st place votes of any wine. It's problem was that it also had the most last place votes of
any wine. Those of you who have a sweeter taste in wine ranked it low because it was clearly the driest of the choices.
Those of us with drier tastes ranked it very high. The moral of this story is to buy what you like to drink. While I would
love to have the Eroica with my Thanksgiving turkey, Elaine and Linda just saved themselves $15 and they can drink
something they like much better.
Seriously, the purpose of wine tastings is to find out what you like. If you had trouble ranking
the wines, that's because they were all good. I hoped some of you would struggle with the rankings because of this, and some
did. I can't tell you how many wine tastings we have been to where one or maybe two of the wines were good, but the others
were awful. The differences with these wines were that some of them were sweet, some were toward the drier end of the
spectrum, and some were in between.
The next meeting of the Wine Tasting Fellowship will be held on Saturday, November 8,
the home of Gail Reed and Mike Bowland. The theme will be Holiday Wines. These will be upscale
wines which would be suitable for a holiday dinner or a Christmas gift. They will be more expensive than the average we have
been working with, so the cost will be about $10 per person. It will not be a blind tasting, as all of the wines will be different.
The idea is to get a feel for each of the wines, not compare them to one another. We hope this will be useful in making your
holiday plans.
Doug & Ellen
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