That was a long yet enjoyable weekend. I need a day in the office to recover. And to not eat. Feel like we did nothing but!

Friday, I did not work at all; just got up and got ready. Packed, picked up the rental car, then we got on the road. Ash wanted to avoid tolls so we took the Jacksonville to 95 route, stopping in Nokatee for lunch. Never been there before but it’s near Ponte Vedra. We went to a bougie Mexican place which was pretty good. It seems to be a golf course community so of course it was expensive. We then stopped into a beer place called the Really Good beer stop and sadly, it was the most unwelcoming place I’ve been to. The bartender was a jerk and they really didn’t have much of a good selection. It was sort of off-putting. We got back on the road and decided we would stop in Sanford because they now have five breweries. Fun story about Sanford: my sister and her boyfriend lived there forever after she moved out of my parents house about 20 minutes from there. In all the time she lived there we visited twice, and really just to drop off children because they were going to watch them for the weekend.

Sanford has really upped their game and changed their downtown area; it was super cute! We went to three breweries – Dees Brothers, Community, and Deviant Wolfe – with the first one being the best. They had aCzech pilsner and a milk stout that we said were the best we’ve ever had, and that’s saying something because we’ve tried a lot of beers! We ended up talking to the brewers from the first two places for a little while, so that was pretty neat. Ran into some people hanging around downtown who told us to go to Hollerbach’s, which is where my sister’s boyfriend worked for a while, but we weren’t really hungry and still had to get into Orlando.

We got to our Airbnb around 6:00 that night and only earlier had we realized that it was the apartment above a bottle shop that we actually visited a month ago when we were on our way down south! How convenient! We got settled in then decided to walk to Ivanhoe Park brewing and that’s where things went wrong – lol. They had a food truck and I decided we should try the birria tacos. I don’t understand why people like those; too much fried stuff in there for me. I would like a regular tortilla, please.

The next morning, Ash was a little worse for wear but I felt fine. We had planned to go to Publix to pick up some small umbrellas just in case it rained and we ended up at the cute Winter Park Publix, which I knew was one of the oldest ones, complete with original spire. I hadn’t been there since high school! After that we went to Total wine to get some beer because you know us: we like to try a lot of singles. We always get them whenever we travel. In that parking lot we saw a sign for a vintage fair, aka flea market, and decided to check it out. It was kind of cool. We didn’t buy anything but it was neat to walk around and see people’s junk. Plus we were not in a hurry and we had some time to kill. After we bought the beer we decided to go to lunch and had a burger at a place called Moo-yah. It was good; a lot like Five Guys but the fries were better. I don’t care for the peanut oil at Five Guys. We had a little bit of time to kill before the actual reason for being there, the beer festival at 2:00. I got into my American regalia, as people do tend to dress in all red white and blue. Then we walked the scant 0.2 mi to the park from our Airbnb and took our place in line.

At first I didn’t think this festival was going to be good. We have been to enough now to be judgy about them. What I liked is that they did bag check and security while we waited in line so that everyone could go in on time. We always buy VIP for these events so we can get in before the regular people and I think it was worth it. They had it very well set up at this park with VIP being right in the middle and including a lot of good water stations, some food, and bathrooms that were a little nicer than regular porta potties. There could have been more breweries but all in all we had a very good time there.

We rested a bit before walking to Ten10 brewery, then we Ubered to Sideward, because everyone recommended it. We ended the evening at the bottle shop/taproom downstairs, where we ran into this guy from Belgium. Ash was wearing his Manchester City DeBruyne jersey (a player from Belgium) so it was a point of interest. It was fun talking to that guy and his wife then we walked back upstairs and went to sleep! The airbnb was one of the best, cleanest places we’ve ever rented and with the exception of the leak that occurred in the bathroom, it was great. The leaking was tolerable; we got out a pot and let it collect the water. It was on and off; the first day was kind of bad because it rained and the owners said they knew there was some roof damage but it doesn’t always drip. Well, Friday night if you were trying to sit on the toilet, you had to put a towel over your head! But oh well. We made it work.

We got back on the road Sunday at 9 and stopped in Jacksonville to eat at Chuy’s then got home. My parents decided to stay one more night so that was nice to catch up with them. They’d taken the kids to all their things: Isaac had a soccer tournament and Dakota, a piano recital. I feel like it was a whirlwind weekend but we had fun. Ash and I always have fun at those events/weekend getaways. I need a day to recover though. Not drinking beer at all today and eating keto only. Skipping my lunch break today and going home at 3:30 so we can hit Costco. I like busy weekends but I also like returning to normality.

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Freebie week! Trying to think of songs I’ve been into lately. I feel so busy that I haven’t listened to much. Here’s what is currently playing on the Yacht Rock deep cuts so that’s what you get!

And Sleep Token put out the full album that they’ve been releasing singles from and this song is probably the best. But I haven’t had time to give it a proper listen.