On The Road.

Hello everyone! I'm writing you from a seedy hotel in suburban Milwaukee. I had a long, super detailed post written out, but I somehow deleted it. I will attempt to do it again.

I left part of my heart at the intersection of Warder and Otis NW.

I woke up Sunday morning with a wicked hangover and attempted to finish packing. I quickly realized that I had way too much stuff to fit in my car, so we filled it to the brim and Franny was nice enough to ship a bunch of heavy boxes to my parents house. Thank you so much, Franny!

I left DC around 3pm Sunday, headed for Cleveland. I pulled over around 5:30 to use the ladies room and realized that I couldn't find my bike lock anywhere. I searched the car for a good 20 minutes before I realized that I had left it on top of my trunk when I made a stop at the Georgia Ave. Yes! to pick up some DC Brau to bring out West. I'm really lucky this didn't end badly:

I made it to Cleveland around 9pm. My friend Adam and I grabbed a few drinks and I slept on the most comfortable air mattress I've ever slept on. We woke up the next morning and went to the West 3rd St. Market to get some very tasty ramen from a place called Noodlecat. If you're ever in Cleveland, you should definitely check out the market. There's tons of great food and it's a beautiful building. A super hip dude with a curly mustache will make you crepes.

From there we made our way to the Great Lakes Brewpub. I had a taster of everything they had available. The Commodore Perry and their Rye IPA offering were worth the trip alone. I've had them both from the shelves in DC, but fresh from the brewery was something special.

We eventually made our way to a place called Happy Dog, a bar that lets you build your own hot dogs and offers 50 toppings. I got the Jamaican Jerk Mustard, "alien" relish and habanero pickled red onions. It doesn't look like much, but  it was a fine hot dog!

Note the Fruit Loops option.

We ended up at an open mic comedy night at some other place. They were offering $3 pints of Stone IPA. It was a great night.

My whip(s), Lake Erie and the Cleveland skyline, as seen from Wendy Park.

I left Cleveland around 2pm this afternoon. It was 77 degrees. By the time I hit the Indiana border, it was 45 and pouring rain. I drove white-knuckled with semi trucks spitting water at me for several hours until I made it to 3 Floyds in Munster, Indiana. (I feel like I should also note that I paid $7.70 in tolls to drive through the state on some of the worst roads ever. It was like driving on the surface of the Moon. Get your shit together, Indiana).

The 3 Floyds Brewpub might be the coolest place on earth. It's in this weird business park in the middle of nowhere. They have a turntable set up with a collection of metal LPs blasting throughout the bar (they were also projecting "Over The Top" onto one of the walls). I sat down next to a beer-loving 62 year old accountant from California who was in town to visit his brother in Chicago. We quickly became friends due to our love of West Coast IPAs and mutual admiration of bassist Victor Wooten.  I had a the Bloodlust burger, their Alpha King Pale Ale  (abv 6.66%)and a pilsner called "Jinx Proof," which is named after the tattoo shop in DC with the same name. How about that?

I had planned on booking a room at a hotel a mile and a half away, riding my bike to the brewpub, hanging out and riding back to the hotel, but the hotel was complete booked up and it was pouring rain. I made the executive decision to buy a ton of beer there and drive as far as I could. It was still super shitty outside, but I trudged on. The drive through Chicago in the pouring rain was very stressful, At the very worst of it, Chicago's own Ghosts and Vodka popped up on shuffle and all was well. I made it  to suburban Milwaukee and tomorrow I will head to Minneapolis. I have been unemployed for a week and I've never felt better. Fuck work. Foam dome.

Goodnight all. Here are a few stray pictures:

My poor bike got so wet today. Also pictured: The Kev