Tango, Wine, and Music

Carmen:
Friday the 13th! Second day of the band retreat. Today we woke up to a sunny day, ate oatmeal and drank perfectly brewed loose leaf oolong made by Andy. We spent the good part of the morning playing: a new version of Felicia, Nueve de julio, Francia, Silueta portena, Andy's arrangement of Buenos Aires Hora Cero, and Oblivion, all pieces for our Mackinac Island Concert the following Sunday.

We went to Larry Mawby's for a sparkling wine tasting and ate a delicious goat cheese, avocado, arugula, tomato, red onion sandwich on the way. We ended up getting a flight at Mawby's with the best three of his sparklers: Cremant, Talismon, and Blanc de blanc.

After that we went to John and Jo Crampton's, friends of ours who own Willow Vineyards in Sutton's Bay. We ended up giving an impromptu concert in the tasting room for John and Jo and all the visitors that day. Everyone thought it was a real treat and we got some really good practice for our upcoming concert.

After we left Willow, we ate doughnut peaches that I had left sitting on the dash. There were hot from the sun. They tasted like warm peach pie! Then, we drove the back roads to get to Sleeping Bear Dunes and took a secret entrance to get up to the good views. As usual it was a strenuous hike up and a quick run down. We stopped for coffee in Glen Arbor and then listened to some awesome music in the car on the way back to camp. I was the DJ-- Assad Brothers with Najda Solerno-Sonnenberg, Dave Douglas, Andrew York, Radiohead, Stefon Harris, and Mike Stern.

A kitchen sink pasta dinner--tomato, shiitake, rainbow chard, arugula, onion, garlic sauce over rigatoni.