Westport Winery and beyond…..
Posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
We spent Friday morning with a few Aberdeen radio stations that Susan Iskra hooked us up with and some of the DJ’s thought our RV belonged to Ted Nugent who happened to be in town on a hunting trip. First we did a quick interview spot on KXRO 1320 AM with Darwin. Then we were off to another room where we met Robbyn and Pat Anderson with KDUX 104.7 FM and did another interview. We would end up meeting Robbyn again at the winery show over the weekend, but more on that later. Next we met Loose Man and Ashley with KIX 95.3 FM who are the DJ’s on the country’s stations morning programming. They spent a lot of time with us and had me play Super Fiction Power live! All in all, it was a great experience and reinforced how much I really love being in that fun environment.
Susan Iskra
Pat Anderson & Robbyn Benjamin
Looseman & Ashley
The rest of the day was spent working in a Walmart parking lot before heading over to the Westport Winery to sound check for the weekend performance. It’s here we met the Roberts! Blaine and Kim own the winery and work with their children Dana and Carrie. The family is so awesome and the winery is beautiful, a reflection of their hard work and amazing stories. Blaine was once a professional surfer in Hawaii and ran a scuba diving shop for a long time. His wife Kim was one of the first woman ship hands in the Washington area and designed all of the wine labels as well. Many of which include photos of their family members (including their dog) and was proof of their love for each other. Dana is the chief wine maker and let me spend some time with him as he worked on the muscat juice while he prepped it for wine. Carrie is a cancer survivor and won the battle as a young girl. She took the time to tell me more about her story and the ways in which she was able to truly help another little girl fight cancer. Carrie is also a true CKY fan (among many other things)!
The Westport Winery
David and Dana working the muscat at Westport Winery
Not only did they make us feel welcome like longtime friends, but they also let us room in the apartment that occupies their large wine cellar! I can’t express how nice it was to have a real shower for two days straight! Not that our shower in the RV is bad, it’s just different trying to keep my knees bent so I can stay under the shower head. Saturday and Sunday were spent playing long sets of music which really gave me a chance to practice some old & new music in front of a new audience. The music was well received and we even found time to crush grapes with David, a good friend of Dana’s from college who also works at the winery. Even Melissa came out to visit us and give the grapes a try. Now even though I’ve taken a break from alcohol, Ammie and Melissa did some sampling and really loved the wine. Not to mention all of the great things that we heard about the wine from everyone in Aberdeen as well!
Ammie stomping grapes at Westport Winery
Playing a bit of guitar
The Roberts Family (Westport Winery)
Merman Dad, Merman.
Over the weekend, we also met up with Robbyn again (from KDUX 104.7) and her boyfriend Ron. They both have extremely interesting backgrounds and shared so much with us. Ron took us to Seattle on Monday so that we wouldn’t have to drive our RV into the city. He told us of Robbyn’s extensive background in the entertainment industry. He also answered our many questions about his firefighting career and strong Christian faith. It was very refreshing for me to see that and he sent me on the road with some new music. We both believed that our paths had not crossed by coincidence. He and Robbyn are pursing music and he told me that Ammie and I were an encouragement towards that. Thank you Ron and Robbyn for sharing your music, time and stories with us…..we wish you both the very best in your futures and music careers!
Ammie chatting it up with Ron and Robbyn
Ammie at Pike Place Fish Market (Seattle, WA)
If you are ever in the Aberdeen (Grays Harbor) area, please take the short drive over to the Westport Winery for tasting or you can visit www.westportwines.com to order……the holidays are just around the corner! Ammie made sure to get our first Christmas ornament for the road and the Roberts kindly autographed it for us.
Speaking of the holidays, it is very apparent to us that winter is barely holding itself back. It rained hard over the weekend and it’s getting colder and colder as we head east. But things have been so good and the colors that autumn is bringing to the landscape is absolutely brilliant. A little cold can’t hold us back and we are excited to travel deeper into the country.
Pike Place Fish Market is Awesome! They threw a Fish at Jess an I when we were there a couple years ago! Stay Warm and keep the adventures coming! xoxo
Thank you so much for making our first Crush fabulous. We miss you and the big rig already. (Any chance to could change the blog to read that Blain and Kim own the winery? Dana’s starting to act uppity!)
I don’t know if uppity is the right word…I was just gonna let the whole thing slide but I guess I have to give my folks their due!