amo

According to this AJC article, Georgia residents will be able to purchase wine online starting on July 1.

While my favorite California wineries, including Pedroncelli and Sausal, haven’t yet updated their web sites to reflect this change, I am sure that they will work with Georgia residents to fill orders under the new law as soon as it goes into effect.

Cheers!

Pacific Fireworks
A.M. Otwell, 2008
Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20 inches

Thanks to: God for everything, Jefferson for his encouragement and support, my parents who, among other things, drove me to Goat Rock and watched the sunset with me, Reba, Herb, and all the folks at WetCanvas for advice, comments, and criticism, Elizabeth for the canvas, Nora, Steve, and the kids for some of the paint, and all of you for stopping by!

Perhaps this is not the time of year to be writing about this, but the other day, a friend of mine was wistfully wondering if there was such a thing as summer camp for adults. I already knew of a few places and events that might qualify, but I thought it’d be fun to take a look around and see what else I could come up with. Here are a few that captured my interest:

Here in Georgia, how about an overnight trip to the culinary studio at Chateau Elan? Not a summer camp but more seasonally appropriate (and practically in my back yard), make a gingerbread house at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge? There’s plenty of peace and quiet to be found at The Monastery of The Holy Spirit.

As far as activities go, Camp Ocean Pines in California has upcoming workshops about building stone walls, stone carving, and quilting. The 2008 calendar is not available yet, but Idyllwild Arts, also in California, offered a tremendous number of workshops and classes in 2007 regarding painting, sculpture, poetry, and more. In Oakland, there’s the Mosaic Summer Camp for Adults, and I personally can’t think of arts in California without thinking of Mendocino.

Moving on to states I visit less often, for perhaps one of the best outdoor/sports/nature experiences, how about rafting through the Grand Canyon? In Michigan, the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp has summer programs for adults, including for musicians (various instruments and ability levels). That reminds me of one of the camps I’d already heard about, Camp Bluegrass in Texas.

After spending a few minutes with a search engine, I’m pretty sure that, no matter what your fondest memories of summer camp, the activities, the scenery, sporting activities, etc., there’s a facility or institution that will allow you to re-visit that as an adult.

Since I didn’t write about it when it happened, this seems appropriate to write about on Father’s Day. About a month ago, I was in California to celebrate Dad’s 70th birthday with him.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to go with my father, grandfather, and step grandmother (Ed, Angelo “Kelly”, and Inez Micheli) to visit the spot where my father was born. I had been there before, but I don’t know the site well, and, possibly because all of my recent visits were on wine-tasting trips (not a good time for family stories, or at least not a good time to retain them), I really didn’t know much about the place.

However, on this occasion, we were there because the vineyard manager for Bella Vineyards and Wine Caves, John Clendenen of Clendenen Vineyard Management, had some questions about a vineyard, and Gramps, together with his father (Adamo Micheli), had cleared that land and planted those 85-year-old vines! (Gramps is 95; here’s a video.) I had no idea! I didn’t know grape vines lived that long!

Adamo and Angelo Micheli cleared and planted the lower vineyard on this hill. The grapes are zinfandel. The caves are a recent addition.
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My first attempt at creating a video.

She actually probably has a lot more minutes of fame than 15. Anyway, her latest press is here.

Update: I am so sorry, but after I successfully linked to this story all day, the web site I linked to now wants me to create a free account to see it again. If you’d rather not, you can try www.bugmenot.com to see if there’s a login there.

In case you’d rather not bother, the newspaper article is just about Aunt Gilda, who used to work at a locally owned pharmacy at the cosmetics counter, helping men pick out gifts for their wives for Valentine’s Day, because she knew what perfumes and such the wives liked.