• 1 Nights of Lodging
• 2 Breakfast
• 1 Lunches
• 1 Dinner
• Entertainment Galore
• Cooking Class
• Cruise
• Wine Tasting
• Deluxe Motorcoach
• Tour Escort (Marsha)
• Baggage Handling

This is the “mother” of all trips! If you need to recharge your battery, get in touch with you inner child this is the trip for you! This will be our fifth Ladies weekend and if they are true to spirit you will NOT want to miss out on this one. Marsha has scoured the planet to offer some exciting sightseeing and entertainment for your enjoyment.

We start off with a light continental breakfast served on our deluxe motorcoach as we head to the Quad Cities in Iowa. If you want to grab your travel mug full of your breakfast beverage of choice bring it along. Our first stop will be a tour of the Deere-Wiman House and Butterworth Center in Moline. The Deere-Wiman House called “Overlook” and the Butterworth Center called “Hillcrest” were built in the 1800’s and have been beautifully restored and hold lots of eye-catching artistry.

After our home tour it is all GREEK TO ME! We will be the guests of the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in East Moline. We will have a short tour of the church explaining some of the traditions and artifacts. You will be served an authentic Athena Greek lunch along with dessert! (What ladies trip would not be complete without the dessert?) We will be entertained by a group of Greek dancers adorned in authentic Greek costumes. After the dance presentation it will be our turn to try on our “Greek dancing shoes”. We will have a Greek dancing lesson just like the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. The church ladies have prepared special parting gifts for all of us ladies.

Enough of the fun lunching and dancing it is now the scenic time of the trip. We will head over and board the Celebration Belle riverboat for an hour and half fall foliage tour of the Mississippi River. They will take us for a narrated ride on the Mighty River to enjoy the scenery. We step off the boat and back on the bus to our hotel for the evening, The Lodge, in Bettendorf. At the hotel you will have time to freshen up before our dinner. For your dining pleasure you will be the guest of our Murder Mystery party. You will be given clues throughout the day that will help you with the mystery. Upon the conclusion of the dinner mystery the evening will be yours to enjoy. There is a casino shuttle to the new Jumer’s Casino if you would like or you can stay at the Lodge and enjoy the ambience.

The morning you awake to a fresh hot breakfast buffet prepared for us. (This is the really cool part….no dishes to wash!) We will depart the hotel for some shopping at LeClaire, Iowa. This quaint little river town has plenty of specialty shops to entice your shopping gene to kick into high gear. This is also the weekend of their Apple Fest celebration. They will have several orchards present with items to purchase. If you can make it from an apple or it looks like an apple they will have it!

The fun and frivolity does not stop there in Iowa. We head over for our cooking class! Yes, you read it correctly a COOKING CLASS you all remember what cooking is? We will have a cooking class provided by HyVee of Bettendorf for Cancer Fighting Foods. Since October is breast cancer awareness month we will be learning how to prepare healthier foods! Our class will also offer some beverages and of course snacks!

This is where the trip becomes interesting…. Our next stop is the Lavender Crest Winery in Colona. The Lavender Crest Winery will give us a short tour of wine making and then on to the three “S’s” of wine tasting! The three “S’s” that you will master are….. sniff, swirl and swallow! We will be offered several different wines to taste along with appetizers and desserts! This will be our last stop on our trip so should make for a fun or quiet ride home!

Our usual conclusion of our trip we will have a “chick flick” to enjoy and of course our low calorie snack! If this trip follows our patterns of past chick trips you should come home and be smiling for days with after thoughts of our adventure.

You will want to mark your calendars now and grab your cronies or your cleaning lady and sign up for the 09 Tour! When the bus departs that day we want you to be on it. Don’t sit on the sidelines this year sign up early seats are limited and become one of my fellow repeat offenders!

This trip includes: of course deluxe motorcoach transportation, lodging, (2) breakfast, (1) lunch and (1)dinner! Entertainment galore, cooking class, wine tasting, sightseeing cruise, and we will throw in a Greek dance lesson! Oh, almost forgot you will be subject to Marsha and her crazy escorting skills!