I was so excited on Sunday to hit up a new local vineyard — Sugarloaf Mountain. After all that marathon spectating, I was ready to sit down and relax.

My friend Maggie chose Sugarloaf as the place to celebrate her birthday and I was more than happy to make the drive. It was absolutely GORGEOUS! Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of the drive on the way out but let me tell you — it is just beautiful in the Maryland countryside. You’d never know Washington, DC is just 30+ minutes away. Here’s the one I did get:

Autumn perfection only lasts about two weeks and it is prime time. Love it so much — the crisp weather but not too cold — and of course it’s always good for running too 🙂

I honestly wasn’t much in the mood for wine drinking but I had to partake considering where we were. There were about 8 or 9 of us there and let’s just say the bottles near the end of the table added up to the same number.

We tried a variety of red wines, though I neglected to keep track of what exactly they were. Sufficient to say, they were all good. No one was in the mood for white it seemed but I did try a Rose at the end that was awesome.

Loved spending time with girlfriends again, of course. The older we get, the harder it is to make these get togethers happen. Both Ari and Maggie crack me up and I always laugh a lot with them. Ari was plotting several more get togethers in the near future so hopefully the holiday season will bring some fun times.

When we told the live musician that it was Maggie’s birthday, he played the birthday song and the whole place sang along. Then, Maggie requested “Wagon Wheel” and he kept inserting her name into the lyrics, which was fun. We tipped him well!

There’s almost nothing better than a gorgeous day in a beautiful place with live music and wine — right? Yeah, this Sunday was pretty awesome and now I’m just dreading the COLD winter.

Here are some more shots of the day: