fall color and winery tour...

October 13, 2010

fall color and winery tour...

For the past 4 years, the third week of September was dedicated to the Michigan MINI Cooper Club's only charity event; The Great Lakes Crossing. The past three years, Jerome and I have been involved with the planning committee.

Typically the charity is Make-A-Wish, but last year we tried to accommodate some others in the club and we chose 2 local charities; one in West Michigan and one in Eastern Michigan. This did not go over very well with some others in the club. In order to appease them, we added Make-A-Wish to the list...but it did not satisfy them. So much so that Jerome and I decided that we would no longer be a part of the planning committee for this charity event in the future...if anything. Yes, it got THAT bad.

There was only one more Great Lake to "do" and that was Lake Ontario. We gave over everything to a Canuck that is a part of our Michigan club. However we knew just how much time and effort this event takes up and we were not very confident that our brother to the North would be able to handle it, especially with what little "committee" that he had (one other guy). As it turns out, he let his life get in the way of the event and thus, this year there was no Great Lakes Crossing.

Predicting that this event was going along the wayside, a couple of couples in the club decided that they would plan a different event; The M-22 Fall Color and Winery Tour; sans charity. A bunch of people became very interested very quickly in this trip. As did we.

So last weekend was the Winery Trip and it went very well. Any time there are a bunch of MINIs caravaning down the highway with walkie-talkies, is a good time. There were a total of 20 MINIs and 40 people.

The weather was gorgeous; couldn't have asked for any better - the trees were changing colors - the temperature was pleasant.

{Look how the water changes color as it gets deeper}

{Stopped at the Grocer's Daughter Chocolates...}

{A beautiful barn along the way...}

{Lil' Bo's in Traverse City - if you click on this pic, you will see that they had a sign welcoming our group...}

We celebrated Jbo's (Jerome's) 35th birthday while we were on the trip...Larry and Kris informed the staff and they brought out this wonderful cake...that Jerome had to cut into 40 pieces - Happy Birthday Hun! :D...

{We stopped at Meijer and found this funny looking. To us it looked like a dog driving a Durango...}

Some of the colors...however, others in our group have some really GORGEOUS pics of the fall colors...

{Photo op at the 45th Parallel...}

Blackstar Farms Winery. Jerome has never seen the netting over the vineyards before and he's from wine country in Cote d'Or France...

I'm not much of a wine drinker, but it was still a lot of fun. We visited 5 wineries in the Traverse City area. I acquired a wine glass from each winery we stopped...