Doug and I got to head out of town on a little 'get away' this past weekend to the 'Thirsty Orange Brew Extravaganza' put on by my friend Stephanie Carson and her husband Brett in Johnson City. It was a great little trip for us and we had so much fun at the beer festival. In my wildest dreams I would never have imagined some of the beer we tasted while we were there! Never being a huge beer drinker myself, it was definitely a very pleasant surprise how good some of those beers were! It was absolutely wonderful for us to sneak off while Mom watched the kids for us. We left after school on Friday and drove up to Johnson City. - even the drive was nice as we chattered the whole way there with no interruptions (wow!). We checked into our hotel and met up with Stephanie for a couple of beers and some good conversation while she was finishing up some details for the next day's festival. It's always so good to see her and catch up - Steph and I were best friends in middle school before she moved down to Georgia during our high school years. It was great to finally meet her husband Brett after hearing so much about him. Doug and I went to dinner at Ridgewood Barbeque -- a favorite of the locals and it was indeed, very good. Amazingly, a bowl of blue cheese dressing was served alone with crackers as an appetizer. It was that good. The barbeque, rolls, fries and slaw were delicious too! It was definitely a win for dinner. The next morning we headed out to Pal's - another recommendation for breakfast. We had sausage biscuits and the famous cheddar rounds before we found a Starbucks for our morning brew. Not too long after that it was time to head over to Mellow Mushroom for the VIP hour of the Thirsty Orange festival. We checked in, got our tasting glasses and got started - Wow - the beer was so good! We had pale ales, chocolate stouts, blueberry wheat beers, cinnamon beers, jalapeno beer, so. many. beers. I loved the blueberry beer, the Cinnamead beer, and another pale ale called Strawberry Blonde. There was a brew by Lazy Magnolia called Southern Pecan that was delicious too! We had a lot of fun and enjoyed ourselves from noon to around 7:30pm... It was great. Good beer, pizza, music, people watching, and more... I enjoyed it so much. After catching one of the last shuttles back to the hotel we got the car and headed back over to Mellow Mushroom where we helped Stephanie and Brett kick buckets and pull down tents for a while before heading out to Perkins for breakfast. The next morning after grabbing a coffee, we said our goodbyes with Steph, checked out of the hotel, grabbed some brunch at Shoney's and headed for home. We even managed to sneak in a 21 mile ride before picking up Phoebe and grabbing the kids from Mom's. It was a super, super weekend filled with great friends, food, drink, fun and most of all each other. It was so, so good to have some time to ourselves. I loved every minute of it. Special thanks to Mom for taking care of the kids while we were gone. Another special thanks going out to Stephanie Carson for the VIP tickets to the Thirsty Orange - It was amazing!! Great job to both her and Brett on a super festival! We can't wait to do it again!
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