Largest Pipe Organ in the US? located in Macys of Philadelphia

Road trip to Philadelphia to drop off some stuff for my Belle. She had to go to school a week earlier and since we were white knuckle driving, skating and drinking beer in Lake Placid last weekend, she had to take the bus back, thus leaving a whole bunch of stuff home.

One of those one day back and forth trips, beautiful sunny day, hey isn't it always sunny in Philadelphia? dropped off her stuff at her apartment, then we walked to the Reading Market, on of my favorite Philadelphia institutions for some lunch/dinner and food shopping. The line at my favorite sandwich spot, Tony DeNics, roast pork hero with greens, just the thought of it makes my pants get tight, was slamming and i didn't want to wait so i walked around to find another spot with a shorter line. Decided to stop at Hershel's for a corned beef sandwich. They make a nice size 'wich but the corned beef was dry and not worth it, should of stood on the Tony DeNic's line.

Walked back, said our goodbyes, drove home with a pit stop at my mom's.

Lake Placid - Jan 8 & 9

 Snowy Lake Placid - Sunday AM

 Lake Placid HS - Overlooking Oval

 My little guy fueling up

OVAL

So we left Friday afternoon in that nasty snowstorm to head up to Lake Placid. It has been a while since i driven in such dangerous conditions. It took an hour on 684/84 to get 15 miles down the road and then another hour just to get to New Paltz. I saw very few, if any plows all the way up 87. It seemed that every time that we pulled over in halfway decent conditions, from 5 minutes to 20 minutes, it always seemed that the storm caught up to me and put me right back into bad driving conditions.

 The weather radar said that the snow stopped in Albany, Lake George, Warrensburg but the snow never stopped. There was one point where we were in white out conditions, three lanes of traffic and no tire tracks to follow with 18 wheelers flying by, totally white knuckled craziness.
When we finally reached the Cascades, where normally the weather changes for the worse, it stopped snowing. we came cruising into unsnowy Lake Placid, where it seems to snow everyday, in beautiful clear/cold conditions, kind of Bizarro world,  8 1/2 hours later on a trip that usually takes 4 1/2 hours.

We dropped off everything at a friends condo and went right to the Great Adirondak Steakhouse and Brewery for some Saison, Roggenbier and some Black Diamond Stouts. After a couple of those the adrenaline subsided and i was able to go too sleep, not at the bar but at the condo.

Saturday AM was a beautiful sunny 22 degree day in LP, it seemed like no jacket was required unless you were standing around the oval watching skating. I started my weekend of ingesting lousy Stewart's coffee, a lot of them, watched my little guy compete, went back to the condo to eat lunch and crash a bit. Dropped everybody off at the rink and then went to the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery where i had some Double White Ales and Winter Lagers, picked everybody up and went to the local bakery, for me it was the second time that day, loaded up on good bread and went home to make dinner.

After dinner we went to the local skaters boarding house , where we hung out with a bunch of people from Ottawa, drinking wine and Molson Canadians. The funny part was watching the Jets game, which I lost $5 on, with a bunch of Canadian kids. There were some funny conversations going on. During breaks i would hang out with the adults who were breaking my horns over my supposed accent.

Woke up Sunday to 6" of fresh powdery snow, drove to the rink, drank more lousy Stewart's coffee, watched a race, stopped at the brewery for growlers, closed until noon, stopped at the bakery, open, for more bread and apple fritters, went to Lisa's art opening, stopped in Saratoga to pick up beer and my little guy and got home in time to see the Packers beat the Eagles.

Picking Up My Belle

So i found myself in Philadelphia to pick up my daughter and bring her home for winter break. Of course i can't find parking close to the apartment, never had that problem when she lived in the ghetto, always parking available, now that she lives near Center City, parking is an issue. So i found a spot around the corner, right in front of the Jamaican Hut restaurant, which is a pretty good spot to eat. We had a roommate help us so we only had to do one trip which was good because it was very cold out.

Before we left, we decided to grab a slice of pizza to hold us over until we got home. So off to Lickety Split Pizza Shop where Belle told me that they had good pizza. THe pizza was good, slices kind of large plus a 2 slice and soda special. They had a bar in the place, so i tried the Philadelphia Brewing Company's Newbold IPa which was very good, nice malt/hop combination. Not a bad drinking beer.

Made it home real quick, no traffic, it was late but the last 30 minutes on the Saw Mill always feels like hours.

Pour Farm - New Bedford, MA

 Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti & Rapscallion Premiere

Wachusett Larry

So we find ourselves in Massachusetts to open a kiln last week and after driving, we need to find nourishment, both the liquid and the solid kind. So we go to New Bedford, MA to a place called the Pour Farm. I saw ads in a local beer paper about this place and with the symbol a skull and harpoons and being in this part of MA, I thought it was a biker bar with a good beer selection. When we got there it was a long and narrow place with the bar running down one side of the room, almost the whole way down and some 4 tops on the opposite wall., dark but nice looking bar. A nice local joint it seemed. I saw the taps and i knew that i was in the right place.

22 taps, 22 bombers and 24 12 oz bottles with the only mass produced beer in the 12 oz bottle. A beer menu was delivered and we ordered a Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti and a Rapscallion Premiere, a belgian style ale. We ordered a house salad, pulled pork sandwich and a falafel wrap. The food was real good and real cheap, Hello we ain't in NY anymore. Since I still had to drive a bit, we split a bottle of Larry, an imperial ipa. We really enjoyed this so much that on the way home we had to stop in Yankee Spirits in Sturbridge, MA and pick some up.

What really turned me on to the place was that 2 kegs kicked while we were there and after the beer was changed, they printed up new beer menus, i like this touch. No asking for beers off of the menu, to be told that the keg is kicked but we have ....

If i am in the area again, i will definitely stop for beer and grub

Phoenix Airport

so we have a three hour layover in Phoenix, need food, need a beer to knock me out on this 4 1/2 hour flight, didn't get much sleep on the 6AM flight and the thought of sitting on a plane again is not fine with me. So we walk around every terminal in the airport looking for something to eat and the best we can find is the Fox Sports Bar that is in every airport in America. Surprisingly i found a non Bud/Miller/Coors/Sam Adams product, a Pyramid Hefeweizen. Since that compressors are down all they had were bottles, i was surprised that they had 22oz bombers but what the hell, i need sleep. The beer was pretty good and it made my burger, which i don't know if it was beef or beef by product tolerable.

Should be arriving in Newark at 8PM tionght.

Damm Good Beer

This is supposed to be a fine beer from Spain, it is a decent yellow fizzy beer, i wouldd drink again but if i ever get to Spain, i am sticking with the red wine

CFL Playoffs

Calgary Stampedes vs Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Western Division Playoff in the Canadian Football League

 Our hotel is across Crowchild Trail from McMahon Stadium, we are also right next to the Banff Trail LRT station. There is a pedestrian bridge crossing the road and leads right into the stadium parking lot

So my little guy and i were walking to the Stop and Go to get candy and check our lottery tickets to see if i was paying this trip off in Canadian money. At the corner by the LRT station, a ticket scalper stops me and asks if i want to buy tickets to the game, so i have to stop and BS with him. I told him it was halftime and we start negotiating, off course i am not buying anything because we are meeting some Milwaukee people for dinner in about an hour. I finally tell him that i wasn't interested in any tickets so then he proceeds to tell me he is a musician and he is not really a scalper and shows me his hip hop CD's. He wants $10 a disc, i like to support the arts plus i have a pocketful of this funny Canadian money which will be useless to me in 18 hours, so i told him that i will take the 2 discs for $20can if he throws in 2 free tickets, which he proceeds to do, so instead of getting candy, we are off to the game.

We walked into the game at halftime and proceeded to stay for the third quarter because the people we were having dinner with were looking for us. Also, it was friggin' cold, -24C which is -4F, so our feet were frozen and since we weren't prepared to sit on snow covered metal bleachers, we didn't bring seat cushions so our asses were frozen also. It was fun and definitely an experience which we probably wont do again, what is with the three down rules? so we gambled on the tickets. I was assuming they were counterfeits but they weren't.

Of course Calgary lost so it was a good thing that we left early.