Our June Date Night-I Mean Date Day

On Saturday June 1st, John and I spent literally the entire day together!  It was so nice.  John and Elsie came with to my race in Des Moines, we went to look at a camper-too beat up inside to consider, and then made our way home where John's mom took over watching Elsie while we cleaned up and got ready to leave again.  John and I were taking off to Madison County, IA to check out a winery we hadn't been to yet, cleverly named Madison County Winery.  It was about an hour driver there but was really nice to just sit and chat a little bit (which is the whole purpose of these monthly dates right?).  When we arrived we saw that there was a party bus with a bachelorette party.  Thankfully, they had already done the tasting so they were just lounging outside enjoying some wine.

We had the option to sample 5 wines for free or pay like $2 for all of them...of course we did all of them and also ordered the cheese plate with yummy Havarti and Smoke Gouda cheese. Oh it was so good.  The wine was okay.  I would have to say that there are some wineries we go to where I want to get a bottle of all of them but this place I was very content walking away with one bottle to take home and that was the "Strawberry Blonde".  I ended up getting a glass to sit outside and drink as enjoyed our cheese and John got one of the beers (they also are a brewery but I didn't get to trying any of them because the wine was enough ;).

As we were finishing up our tasting another party bus showed up with another bachelorette party so it was nice to get out of the building and sit outside.

After enjoying our wine, beer, and cheese we stopped at one of the famous "Bridges of Madison County."  At one time there were 19 bridges but now only six remain.  The ones we stopped at was the Imes Bridge which is the oldest bridge built in 1870 and then renovated in 1997.

After the stop at the bridge we made our way to one of our favorite restaraunts:  The Big Steer where we met up with some friends Marc, Amber, Darren and Kari.  We have made it an annual tradition to get to The Big Steer at least once a year for as long as I can remember.  The food as always was delicious and we made it there early so they didn't sell out of prime rib before we could get it (that happened once and it was horrible! haha).  After dinner we had plans to check out the horse races at the racetrack but I was not dressed for the weather and it was really chilly!  So we headed inside to the casino, played a few slots, and hung out.  

It was such a great day with John and of course with our friends we met up with later in the evening!