I picked Liz up at 5:00am. I told her to be ready by 4:30am, because, well, Liz is always late. Seems that the moon was correctly in position, and a occurrence that happened only once every seven years happened, Liz was waiting for me at 4:30am.
So we packed up Liz's stuff and began our adventure to New England.
Our first stop was Burlington, VT. We drove up I-87 to Essex, NY where we took the ferry from NY to VT.
From here we took the short trip up route 7, where our first stop was the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. This was a very short stop, were I felt the need to call Chuck, who then made fun of me because I was at the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. After about ten mins there, we decided to move on.
Our next stop was just 10 mins up the road, and is always a very special stop for me. We were now at the Magic Hat Brewery. Magic Hat is easily one of my top 3 beers, prob coming in at #2 next to Yuengling. We must have spent an hour at Magic Hat, and 55 mins of that hour I was chatting up the young snowboarder bartender from Jersey, while sampling every beer they had, at least twice. Liz, who doesn't drink, even had a couple samples. After remembering I still had a long way to drive, I grabbed two growlers, one Single Chair Ale, and a Wonder Beer, and a half of Thumbsucker, and we called it an afternoon at Magic Hat.
There is something to be said about leave the dark gift shop of Magic Hat, when it is 90 degrees and sunny outside. It hurt.
Our next stop was a drive down the highway to Ben and Jerry's. I have been to Ben and Jerry's many times in the depths of winter. This would be my first summer visit to the temple of ice cream. I was pissed. In winter, there are only ever 20 people there. On Thursday, July 12, i though I wondered into the norther extension of Disney. People everywhere, and I hate the general population.
Anyway, we did the tour, saw the movie, and tasted the free sample of Strawberry Cheesecake. We then visited the Flavor Graveyard, where Liz paid respects to Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, a flavor she misses dearly.
After paying our respects, we went over to get a cone of heaven, I mean ice cream. The line, which was at least 20 people long, seem to take forever. At last I made it and it was my turn. I decided on a cone of Chocolate Therapy.
It was at this moment I engaged in a very insightful conversation with a gentleman from New York, who was wearing a bluetooth on his head. The conversation when something like this:
As I was walking away from the service window with my ice cream
NY Bluetooth Guy: (Points at me and yells) "WHAT IS THAT?"
Me: "ummm, Chocolate Therapy"
NY Bluetooth Guy: "THAT WHAT I AM GETTING!!!"
Me: (Thinking to myself) "I love New York my ass."
We left Ben and Jerrys, grabbes some Cider Doughnuts, and made our way south to Pedrosfest, via the Harpoon Brewery. I did a little sample of 5 beer for about 5 bucks. They serve the samples on a frat boy paddle type thing. All in all, good brew.
We were now offically on the road to Pedros. No stops left. Stay tuned for the complete Pedros report later this week.
