on sunday we went to the mackinaw winery, which is between bloomington and peoria.  i’d never heard about this winery.  kevin wanted to go as part of his ongoing BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.  some people from the 10th IL cavalry were there, “performing.”

it was a pretty winery, in a nice building, with a little lake out back.

in addition to the 10th cav, there were some other “actors” from bloomington, i think.  some of the women were dressed like saloon girls.  one of them, a big girl, wore a big dress made of silver lame.  it didn’t look very authentic.  “miss kitty” was wearing cat ears and a pink fluffy tail, and a short skirt.  also not so period.  my favorite, though, and i really wish i’d taken a picture of her, was this young woman wearing a red and black striped skirt and a sequined red top – not completely authentic-looking, but not bad – but she also wore huge brown-rimmed glasses, high-heeled patent black pumps, and lugged around a huge camcorder.

as part of the entertainment, three of the cavalry rode in from in back of the lake.  here they are.

they were supposed to be the “three amigos,” and when they finally arrived at the “camp,” there was so ad-libbing and finally a shoot-out.  at first they shot a lot but nobody fell down, but then they shot some more and everybody fell all at once.

very exciting.

here’s a video of what the place looked like.  at the very end is the first shot of the shootout; i don’t know why i didn’t keep taping.

actually, you can get a quick glimpse of the videotaping girl in the red dress – she’s just to the left of kevin, who is in the middle wearing his beige cowboy pants and big brown boots.

here’s david, looking very dapper.

it was hot outside, and the entertainment went on for a while.  erica said it reminded her of when she volunteers at a school, trying to get little kids to do improv.

they were serving a nice lunch, and then we went inside for some wine-tasting.  here’s the view out the back window.

erica wanted to square dance, so we did that for a couple of songs.  it was fun.  it’s nice that erica always wants to do everything; it usually forces us to not be lazy and join in.  it was highly entertaining watching david square dancing.  he’s not the most agile dancer i’ve ever seen, but he’s very very enthusiastic and when we were supposed to walk in a circle, he always vigorously skipped.

then everybody needed to get their pictures taken with wanted posters.  kevin wins the prize for most emoting.

erica also wanted to go for a buggy ride, and here’s where we waited for the buggy to show up.

here’s the buggy. the horses had snagged some grape leaves and were munching away.

you can see the one on the left is chewing.  at least that was something nice for him on that hot day, besides pulling the wagon around and around.

here’s some video of the ride.

and here’s erica and mom having a good time.  i showed erica this picture after i took it and she said DELETE IT RIGHT NOW!  erica refuses to believe that she ever looks good in a picture.

not that she’s really really hard on herself or anything.

here’s a little cemetery on the outskirts.

the winery with the lake in the background.

kevin and me.

we met the other buggy and that was very exciting because what if the horses had CRASHED INTO EACH OTHER?

as you can see by this ACTION-PACKED VIDEO, we came DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to a crash, with the crazy horses being all crazy…

i kept trying to get a perfect picture of the grapes as we rode by.

you can see the white tents which were part of the set.

kevin kept jangling his spurs, so i took a picture of one.

the winery was a nice place, but i have to confess that i wasn’t crazy about the wine.  usually illinois wines are cloyingly sweet.  i had five ( miniscule) samples, and none were super SUPER sweet, but i just didn’t like them so much.  i was hoping to like at least one and buy a bottle, but at least i saved all that money by not buying any.

this is the lovely garden area.  david asked how much it cost to have a wedding there and they said 4k and up.  is that a lot for a wedding location?  it seems like a lot to me, but of course we got married in our back yard.

i took this last picture as we were leaving.

it was a fun day, and it’s too bad it wasn’t better-attended.  this was just the first year for the even, though, so many next year will be EVEN MORE EXCITING.

right now, at 4:21 p.m. on tuesday, it’s 97 but feels like 111.  kevin is going to the tomb ceremony despite the fact that that’s an INSANE idea.  i probably won’t join him.

ok then,

tuesday grace.