A Fun Winter Weekend Part 2 - Horse Racing and Wine Tasting

I realize it has been a week since my last update. I have a good reason. Really, I do. It's not just that I've been feeling lazy and uncreative. We're currently doing some unexpected renovations. It's a good story...one that I'll tell in another post. For now, I'm still on the visit from my Mom, Regular E and Sara. Saturday.

We began the day with a healthy breakfast of Dunkin Donuts. And no, they're not as good as Krispy Kreme! Morgan has a Saturday morning art class, so we picked her up downtown around 1 and headed for Skyline for a tasty Cincinnati lunch before heading to the horse racing track! Turfway is about 20 minutes from my house, just over the Kentucky border. Amazingly enough, they allow kids to go to the track, but the betting age is 18. We'd never been to the horse races before. My Mom was the only veteran horse track gambler among us. We arrived and sure enough, there were quite a bit more kids there than I had expected. Also, the City of Cincinnati passed a smoking ban in public places (which I am against...should be up to the owner of the establishment!) but as a non-smoker, it is quite nice going out and not stinking like smoke when we're done. Kentucky (a tobacco exporter) does not have a smoking ban. So the first thing I noticed when walking in the racing facility was the smoking stench.

As it turns out, horse racing is very much like dog racing. My method proved to be the big winner...I picked the ones that gave off the winning vibe and had the coolest name. Very much like I did on the occasion I went to the dog races! Mom liked the long shots...however this wasn't very profitable for her. Sara was connecting with her latin heritage...picking the ones with the spanish names. This paid off once. La Moneda...means money, but does not get you money! I couldn't really pinpoint Phillip's method or Regular E's.

We had a blast watching the races! We went outside down beside the track to watch the race from start to finish, then back inside to make our next picks. I found it most interesting that the jockeys who were riding the race horses were so tiny! I don't think I've ever seen grown people so tiny!

I took some photos. Here we are enjoying our day beside the track:

The race just started! I don't remember if anyone won anything on this particular race or not.

Here is where Sara won some money betting on a horse that shared her Latin heritage...She seems pretty pleased, posing in front of the winner's circle, doesn't she?

After a while, everyone was getting in on the action...there may or may not have been some bets made on behalf of the underaged...I am neither confirming nor denying. All I can say is that Morgan came out about a dollar poorer, and Archie...well...he and my Mom cooked up something for the last race. The race ended with Archie tearing up their ticket and stomping on it. Like some of the adults on the losing end of things! He was not happy with the outcome. He was very sad about 'his' horse losing. I guess that's why they call it gambling!

It was a really fun activity and we had a blast, but probably is not something I'd just pack up the kids in the car to do. Morgan, who initially thought this would be absolutely no fun, ended up having a great time! I was the only one who ended up with change in her pocket at the end of the afternoon...I came with $15, and went home with $18.50! A cool $3.50 profit! As you can see, I'm not a big risk taker! The 'vibe' / cool name method of picking winners really worked to my advantage on this day!

After a brief rest at home, we walked to the winery just down from my house...The very same one where we found out that Phillip and I are Klassy with a K! Fortunately, the wait staff had very much improved as we had an outstanding waitress, who did admit that she just began drinking wine when she got the job at the winery. Definately our kind of people! I ordered the wine tasting for Regular E, my Mom and Sara. I think I will let my baby destroy it's own brain cells in his or her own due time, instead of in utero!

I think Mom and Sara really, really enjoyed the wine tasting. You get seven tastes, so by taste four or five, they were pointing across the table at eachother and the speaking volume began to increase.

Archie decided to order the mussels, which he had NO idea of what they were prevous to them arriving at the table. They were served in the shells, in a garlic cream sauce. Here he is considering whether or not he did the right thing:

As it turned out, he really enjoyed the mussels. Even though they were a bit scary-looking at first! Below our waitress took a picture of everyone. Henke Winery is a smallish place, but they have live music on the weekends, as we found out. The music was okay when we first sat down, but it got worse toward the end of our evening. Perhaps there was wine sampling going on for the entertainment as well. To be fair, we were there for a couple of hours, and it didn't get bad until right before we were leaving.

My Mom and I:

Regular E and Sara:

We walked home and visited around the fireplace until bedtime. Sunday morning, we were expecting Old E and Ann to join us for our Cicinnati Winter Adventures. Stay tuned.