Cheese Curds & Apple Wine

The morning started out windy and rainy. I’ve discovered that I like the sound of the rain on the top of the RV. It’s not quite the patter of raindrops on the metal porch roof at my old house, but it does have a pleasant ‘plunk’ that lends well to burrowing beneath the covers and sleeping in late.

The weather seems to have turned here in Wisconsin and decide to be ‘fall’ now. The leaves are starting to turn as well. It is a perfect time to be in Wisconsin. Actually, it’s an especially perfect time to be in Wisconsin, since our Missouri homes have sold and our Florida house hasen’t even begun to be built yet. Now with Hurricane Matthew wreaking havoc in our future home state we’re better off being ‘homeless’ at the moment.

Brian had planned on taking us to a Fall Festival today, but apparently he’d mixed up two festivals and the one that was today was actually six hours away. Oops. Poor Brian… my contribution to planning is to send him a bunch of random links and pictures from Pinterest and figure he’ll smooosh them all together into something awesome and organized. Actually…. he has no one to blame but himself, cause that usually works out just fine.

I googled around a bit and found a winery and a cheese shop nearby and we decide to make today a lazy day. We ate a late lunch of leftovers in the RV and then headed out to the winery.

Armstrong Apple Orchard & Winery in nearby Campbellsport, WI offers a nice variety of Apple wines, a few hard ciders, regular wines and fresh picked apples.

Brian was our designated driver… and basically ignored us as best he could while Mom and I sampled our way through far more wine than we normally (or should) consume at a time. The winery had a nice cushy couch near a huge window looking out into the orchard… and good cell service, so he was fine.

I pretty much loved everything they put in front of me. I like sweet wine. I don’t even begin to understand how people can drink dry wine… why?! Just why?! I am not a wine connoisseur by any means. I like sweet, fruity, crisp and (usually) white wine. The Apple wines were my kind of wine… I even liked the hard cider that they warned me was much drier than the wines.

Boo sat in her puppy pooch and seemed to enjoy the wine tasting. I think she just likes hanging out with us and meeting new people. She’s becoming a very well traveled pup.

Mom and I agreed that we needed the Chocolate Raspberry wine

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY We took the finished Raspberry Wine and added a dark chocolate to give you this amazing dessert wine. It starts off with the aromatic chocolate and finishes with the raspberry taste.

And the Hot Apple Wine –

Hot Apple wine has a hint of chilli peppers and is our sweetest apple wine. It goes great with anything spicy like salsa or nachoes. It only warms you up a little, it doesn’t make you sweat, honest.

We packed up our wine purchases, a bag of Honeycrip apples and our souvenir wine glasses (I forgot to pack wine glasses!) and headed out to find cheese.

There was a cute little area of pumpkins outside the winery and I tried to convince Boo to let me get a few photos of her. Little stink! I had to bribe her with treats to get her to hold still and smile. Brian was standing beside her to get her to stay on the wall and Mom was standing behind me snapping and whistling. I’m sure we looked like a bunch of drunken loons…. but I did get some cute photos… so it was worth it.

Baker Cheese Store was just a few miles down the road from the winery… (See why I like Wisconsin? You just drive around windy back roads and find cheese, wine and art!) I’ve been telling Mom about cheese curds since Brian and I visited Wisconsin last year and I finally had the chance to have Mom try squeaky cheese. She’s bought it from the grocery store at home, but it’s just not the same. FRESH cheese curds are warm (these bags were just sitting on the counter at room temperature) and when you eat them they are slightly rubbery and they squeak against your teeth. Yes, it sounds wierd, but they taste good and they’re fun. We also bought FRESH string cheese… packaged this morning… and a tub of port wine cheese and a tub of chocolate fudge cheese. I’m not so sure about that last one, but Mom wanted to try it, so what the hell.

Boo was in heaven! Cheese is her favorite thing in the world.

It was still pretty early after we’d stocked up on cheese, apples and wine….what else could we possibly need? Exercise, perhaps?! Yeah. So I googled ‘attractions’ in Google Maps and Parnell Fire Tower popped up nearby. (We find more weird and interesting thing by just searching around us on Google Maps.)

Boo was not impressed with the bazillion steps that needed to be hiked to even get to the tower, so… Brian carried her. She doesn’t quite seem to get this ‘hiking’ thing. Or maybe she does…?