sicko, & wine tasting

j returned from his business trip on a friday afternoon, and i had one day to spend with him before he left for a climbing trip. i was supposed to go with him on that climbing trip up to squamish in british columbia, but a number of things happened. first of all, the girlfriend of j's climbing partner p, who was supposed to be my play date, cancelled. next, the forecast for squamish was totally rainy, and rock cannot be climbed when wet, so the boys decided to go elsewhere. elsewhere turned out to be leavenworth, washington, which is a place i had been to last summer. there's not much there besides rock climbing, aside from the touristy silly bavarian village stuff, so i opted to just stay home, as i'm not big on rock climbing.
so, for my one day with the hubby, we began our day by seeing the movie "sicko." it was depressing, while having humorous moments. i was unaware that so many people had problems with insurance companies, and unaware of what those companies are willing to go through to not pay for things. so sad. i hope everybody sees this movie & demands lawmakers to come up with a better alternative. after seeing the movie, we grabbed a quick lunch of noodles before heading out for some wine tasting. we know someone who works at elk cove vineyards, and we had never been there before, so we drove to gaston to check it out. we really liked a pinot gris, but the others weren't particularly impressive. kramer vineyards were nearby, just up the road, so we went there, too. j had been there before, but i had to stay home from that trip because i had harry potter music to learn for an thanksgiving weekend pops concert with the oregon symphony. so i got to experience kramer for myself. it was a really touristy joint... one of those tasting rooms that sells lots of wine knick-knacks besides the wine. in my opinion, if a place sells all that crap, the wine probably isn't amazing. and that was true in this case. however, several kinds were quite drinkable and very affordable, so we purchased a few bottles anyway. on our drive back, we passed the sake establishment sake one, and had never been in before, so we stopped & checked it out. very interesting. i'm not a big fan of sake - i think it's the taste of the rice that turns me off - and i usually prefer the hot kind (versus the chilled), which is usually really bad cheap sake. i think the hot temperature tones down the rice taste for me. anyway, they had about 5 or 6 different types they were tasting, and we ended up purchasing one. i think j will be drinking most of it....