A Summer Weekend in Oxford

This past weekend Oxford was a little more hoppin' than usual. The students are, for the most part, gone for the summer, which leaves the regular townsfolk to party!

We started the weekend off with one of Ted's orienteering meets in College Corner (just outside Oxford).

In case I haven't mentioned it before, orienteering is a race of sorts. You're given a map of the area marked with checkpoints (controls). You have to visit each control in order, checking in with a finger flash drive, and you want to be the fastest one to do this.

This picture is from an orienteering meet in Wyoming last year,
but it shows Ted checking in at a control.

Also in Wyoming.

The controls are usually off the beaten path, so you have to tromp through forests, splash through streams, cut through fields, etc. You can use a compass for all this, but good orienteers rely mostly on the map.

Back to College Corner, Ohio...

The race this past weekend was a little different. You had to get to as many controls as you could and be back at the finish in 1 hour. I tried to run with Ted, but he outpaced me pretty early on as we were running across this farmer's yard (his dog was SUPER excited to have us running through).

Ted did very well. I think he placed 3rd (without a watch to track the time, too!). That's my husband.

Our reward after all this exercise (well, after all of Ted's exercise as I quit the race and got myself an iced latte) was the Oxford Wine Festival!

For $20 we got an Oxford Chamber of Commerce tasting glass and five tasting tickets. There were booths set up from local businesses alongside the wine booths. There were also a few food booths and a rotating set of musicians on the park stage.

The wines weren't all that fancy or great, but we had a good time and got drunk surprisingly fast. Here are a few of the wines we liked:

The Cuvee des Ardoises and the Frog Prince were pricier (they required 2 tickets for a taste - sheesh!), but the Carnivor and Sequin were just regular old grocery store wines (unless you live in Colorado where you can't buy wine in the grocery store. Le sigh.). All are reds, except the Moscato, which was a sweet and bubbly white.

Sadly, we accidentally left our souvenir wine glasses at a local restaurant, The Quarter Barrel, after we stopped in to get some lavash post-wine festival. I guess we weren't altogether 'with it' at that point. :)

Next weekend is our last weekend in Oxford for a while as we will be driving westward to Oregon next week! We're planning on staying for an entire month, so the cats are coming with us. Of course, there will be blog updates along the way. :)