Crown Valley July 08
We got a late start on Thursday afternoon and were not able to schedule a tee time as we headed for our most interesting weekend get-away. Back in the spring, we purchased a $50 weekend travel package from Crown Valley Winery at the St. Louis Marathon vendor display. Once we got home and read the fine print, we realized it was one of those “time share presentation weekends” but we knew we could say no with the best and so we planned a trip for my birthday weekend in July.
Our confirmation stated we were staying at a motel in Farmington, the Tradition Inn but upon arrival we were sent down the road a few miles to our upgrade “on property”. We would stay at the Crown Point Links Golf Resort instead. We found our room to be pretty standard but the property really was beautiful with a patio overlooking a well manicured golf course and in the distance the condo units.
The front desk clerk recommended dinner at the Catfish Kettle and as we were so hungry, this sounded perfect. For $10 bucks, we had all you can eat catfish, chicken and shrimp with ice tea and lemonade served in canning glasses. After dinner, we went back and purchased a Crown Valley Norton from the gift shop and enjoyed a relaxing evening on the patio. Just a few golfers were out and it was quiet except for the few birds singing. The weather was a nice red wine temperature of 60 degrees.
The next morning, we had to be up early enough to eat our continental breakfast and head over for our time-share presentation at 9 AM in the golf club. We walked in; grabbed some coffee and our representative quickly swooped in and took us to a big meeting room. There, couples were seated with their individual reps. The first hour was spent on personalizing the experience, she got to know us and we got to know her. We mostly talked about travel and she asked nice polite questions like how long we had been together, our best vacation ever, our next dream vacation, and so on. Finally we started talking about the timeshare and it was time for us to say no, three different times, to her, to her boss, the slimy looking salesman and finally one more time at check-out.
Free at last!! We headed to Ste. Genevieve.
Our first stop was the candle shop as some family members are considering buying the inventory and then opening in a nearby location. We were pretty impressed with the inventory as I smelled every variety they sold. My favorite was chocolate. Carol bought me a wooden penguin pulling a sled since I collect penguins and it was my birthday. From there, we went to lunch at Sirro's As we were seated and looking over the menu, we noticed some friends sitting at the next table over so we joined them. That was pretty remarkable really as they live in Festus and we were planning to meet for dinner on Saturday.
After lunch, we walked by the Felix Valle Historical site and decided on a tour. A fascinating older gentleman took us around the house which was quite interesting. He was a town native and knew a great deal of town history. I didn’t realize there was slaves this far north. His take on it was that they lived in log houses in backyard of the stone home and compared to the poor folks of the time, they had it pretty good. He said they joined the parties that were thrown by the Valle family. But either way, someone owned them.
We were out of time so we headed back to the lodge and dressed for dinner at Tiger Ridge. Part of our package was a $40 gift certificate for dinner and it is a very nice place. On the way, a rainstorm moved through and we saw the most amazing and at times frightening display of lightning, including a fireball that seemed to hit just miles ahead of us. But once we arrived at the restaurant, no sign of rain. We were able to go down to view the tigers that live there and contemplate spending the money to actually spend the night there at some point. If you do that, you get an up close and personal tiger tour. From there, we went inside and were seated for dinner in the elegant white tablecloth dining room. There was a great attempt to provide an upscale experience but the wait staff just didn’t have the experience or knowledge to provide what was intended. We ordered a Crown Valley wine of course. I had stuffed veal that was grass fed and raised on a farm owned by the Mr. Scott, the head honcho of this most interesting dynasty. We learned at our presentation that he got rich by developing an easy to install thermal pane window. He was originally from the small town of Coffman and decided to return and build up the surrounding towns, particularly Farmington.
Saturday, we were able to sleep in a bit before our winery trip. Part of our package included tasting 7 wines at Crown Valley in addition to the two free tastings. We decided to that first thing and because the tastings are so generous, we were in the spirit by the time we did our tour. Our favorite is the Pinot Noir which was very rich and velvety, no easy feat to grow these grapes in Missouri. The tour was pretty standard and we enjoyed our boxed lunch and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Our day there ended at 5 PM and we headed back to meet our friends Amy and Karen for dinner. They took us to 12 West in Farmington, an very impressive, trendy, upscale restaurant. I would like to return when I hadn’t just spent a day at a winery.
On Sunday, our trip ended with a return to Ste. Genevieve. It was oppressively hot and we didn’t stay long before it was time to head home.
Our confirmation stated we were staying at a motel in Farmington, the Tradition Inn but upon arrival we were sent down the road a few miles to our upgrade “on property”. We would stay at the Crown Point Links Golf Resort instead. We found our room to be pretty standard but the property really was beautiful with a patio overlooking a well manicured golf course and in the distance the condo units.
The front desk clerk recommended dinner at the Catfish Kettle and as we were so hungry, this sounded perfect. For $10 bucks, we had all you can eat catfish, chicken and shrimp with ice tea and lemonade served in canning glasses. After dinner, we went back and purchased a Crown Valley Norton from the gift shop and enjoyed a relaxing evening on the patio. Just a few golfers were out and it was quiet except for the few birds singing. The weather was a nice red wine temperature of 60 degrees.
The next morning, we had to be up early enough to eat our continental breakfast and head over for our time-share presentation at 9 AM in the golf club. We walked in; grabbed some coffee and our representative quickly swooped in and took us to a big meeting room. There, couples were seated with their individual reps. The first hour was spent on personalizing the experience, she got to know us and we got to know her. We mostly talked about travel and she asked nice polite questions like how long we had been together, our best vacation ever, our next dream vacation, and so on. Finally we started talking about the timeshare and it was time for us to say no, three different times, to her, to her boss, the slimy looking salesman and finally one more time at check-out.
Free at last!! We headed to Ste. Genevieve.
Our first stop was the candle shop as some family members are considering buying the inventory and then opening in a nearby location. We were pretty impressed with the inventory as I smelled every variety they sold. My favorite was chocolate. Carol bought me a wooden penguin pulling a sled since I collect penguins and it was my birthday. From there, we went to lunch at Sirro's As we were seated and looking over the menu, we noticed some friends sitting at the next table over so we joined them. That was pretty remarkable really as they live in Festus and we were planning to meet for dinner on Saturday.
After lunch, we walked by the Felix Valle Historical site and decided on a tour. A fascinating older gentleman took us around the house which was quite interesting. He was a town native and knew a great deal of town history. I didn’t realize there was slaves this far north. His take on it was that they lived in log houses in backyard of the stone home and compared to the poor folks of the time, they had it pretty good. He said they joined the parties that were thrown by the Valle family. But either way, someone owned them.
We were out of time so we headed back to the lodge and dressed for dinner at Tiger Ridge. Part of our package was a $40 gift certificate for dinner and it is a very nice place. On the way, a rainstorm moved through and we saw the most amazing and at times frightening display of lightning, including a fireball that seemed to hit just miles ahead of us. But once we arrived at the restaurant, no sign of rain. We were able to go down to view the tigers that live there and contemplate spending the money to actually spend the night there at some point. If you do that, you get an up close and personal tiger tour. From there, we went inside and were seated for dinner in the elegant white tablecloth dining room. There was a great attempt to provide an upscale experience but the wait staff just didn’t have the experience or knowledge to provide what was intended. We ordered a Crown Valley wine of course. I had stuffed veal that was grass fed and raised on a farm owned by the Mr. Scott, the head honcho of this most interesting dynasty. We learned at our presentation that he got rich by developing an easy to install thermal pane window. He was originally from the small town of Coffman and decided to return and build up the surrounding towns, particularly Farmington.
Saturday, we were able to sleep in a bit before our winery trip. Part of our package included tasting 7 wines at Crown Valley in addition to the two free tastings. We decided to that first thing and because the tastings are so generous, we were in the spirit by the time we did our tour. Our favorite is the Pinot Noir which was very rich and velvety, no easy feat to grow these grapes in Missouri. The tour was pretty standard and we enjoyed our boxed lunch and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Our day there ended at 5 PM and we headed back to meet our friends Amy and Karen for dinner. They took us to 12 West in Farmington, an very impressive, trendy, upscale restaurant. I would like to return when I hadn’t just spent a day at a winery.
On Sunday, our trip ended with a return to Ste. Genevieve. It was oppressively hot and we didn’t stay long before it was time to head home.
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