Vacation Pictures: Part Two

And now, the rest of the pictures from our trip. Oh yeah, saved the best for last.

This is a picture of the Missouri River. A small section of it, at least.


This is a shot of the St Charles Historic Downtown. Since the town has been around since the 1600s, stuff is really old.


This is the interior of the restaurant we ate lunch at, The Trailhead (referring to the fact that St Charles was the launching point for Louis & Clark). This is a big bicycle they had hanging from the ceiling. I have wonderful imaginings of them getting it down for parades and such. At least I did, until Russell pointed out that turning corners would be nearly impossible. Hm.


Here's Russell sitting in The Trailhead. He's waiting for his beer.


And here I am, waiting to take a bite of my fish & chips.


From St Charles we headed to Hermann, MO. That's wine country around here. This is where the 2nd largest pre-Prohibition wine producer can be found. They're not that large now, but they do have the distinction of having one of their wines used to christen the first battleship Missouri. The vaulted cellars are the largest continuous? underground? something? in the Americas. (The nice tour guide lady was very informative, but I can't remember all the details.) Oh, the winery is called Stone Hill. Here is the vineyard located on the hillside facing the road.


Here I am getting ready to go into the main building. It was the original Stone Hill owner's house...now it's the gift shop/tasting site/other stuff.


Here I am with a sign. Ooh, ahh.

(Does anyone else see this picture and think, "Ugh, when did she gain so much weight??" If not, that's alright, I'm thinking it enough for everyone.)

Here's Russell with a pile of wine in the cellars where they do the aging.


And this is me looking back at him while he took yet another picture. Yet. Another. (For which I am eternally grateful. Without his constant picture taking I would have nothing to show on my blog. Without him, this would just be a whole lot of boring explanations.)


Here we are together with the sign outside the Stone Hill restaurant. It is housed in what used to be the stables and carriage house. After a great deal of cleaning and a little bit of remodeling they made it into quite a fun place to eat. The picture was taken by an adorable couple who went on the tour with us. They saw Russell taking a picture of the sign and, from where they were standing, it looked like I was in it. He was, in fact, taking a picture of a squirrel under the sign, but whatever. They offered to take our picture together. We then offered to take their picture. The squirrel scampered off into the bushes.


Russell likes wine. Not that particular wine ironically, but he drank it anyway. At however much that was per glass, he drank every last drop. We were seated in a former stall. The bars behind Russell were originally part of the horse stall. They even kept the feeding area...they just put plants in it instead of grain.