Alliterations – don’t you love them?  Today was full of them, this particular title created by my friend Michele as we and our friend Ila Jean drove through central Nebraska to wine country.  Yes, you heard me right – wine country.  You’ve heard of Silicon Valley, right?  Well, we’re the Silicon Prairie, so of course, there must be wineries to go with.  Not like they’re all great wines, but these are beautiful little places in or outside of pretty little towns, the epitome of American small businesses.  I did happen to taste a few nice wines on our little winery trip today and some not so impressive, but all created with great pride by their owners.  One even tasted a bit like Kool-aid which, when I thought about it later,  only made sense because after all, we were just down the road from the town where Kool-Aid was invented.

We had planned to go further west (another “w”), but unfortunately they were hit with 8-11 inches of rain, so in the middle of July in the middle of the Great American Desert, these poor towns and farms are flooded.  It has been a year for that for sure in Nebraska and I’m betting nobody is reporting it on the national news because it’s, well, Nebraska.  So we decided to avoid the flooding and instead had a lovely lunch and wine tasting in St. Paul after which, looking for some time to kill, went to a new little distillery to take a “tour” of their operation.  It consisted of one room about the size of our apartment (higher ceilings of course) and a gentlemen who reminded me of the teacher in Ferris Bueller giving a demonstration of how you put a couple of big bags of ingredients into what was essentially a big vat and he let us look inside.  He corrected me very quickly when I said it smelled like corn because, well, there was no corn in it yet.  Doesn’t mean it didn’t smell like corn.  I could have explained to him why what he was calling bourbon wasn’t really bourbon but I didn’t want to call him out in his own establishment.

So after that interesting 10 minute tour, we decided to stop in the lovely tiny, tiny, tiny, town of Worms, Nebraska home of the infamous Nightcrawlers Bar.  Seriously, how can you pass up this kind of thing?  I love hanging out with people who when I say, “oh, we’ve GOT to go there!” say “ok!” and we go.  Thanks to Google, I found out that had a very interesting history with immigrants linked to Worms, Germany.  I also found out that its inhabitants have not been included in a census.  I’m thinking “Children of the Corn” right about now.  So after a few selfies in from of the closed bar, we hopped back in the car and headed for Central City.

The population of Central City being only 3,000 might make you think that there’s not much there but there’s something about the pretty little houses and flower gardens, the parks and pools, little mom and pop restaurants that make this little place enticing.  We walked into the restaurant/tasting room where the older building had been completely gutted and were surprised to see a very modern industrial look, complete with a lounging area upstairs, a bar and various seating areas.  The cost for my 1/2 price appetizer, glass of wine and a Diet Coke (I was thirsty, ok?) came up to a whopping $9.00 dollars.  Just like our lunch/wine tasting in St. Paul which was a ginormous $13.00.  These small towns give you unique beautiful scenery, good food and wine at a wonderfully relaxed pace. Literally, take all the time you want to take in the scenery, share stories with friends and breathe.  I needed that.

The day ended as I drove home from my friend’s house in Seward on a two lane highway with the music blaring and the top down for some wind therapy .  The car’s top, not mine.  That would just be scary.  Anyway, it was an adventurous day, full of great friends, wine, worms and wind.  Here’s wishing you an alliteration of your own this summer.