Denise and Kevin: Thirty-Five Years

To celebrate our 35th birthdays, we did what most responsible, mature adults would do. We ditched the kids at the grandparents and drank ourselves silly.

To mark the occasion, we traveled to lovely Temecula, Calif. In recent years, with the addition of a ginormous Indian casino and a burgeoning wine industry, the inland valley has become a draw for many in Southern California. We wanted to see what the hype was about. And being less than two hours away, we liked that we could get away, without having to spend hours in the car. We arrived Friday and gave our "donation" to the Indians via the blackjack table before taking a stroll around Old Town, where we hit two antique shops before remembering we don't like antiques. We found a cheese shop that offered a bag o' yummy cheese scraps that I took back to the hotel and paired with some crackers and some bad late afternoon television.

It was all about doing things we can't normally do, like relaxing during the day and reading trashy magazines (well, one of us anyway). We had a scrumptious Irish dinner, but were too full for desert, so we bought birthday cupcakes at the grocery store and had them back at the room with some wine and two games of Rummy 500.

The next day was our wine tasting tour. For $100 each, we got a ride to the wineries, VIP treatment at four wineries, tastings, lunch and discounts on whatever we bought. It was a fun, wonderful, drunken day.





Our tour guide was Vicki. This is her third job that she does on the weekends. We could see why. After securing us the best places at the wine tasting bars, she bellied-up alongside. She was a lot of fun.

There were about 12 people on our tour bus, including a group of girls celebrating one of their 35th birthdays, too. They gave new meaning to the word "trashed." They invited us out to karaoke that night, but we passed. I can't imagine they made it out. We were only able to venture as far as the Chili's across from our hotel.

These people weren't on our tour, but the man's naked calves and black socks couldn't go un-noted.

We mostly hung out with this lovely couple, Rachel and Brandon, from Orange County. They were celebrating their two year anniversary of dating. It was funny to hear them talk about college and roommates. We might have scared them a bit with our talk of houses and kids.