Milton DE, who knew.

An excerpt from Amanda's Journal"

"In the car...again. Eric is driving me crazy and I'm trying to ignore his shenanigans in hope that he will get bored."

Somehow through the many hours together we have been having more fun than we ever could have imagined!

We left VA beach and drove north to the Chesepeake bay bridge tunnel. 30ish miles of diving bridges. The views were pretty and we were surprised to find that when it ended we were not in delaware, not in maryland, but still in Virginia! I guess we should have looked more closely at the map.

We stopped to take a walk at a nature conservatory, which was pretty, more just an opportunity to sweat a disgusting amount and get eaten by black flies and mosquitos. Nonetheless, the man working at the conservatory told us about a great little town that we had to visit.

We took the left at the first stop light to get into Cape Charles, VA. It was more like a small cape cod town than a rural VA town. Small vacations stores dotted the main street. We checked out a few. A wine store caught our eyes, so we stopped in. We were instantly greeted with a sweet "hey ya'll come on in," where we readily agreed to taste some wine. Our hostess was Heather, a sweet small town mom. We stayed and talked with her about small town life, wine and our adventure. We told her about where we were headed next when we spotted her shelf of Dogfish Head beer. She gave us a look to say, "well, what are you still doing here? You have a long way to go." She told us a place to stop for a quick bite of food right on the way so that we don't waste too much time and miss our 4:00 brewery tour. We bought a bottle of wine, got back into the car and carried on.

The crab shack was about 15 miles up the road. We ordered 2 entrees of fried deliciousness. Amanda tried her first fried clams and didn't even spit it out! Eric patiently waited to be spoon fed coleslaw as we inched slowly but steadily above the speed limit.

It became clearer and clearer that we should probably drive faster and faster so we can me it to our tour. Well, maybe we will make it. Hopefully.

We did make it! Just in time to check in, don our safety goggles, and show off our closed toed shoes. We got our tour, learning how DFH got its start and how they make such unique beer. We tasted the pale ale, the Midas Touch, the Indian Brown Ale, and the Palo Santo. The guide recommended we go to Rohoboth beach to check out the DFH brew pub. WE ventured to the bach and meandered our way to the pub.

We sat at the bar, as we have found that is the best way to find someone who is somewhat interested in our trip, or knows something about beer. Not only did we find interest in the trip, but we found someone who knew a lot about the beer. Everything about the beer, actually. Literally, everything. We clinked glasses with Jon, an Assistant Brewmaster at DFH brewery. We talked about everything beer from DFH to homebrewing. He must have thought we were sane enough to offer his spare bedroom to us. Our options at this point were to stay up until 2 AM and somehow have to get to Georgetown DE to stay with a potential couch surfing host, sleep in the car, or sleep at Jon's. No question about what choice we had to make. At his house, we shared a bottle of Namaste, a name that personifies DFH's self assurance and uniqueness.

The next morning we woek up and met Jon at DFH for a behind the scenes tour. We saw ingredients being added, dry hopping, and the new renovations. Big shout out to Jon!

Off to DC!

VA beach!

We arrived in VA beach and met Anna and Jon at their apartment, which was only a few blocks away from the beach. We took an armful of luggage inside and immediately mounted our bikes and rode our way downtown. We took a nice moseying pace to the boardwalk and took in the scene. It was a 180 from Asheville. There were tons of beach going tourists (off all shapes and sizes...) loud margaritaville type music and seafood restaurants galore. Despite the lack of breweries, we chose to eat and drink at a local tap house. We attempted to get some information from our server, but when we stated "we love full flavored hoppy beers," and his reply was "oh, you should try a lager," ...we knew that we may want to trust our own judgement. We tried a flight which was instantly forgotten because he never wrote down what it was that we wanted. Good thing that the company was perfect!

We rode our bikes back for an early night. Jon was having ankle surgery in the morning, and we figured an early night without much alcohol would be best. That was until we decided to hit up the local scene, Nat's bar, where you can eat, drink...and smoke. A few vicious games of pool (ahem, with the women being victorious) and cheap beer later, we continued back to the apartment.

In the morning, Anna and Jon headed off to surgery, and Eric and I explored the area on our own. We drove down to the Back Bay nature preserve to walk around the marshes. We walked the narrow boardwalk through tall grasses and trees in the marshland. Crickets, spiders, an birds fluttered in and out of the trees. We took a long dirt road to the dune hike, which was just a short walk to the ocean over a few dunes. The sun was unforgiving at this point. We stood on the desolate beach and watched the waves lazily crash on the beach. The sandpipers were busy tapping their noses into the ground, scurrying away from the waves and chasing them to find lunch in their retreat. Our heads were foggy with the heat, and we were tempted to just head back to the car after only about an hour of exploring. The beach was beautiful, but it was a beach. We stared at the waves, starting to think that it may be nice to head back to touristtown and swim. Just then, we spotted 2 dolphins diving in and out of the waves. They were close enough to capture a few pictures before they headed out to sea.

We drove back to town, picked up food for lunch and dinner, then grabbed the surfboard and bicycles to go to the beach. We spotted more dolphins, Amanda from the beach, and Eric from his surfboard! A few hours of splashing, playing, and getting whistled at from the lifeguard was enough to cap off our exhaustion, so we returned for a night of cooking and eating. Thank you to Anna and Jon who were fantastic hosts!

Breweries in Asheville

After we spent the morning in the local coffee shop blogging, eating, and indulging in delicious coffee, we met Jordy for adventures in beer. We rode our bikes to the first brewery, French Broad. Named after the street it rests on, French Broad is off the beaten path. With just a small tasting room and a few tables, it was not the typical trendy microbrewery that we have encountered in the past. We ordered a flight and tasted slowly with smacking lips. Decent, for sure. We liked the Rye Hopper the best (we had actually tried it at Barley's), and the 13 Rebels came in second. We chugged a few cups of water each, and rode our bikes the roundabout way to Wedge brewing company.

Wedge was a little more along the lines of the trendy brew house. The outside tables were constructed from old gears and scrap metal from the local metal scrap yard. Inside, the tasting room was a small bar with a window into the tanks full of beer and hops. We enjoyed the belgian wheat beer, and shared a pitcher of it at the end.

Lastly, we trudged uphill to get to Craggie brewing. We rolled up in front of a garage with the door rolled open. A band was setting up and the tasting room was busy. We hurriedly ordered a flight because we felt like we were in the way. After taking a few sips of the first beer, we looked at each other with droopy eyes, as if to say, "I don't know if I can drink any more beer." Had it been fantastic, we may have been able to savor it a little more. And had there not been a noisy electric guitar jam band of middle aged men wearing sunglasses indoors, we may have had the desire to stay and maybe play a little shuffle board. Instead, we got back on the bicycles to seek out a cup of sobering coffee.

The next morning, we packed the car, grabbed an all natural cup of coffee and breakfast burrito, and hit the road for virginia beach.