Florida: You Can Stop Right There

Just returned from a week's vacation in St. Petersburg, FL.  It was the first time that Brian and I and the kids actually went away for a week by ourselves.  Usually, we travel with other people, and I have to say we had a great time.  The weather was wonderful, not too hot until the last day.

Here's the thing though, we live in Philadelphia which is known for (among things like the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin) it's beer.  And, Brian and I are beer snobs.  But down at a beach resort town, they tend to cater to, well, Joe American, who tends to enjoy Bud products.  Their idea of an import beer was Heineken.  Some bars advertised that they had micro brews but usually ended up either being out of said micro brew or claimed that Sam Adams was a micro brew.

It became a running joke for me when Brian would ask a waiter about the beer list and the waiter would start with:  "We have bud, bud light..."  And Brian would say, "You can skip to the micro brews."  And when the waiter would say, "Oh we carry Sam Adams and.."  Brian would say, "You can stop right there."  I just thought it was the funniest thing.

The poor guy tried so hard to have a Florida brewed micro brew.  Because as any beer lover knows:  Drink Locally, right?   One of the local micro brewers is Cigar City but even though several restaurants had it on the menu, everyone seemed to be out of it "at the moment."  We were there for a week and it took us until day 6 for Brian to find a Cigar City beer.  And, sad to say, when he did, he didn't really like it that much.  So he stopped right there.

Excuse me if this is a bit incomprehensible but I've been up since 4 and traveled for 7 hours to return home.  I'm enjoying a Yards IPA (a top-notch micro brew from the city of brotherly love) and I'm not planning on stopping right there.  With the beer I mean.  With the post...I'll save you any more ramblings and continue this when I've had some sleep.

Blogging Vacation

Things always happen at once, at least for me. Last week, I took the kids "down the shore" for the day on Thursday, then on Friday the entire family went to DC to visit friends, and tomorrow, I'm off to Vermont with the kids to see my mom.

Basically, I haven't blogged for a while and I won't be, at least for the next week. My mom is, well, you could say retro if you were so inclined; electronically that is. Growing up, we never had cable because my mother did not believe in paying for television. She still doesn't have cable. Her view is that if it's not on PBS, it's not worth watching. Unless, of course, it's Jeopardy! Then she'll watch it.

So you can imagine her Internet connection, which doesn't exist. I guess I'll be off-line for a bit but that's okay. It's rather nice NOT having a computer. It'll force me to fill the time with other things: books, conversations, Jeopardy! I'm sorry I won't be checking everyone's blog but I promise to catch up when I'm back. It'll be something to look forward to: a glass of wine and perusing blogs. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Have a great week everyone and, uh, let's hope there's something good on PBS!