Wine run...

Wine run...  One of the few less-wonderful things about living in Northern Utah is the dearth of interesting places to buy wine (and, worse, the illegality of having wine shipped here – so we can't even buy it online).  There are state liquor stores that have a very conventional selection of wine, and that's it.  However, we live close to the border of the slightly more liberated state of Idaho, where there are actual wine shops.  So yesterday we made a run up to Pocatello, where we visited a couple of small-but-nice wine shops and stocked up.  Our little wine refrigerator is now full of a nice selection of interesting-looking wines.  Yay!

The scenery both ways (we went by US 91) was lovely.  We saw an eagle's nest, lots of geese, some swans, and eighteen bazillion magpies.  The dogs were all treated to a day in the car (they all love riding in the car), and all three of them fit cozily in the back seat of Debbie's truck (above right).  We also stopped at the MacKenzie River Pizza Company, where we had some delicious flat-bread (mine, at left, was chicken, apple, smoked bacon, and caramelized onions, drizzled with bourbon BBQ sauce – yum!

When we got home in the early evening, our front porch was covered in parcels from UPS.  One of them contained three lamp shades we'd ordered online to go with our new lamps (which haven't arrived yet).  The shades are made of handmade paper with leaf outlines in them, stitched with rawhide to an iron frame.  I don't normally think of lamp shades as something that you'd really even notice, but I was just stunned when I opened the box and saw them – they're the most attractive lamp shades I've ever seen.  When the lamps come in and I can light them up from the inside, I'll post a photo of them.