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last east-coast hurrahs
06/21/2008 = 01:09 PM

We took a respite from packing and drove to upstate New York on Thursday for a last hurrah in Cooperstown before moving away once and for all. Here are some pictures.

Most of the pictures looked like this one.
I'm only posting one.
You're welcome.

Oswego is not the armpit of the nation,
but it is home to it.
Specifically, this motel;
more specifically, the front stairwell of this motel
which smelled so sweaty
I had to keep checking
to make sure I wasn't the culprit.

This is the entrance to the millhouse
at the Ommegang brewery.

This is Millhouse.
(Sensez ov hyoomer. Brewerz haz dem.)

The tour guide, whose name I did not get;
we arrived about two minutes after he started
and he did not reoffer his name to us.
He was obviously very new
and did not have answers to every question.
About a quarter of the way through the tour,
the other tour members began simply
addressing all their questions
to me and to a homebrewer
who was in town from California.
I felt like that
Raisin Bran Crunch commercial.
(Homebrewer and his lady were really cool
and said they'd look us up
when they're in Vegas next time
so we can hang out.)

They set the bottles onto the conveyor by hand.

The bottles swing through the conveyor,
get washed, get filled, get labeled, get boxed.

I did not take any pictures of the tasting. I was too busy tasting. (Skipped meds for twenty-four hours beforehand; I'm not a complete idiot.) I did, however, write a review for one of their limited releases. Link here or under "Latest Brew Review" on the left menu there. It's my first review in over a year, and it felt really good to get my hand back in.

Also, when you've been on pain meds for this long and you haven't had any beer in all that time, to speak of? The brewery smells so good you want to swim in the vats.

The Neptune Diner, where we had dinner.
I couldn't have gotten a clear shot
of the whole exterior
without standing in the middle of the road.

Sign outside the Neptune Diner.
I had broiled jumbo stuffed shrimp
and marinated eggplant
that made my heart sing for joy.
Unless the joy-singing-heart
was the residue of all the beer
I'd had at the tasting.

Good news:
we had a jukebox right at our table.
Bad news:
I had no change.
Good news:
That Man of Mine had change.
Bad news:
He has no taste in music.
Better news:
He let me play More Than a Feeling by Boston.
Worse news:
He played twangy country music.

On the drive home yesterday,
we stopped at Swanky Franks
for one last Newtown hurrah.
Kindly note the cannibalistic hot dogs
on the exterior of the building.

And that was the last fun for a while. Back to the packing and things.

Tags: Ommegang Brewery

drinking: strawberry melon fuze
watching: The Other Sister
best thing about this movie: "olive juice"