It's been a long day

Got up at 4:45 AM in order to be at the Good Morning America taping. It ended up being a segment with Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, competing in GMA's Best Burger Challenge which aired live on the east coast at about 8:20 am.

It was fun, albeit chilly. Mario is quite loose and funny while Emeril is a bit more nervous and stiff.

Since we were done by 6:30 AM and I didn't have to be at my volunteer gig until 8 am, we drove up to the Maroon Bells and took a short walk before Steve dropped me off at Paepcke Park. I helped set up and sat in on three seminars which were all quite good. In between and afterwards, I went to the Grand Tastings which were full of fabulous food and drink.

Being that I'm a bit of a light weight and being that all of the seminars involved wine tastings, I only tasted one wine during the early Grand Tasting but ate every morsel of food I could find.

Imagine a boatload of tapas interspersed among buckets and buckets and more buckets of wine.

At the second and final Grand Tasting of the day, since I didn't have to work any more seminars, I tasted much more freely. I haven't quite worked up to spitting but I have managed to limit my tasting to just a couple of swallows of each wine (except for those I really, really like).

Today, I learned about seven great tasting wines under $15, six BSDs (or bubbly stunt doubles) and how six wines pair with six different chocolates. I managed to score a free bottle of my favorite BSD too.

I am so ready for bed . . .