Siomara, RN: Santa Barbara & Wine Country

Sunday, Aug 4. Time: 10:30am. Joshua, Armando, Chantelle, Jennnifer, and I hopped into the Beemer and headed for a one day adventure. This was a complete spir of the moment trip. We arrived around noon-ish. It was absolutely georgeous. As soon as we arrived in SB (santa barbara) we saw a little wine tasting room and decided to give it a try. It was really nice! I am a white wine drinker, not a big fan of the red. It was shocked at how cheap it is to taste 6 different types of wines... $5! what a bargain! Joshy prepaired a little mini summary of our trip.. in the "thick" packet he gave us; it included wine tasting rules... such as: swirl the wine, smell the wine, taste the wine, and dump the wine. Yes, it is proper to just take a small taste of the wine and dump it in a special container. Jen and I were uphold by this... who would dump perfectly good wine? Josh explained that you don't want to get drunk, that way you can hit more wineries. So 3 or the 6 wines were white, i really enjoyed that part (and no, i did not dump the wine). Then the Reds arrived... i took one very small sip and DUMPED! Yuck. Im just not a fan! After all of our wine everyone was a little 'tipsy', except for me.. since i didnt drink the red wine. We then headed to downtown SB, and cruised the blvd and did a quick look at the town. We were all starving so we decided to grab a late lunch at "the fish house." The food and drinks were DELISH! We had a perfect view of the ocean from our table. We were anxious to get to wine country so we hopped into the car and then we were on our way.... 30 min later we arrive at destination B. We stopped at our first winery called "Buttonwood." We got to sample 12 wines. At this winery we are able to roam the grape vines as you sample the wines. It was absolutely gorgeous. They are also known for there famous Peaches and Peach pie. Armando, of course, picked one of the peaches off the tree. They were delish! just perfect. After having a tease, from that one peach, we had to buy a peach pie. Back to the wine tasting... as the attendant pours the wines into our glassed they tell something about the type of wine you are about to taste such as: what special favor should you expect, ex: At first it is fruity but at the end you can taste a bit of cherry." After all the wines we tasted we found out that we get to keep our wine glasses... Wahoo! We were all excited :) I have my very 1st wine glass.

Our 2nd winery... We saw this stunning little white building surrounded by gorgeous green grass. It looked like a secret getaway, hidden in the trees. It was called "Rideau Vineyard." We walked in and started our wine tasting. And we walked out with another lovely wineglass and some colorful beed neckleses. Oh, and Jen bought this very cute mask. I love it! Its so cute.

3rd winery... We stopped at the famous winery called "Blackjack" or some people might know it as "Sideways" that was featured in the movie "Sideways." Personally, i didnt know what this movie was about so i didnt care much for it. We met some guys from France, that had that sexy accent ;) After we headed to the local casino. Of course i gambled $2, and lost it. Im not a gambler so i didnt feel the need to loose more money. Mondo, on the other hand, won $50, then lost it. We all walked away empty handed. We had dinner at the casino... DELISH! They had everything you can think of. It was a perfect getaway!