A Break in the Storm...

After readjusting my eyes and my car from jolting off the road, I slowly pulled off the horrendous highway and hesitantly followed signs to the "Promised Land."

The Starr Hill Winery of Curwensville, PA was only a short mile away but we were a little leery. Holly and I were between the middle of nowhere and Land of the Lost and had not had the best of luck with off-interstate attractions deeming them roadside oddities at best. We drove past a variety of different “hidden gems” including a river so disgustingly thick and green, it made pea soup actually look appetizing (hinting at my disdain for pea soup).

I rounded one more winding bend, drove over the river and through the woods desperate for grandmother’s house. I took one last right turn and felt as if I were transported to a field of dreams with a vineyard of grapes as far as the eye could see. It was every wine enthusiast’s castle in the sky and my happy ending to a half a day of torture and anguish from a highway leaving me grasping for the frame of my sanity.

I parked my cherry red Jetta; more appropriately named “the tomato”, and indulged in the fantasy that is Starr Hill...

I directed my Starr gazing peepers towards a quaint chateau of a winery across the serenity of Clearfield County’s award-winning vineyard. I stepped out of the car and stretched around for a bit before accepting that we had arrived at the light at the end of the tunnel (although I can’t say the same for poor Carol Anne).

As I walked through the front door, I was surrounded by the sweet ambience of welcoming wines.

To continue this journey of wine euphoria, please visit Holly’s site:

Nightmare on I-80...

When I recently planned a weekend getaway for Holly and myself, no one could possibly imagine what lie in store for us as we attempted the twelve hour drive to Michigan a.k.a. the second friendliest place on the planet next to the North Pole. We anticipated a relaxing and liberating adventure as we made our way to Ann Arbor for some good old family fun.

Well, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that it was going to be a little more than we had bargained for. Between having to reroute ourselves several times during the journey (due greatly in part to poorly updated Google Maps), a freak snow shower in Wilkes-Barre, PA and every roadside tourist attraction and antique store that caught our eye being closed [due to our glorious economic recession], our sanity and patience were escaping us as quickly as our gas money.

Now, if anyone has ever taken a trip towards the great North, they would know, and most undoubtedly fear, that there is no avoiding traveling through the entire state of Pennsylvania. And with this seven hour state-long excursion comes the dreaded, desolate, down-right disastrously infamous 367 mile stretch of nauseating highway that is I-80… (Queue the horror music and blood curdling screams).

In case you have still not fully grasped the nightmare that can only be named “the highway of hell,” allow me to terrify you further. Imagine an interstate with more dead animal than Pet Cemetery. Motel/restaurant/gas stations (and yes, they all of conjoined) that only exist once every 70 miles or so off the interstate that I can only assume were inspired by Norman Bates himself. Let’s not get started with the people that inhabit these freak shows that are more formally called “rest stops”…

I found myself slowly slipping into mayhem as I started to stare much too long into the winding black concrete and streaming yellow lines surrounded by my worst nightmare. With more miles than I can count ahead of us, I felt as if this were all part of some petrifying Stephen King novel that had me searching for “the light,” or at least a way out. And then, I caught a glimpse of redemption as I spotted a billboard advertisement for the Starr Hill Winery. Wait, was this a mirage? Had I been staring so long into the dismal abyss that I started to fantasize about wine? Don’t put in past me…I am an oenophile.