Mountains and Wine and Vodka, Oh My!

Saturday was a looooong day.  We started off by heading east into the mountains.  We went back to Tiger Mountain which had hiked up back in the fall.  That hike ended in one of the most spectacular views I've ever encountered with Mt Rainier in the background and Paragliders launching themselves into the open air.  Amazing.  Well, this hike was great but the reward at the end was nowhere near as good.  Anyway, up we went.  It was another gorgeous day and I got to test out my new camelback. That thing is awesome and good for things other than beer.  Which having spent a lot of time at LSU tailgating was all I had ever seen them used for previously.  It was a three mile hike up to an elevation of around 2,500ft.

Upwards and onwards

Cool trees...

I think it took us about 2 hours to get to the top?  We forgot to check but it was pretty tiring.  Once we got to the top we enjoyed the lookout for a few minutes but then headed back down.

oooooo....preeeeetyyyyy

For some reason we decided that while walking down the mountain was ok what would be a REALLY GREAT idea would be to run back down.  So we did some trail running.  Dumbest idea ever.  It's Monday night and I still hurt everywhere but on the plus side we made it back down in around thirty minutes so that was kind of nice. 

Item number two on the agenda was Wine!  We headed northwest (I think) toward Woodinville for some tastings.  The first stop was at Januik Cellars  http://www.januikwinery.com/events-tours.html .  Awesomely enough they were also selling pizza so it was a great place to start.  The building where they have their tastings is fantastic.  Very modern and neato, they even have bocci ball courts!  So, we got our tasting underway and went outside w/ our pizzas and tried to recover from the assinine trail running excursion. 

Local art in the tasting area

Future fun times.

The neato outside area

So we did our tasting and then continued on to the room at De Lille Cellars/Doyenne.  YUM.  It was so good and the people that worked there were all so nice.  Plus since I joined their wine club I'll get to go to events and whatnot which is always a plus.  http://www.delillecellars.com  

After we left De Lille we decided to try to find one of the places that the bartenders the night before had recommended.  We came up empty as far as that goes but in its stead we discovered a magical place.  It's called Project V Distillery and Sausage Co. https://www.facebook.com/pvdistillery  and it was seriously one of the coolest places I've ever seen.  They make vodka with wheat grown in Washington.  After they're through using the wheat they donate it to a local pig farmer who in turn uses it as feed.  They get a free pig periodically and make sausage etc out of it.  We missed out on the sausage but they had made this huge vat of smokey bacon and corn chowder and were giving out bowls of it.  AWESOME.  Plus the people were all so cool and the inside of this place was so much fun. I will definitely be visiting again (and again) when I finish the move up there.

The bathtub on the right is part of the distilling process

Instruments, tasting table, and fun times

Yes, that's a VW bus in the distillery.

So, after the mountain, the wine, and the vodka we were pretty much spent.  However, we went out to dinner that night...in retrospect I probably would have been fine w/ a piece of toast and a pillow but since it was my last night there we went out to dinner.  That night we went to La Bete http://labeteseattle.com/ It was good, the place was cute and the food was tasty but I was so burned out by that point that I didn't really appreciate it the way I should have.  Oh well, maybe next time.