So every year, some of my college girlfriends and I get together for a reunion. For the past few years, they’ve been kind enough to travel here to Raleigh to visit Sara and me. However, we switched things up bit this year. Last Friday through Monday (Aug. 16-19), Sara and I headed to the beautiful lands of Naples and Canandaigua in Upstate New York for a meet-up with “Team SACSS” aka Gar, Amanda, and Shannon. We went to Naples this year because Shannon had a baby in March and couldn’t travel to us. It worked out for the best, though, and we had a spectacular time.
We left from Raleigh late on Friday evening. Amanda joined us for our second flight during our layover at LaGuardia. Our flight from LGA to Rochester wasn’t entirely uneventful. Amanda and I were sitting next to each other and Sara was sitting in the seat in front of us. The man across the aisle from Sara must have not eaten food in public in a very long time because we got a great show of him licking every square inch of a takeout container and then mixing together a surely delicious concoction of mayo and sugar, which he ate with a fork. It was definitely…interesting. We got into Rochester too late to do anything on Friday. Pretty much all we did was pick Gar up from the train station and head back to Sara’s parents’ house to sleep since it was almost 1 a.m. at that point.
On Saturday, we met up with Shannon and baby Aria for breakfast and started catching up. Picture five women who haven’t seen each other in a year (we haven’t seen Shannon in four years!) trying to excitedly tell stories all at once, haha. Gar got engaged last month, so Amanda had gotten her pretty much the funniest engagement gift ever – shorts that mocked the “Bride” style booty shorts/sweats that you can get at Victoria’s Secret. They got straight to the point and read, “Bride’s Ass” on them. Hilarious.
After breakfast, we dropped Aria off at Shannon’s mom’s house and set out for a tour of the vineyards of upstate New York. The plan was to visit four vineyards. However, we only made it to two. The first one was called Dr. Frank’s. Both vineyards were located on the top of a hill overlooking what Google Maps tells me is Keuka Lake. Let me tell you – these were GORGEOUS locations. It could not have been any prettier on Saturday, view or weatherwise. The second vineyard we went to was called Bully Hill. I liked this one much better. It had a more fun atmosphere and I liked the wines we tasted here more. We ended up eating a late lunch/early dinner at Bully Hill, which is why we didn’t make it to any other winery that day. The plan for Saturday night was to go out for dinner and then drinks at the golf course lodge by Sara’s parent’s house, but we were all so full and tired that we ended up just hanging out at the house for a while and then taking a field trip to Wegman’s to buy supplies for our boating adventure the following day.
We were “Woo!”-ing in front of the pretty backdrop. My lack of jumping height does not match my level of enthusiasm to be there. I’m just a shitty jumper.
Wine tasting at Bully Hill.
I need to dedicate an entire moment on here to the awesomeness of Wegman’s. Basically, it’s a giant grocery/everything store that is more amazing than you could possibly imagine. I want a Wegman’s in Raleigh.
On Sunday, we set sail upon Canandaigua Lake with Sara’s mom as our captain. We had rented the boat from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Captain Liney gave us a grand tour of half the lake in the morning hours. There are so many gorgeous, million-dollar homes on that lake. If you are okay with being in the middle of nowhere, then it really is the perfect summer house location. I would love to someday have enough money to rent out one of those houses for just a week. We picked up Shannon back at the harbor at noon and set sail in the other direction. We sailed along for a while before dropping anchor at the other end of the lake where a lot of other boats had done the same. We chilled there for a few hours, drinking beers, eating way too much, and chatting it up. On the way back to the harbor, we stopped for more drinks and appetizers at a bar alongside the lake. I don’t know why I’ve never hung out on a boat before, but I want to do it again. It’s worth it, I should note, if you have a big group of people to split the cost with. Otherwise, it’s pricey.
Lake Canandaigua
With Sara. On a boat, of all things.
Although I was stuffed beyond belief by Sunday night, Sara’s dad made us a delicious and healthy dinner, so I eagerly ate up. Seriously. I was so full and bloated by Sunday evening that I don’t know how I functioned. If you look at the picture of all of us in the picture I put up on Facebook of all of us in our awesomely dorky matching shirts, you’ll see how much I don’t look like me, lol. On Tuesday morning, the scale said I gained 4lbs between Friday and Tuesday. And such is a weekend away without a lot of fruit. After dinner, we strolled up to watch the sunset from the golf course lodge (I Instagrammed it) and drank some more. It was a really chill evening and I’m so happy that it was such a relaxing setting.
Much better picture of all of us.
Sunset over the golf course.
Monday was our last day in New York. We went for brunch at Simple Crepes in Historic Downtown Canandaigua, then walked down the main street drag for a little while before finishing our time in Canandaigua at a good yet really strange coffee-house-inside-a-smelly-consignment-store. And thus we set forth for Rochester. We had a decent chunk of time to kill when we got to Rochester before we had to drop Gar back off at the train station, so we hung out at yet another coffee house until it was time for her train. The train was delayed a half hour, so we naturally had a dance party on the platform while waiting with Gar for Amtrak to arrive. Good times.
Artsy picture by Gar of us chillin’ in a coffee shop in Rochester.
After Gar left, Amanda, Sara, and I headed to the Genesee Brew House to do a tour, tasting, and kill more time until our flights. Gar’s train left at 2:50 p.m. and we didn’t have to be at the airport until 5:15 p.m. We weren’t able to do a tour, so we instead did a tasting then hung out with a beer for a while on their roof, which overlooked a lot of the city. Dirty waterfalls aside, it was really relaxing. On the way to Sara’s mom’s work (she was going to take us to the airport), we stopped at Wegman’s (YAY) and got sandwiches. We made it to the airport with time to spare, took off on time, and were on our way back home. Amanda left us during our layover at LaGuardia. And then there were two. Luckily, we made it back to Raleigh early and I was back home at the apartment by 11:15 p.m.
Our choices for the tasting at Genesee Brew House.
I tried the Genesee Cream Ale, the IPA, Oktoberfest, and Blonde Ale.
View from the roof of the Genesee Brew House.
It was an awesome fun time in Upstate New York last weekend. I’m really happy we went. I can’t believe we planned the entire thing and found such inexpensive flights in 2.5 weeks. I’m definitely down for us to go back again.
