2012 Big Truck Across the Northeast, Day 12

Day 12 started pretty early, as we had a bit of a drive to get to our intended destination.  We had the Big Truck/Jeep combo hooked up and ready to go before 8am, but of course the dreaded visit to the dump station took its toll.  At Button Bay the station is in the 2nd loop of the park, and since everything is One Way and 5mph, it is a bit of a ridiculous proposition.  If you have ever seen the Kevin James bit (from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff) about the bank teller line,

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAUZl1tdlis&feature=player_detailpage#t=93s

you would then understand the slow crawl through the campground, especially dragging the Jeep behind us.  Button Bay is worse, because once you finally reach the dump station, you are forced back around the same loop in order to exit the park.  Once again, you are giving the same nods to campers who are assuming you have no idea where you are going, since they just saw you a couple of minutes ago.

Anyway, after getting out of the park, we must have mistakenly set the GPS on Max Difficulty, Mininum Achievable MPG, or Least Straightaways, because the next 4 hours involved more elevation change, 25mph zones, and roadside streambeds than I have ever seen.  We followed the southern shore of Lake Champlain (No, E - we didn't see Champy)

until we crossed over into upstate NY.  Ok, a few things about upstate NY.

1.  The gas pumps - the powers that be have removed all latching mechanisms from the pump handles, and have slowed the pumps down to the point that you can watch the thousandth (3rd decimal point, for those of you who really, really want to be precise about how much gas you use) digit climb from 1 to 9.  Since the pumps also limit out at $125, I spent 13 minutes (yes, I timed it) holding the pump handle for one fillup.

2.  The red traffic lights - perhaps those same powers that be have altered the red lights to include a seizure-inducing white LED strip across the center of the red light, as shown below.


OK, maybe that's not it, but that's exactly what it reminded me of. And for those of you that don't immediately recognize that (shame on you), it's the Cylon helmet from the original Battlestar Galactica series.  I know, right?  Who doesn't know that...

3.  Tank tops - the only logical explanation I have is that there must be a constant "Buy 1 get all the rest of the stock free" sale on mens tank tops, because that's all we saw.  And at the risk of offending at least one East Coast resident we know who fits into this category, I am willing to wager that my wife Kimberly is taller than 90% of the adult men we encountered in upstate NY.  This may as well be the state license plate:

Now, on to the important stuff.  Brewery Ommegang. We arrived at our campsite (you have to compromise a bit when you're looking for a 1 night stay during Labor Day weekend with about 4 hrs notice.  I won't mention the campground, but suffice it to say the word 'hilljack' was used in our description of it and its inhabitants more than once), set up shop, and motored through roads like these

to get to this place

which revealed this on the other side of the arch...

I won't bore you with the details of the tour, because I may have blacked out in my excitement to be at the actual brewery of all those Belgian Ales that have inspired my beer choices over the past 10 years.  Seeing the brewing, bottling, and packaging process up close was really cool, and our tour guide Rachel (see below)

did a fantastic job of describing the entire process to our group. You can definitely see that the employees here are passionate about their craft.

The payoff after the tour is the tasting, where they take you through the 6 varieties brewed on site.  Here is the tasting room, followed by the cafe, followed by the outdoor seating area.  The whole setting is really cool, set back in the countryside surrounded by woods.



Overall this was the highlight of any of the brewery visits, and even Jordan got in on the action, having a locally brewed root beer out of one of the tasting glasses once we returned to the Big Truck.

Things got a bit quiet for a while after that, then we decided to listen to the Michigan - Alabama football game.  Unfortunately, the signal wasn't very good, and as far as I know all footage of that game has been completely destroyed. No further comment.

This concludes the entertainment portion of the blog.  Day 13 will cover our return trip home from Cooperstown NY to our house, along with a few nerd stats from the entire vacation.  More to follow...