Even though I had a nice long weekend, I feel out of sorts today. Maybe it’s just the getting back to the regular grind that I am feeling. Today is my husband’s last official day of working 2 days a week from home; they’re finally sending them back! I made my students do a library assignment in lieu of class so I am home catching up!

OK, to go back, Friday we left around 10 to get to Gainesville. We wanted to spend time there doing other things not the Saturday festival. So we hit Alachua first and ate at a little Mexican place named Cilantro’s. Pretty good street tacos and I had a chicken bowl. We then went to Daft Cow brewery, which is on the way into Gainesville. Sadly, none of the 6 beers we sampled were very good. So we headed into town proper to talk to the guy who runs their homebrew store. We’re going to order a large amount of grain from him for our club so it was useful to touch base. He also let us try some of his homebrew, which was all very good. After that we went to our fave G-Ville brewery, Cypress and Grove. I personally know about 3 people who don’t like it but they’re wrong; it’s the best!

After, we tried a new bottle shop but it was a little too college-y so we drove on to Blackadder. Last time we went they had better selection. But we’ll be back there in May for their homebrew club’s competition. It was then time to go to First Magnitude and drop off our kegs. The good part about this festival is that the club holds your product and delivers it to your tent the next day. I did a crappy job taking pics but our friend got this one there:

Another bonus of this fest is they do reward you for bringing your homebrew. At this pre-event, we each got 2 free beers at FM and they had food. Last year it was the same: a guy from the club stands out back and machine-guns these smashburgers that are fantastic. I probably overate but hey, it is what it is: I’m a sucker for free food. We had a nice time chatting with our other friends and people we’d met from other Florida homebrew clubs, as well as commercial breweries. We went back to the airbnb after and had a couple shareables with our friends who stayed with. Originally there were 5 of us but one couple had to bail. Apparently our friend pulled something in his back and eventually needed surgery! Crazy stuff.

The next morning, we got up early and went to a cute little diner before heading to the festival site. We were almost the first people there! But that was good because we were all set up and ready, save for kegs. We had four other people joining the 5 of us already there so we had plenty of help. The team were a little late on kegs and tasting glasses (they arrived with about 30 mins until VIP) but everything worked out. With that many people, no one had to work for too long, so that was also good. Here’s a couple pics:

It’s a great event, all in all. And we have been to a lot of beer fests! I think we only tapped out of one small keg, there’s just so much beer. By 5 we were packing up. Long day! The three of us went back to the airbnb then walked to Cypress and Grove. I think there was an after party elsewhere but we could walk to this brewery so we did. Only had one beer there but realized that this place we’d been before had huge back areas for watching tv we didn’t even know about! Crazy. We ordered a pizza then called it a night.

We drove back early Sunday, talked to my parents briefly, then I got started on laundry and lunch. Isaac had his final tournament game but it was a bust. His team played great on Saturday, apparently, but the last team was just too good and ours had the wind taken out of their sails pretty quickly. I think they tied for second but it was kind of a defeating feeling. Plus, it was cloudy and had been rainy so it just felt icky. Isaac wasn’t too upset, except he didn’t play the second half because his ankle hurt. Oh well. I was just glad to be home. You know that feeling? Love to go away and have fun and forget about life’s troubles but then you have to go back to normal life. I worked on laundry, did my ten mile ride, and made dinner for a couple kids. Elliot was out with his “girl who is a friend”. I don’t know why he’s reluctant to say his girlfriend but hey, it’s his call. They are clearly dating; he took her out for sushi!

We watched a movie in the evening and went to bed early. I like little weekend getaways but airbnb beds are always a crapshoot and I don’t sleep well. Anywho, we are expecting heavy storms mid-day so I won’t feel compelled to go work on the yard and instead, will stay in and do ALL this work I have! No complaints; it pays the bills. See ya Tuesday!