Fall road trip- good times !

Another lazy Sunday. Yesterday some of us from book group took a little road trip to a brewery. Two of our members are beer aficionadoes and one suggested we visit Two Road Brewery (in Stratford CT). I am not much of a beer drinker but thought it would be fun to hang out with the "girls". It was a beautiful fall day. The fall foliage this year in CT has been spectacular.

This picture really doesn't do justice to the colors. When we got to the brewery it was pretty crowded and while we couldn't find a table we managed to snag 6 seats at the bar. I shared a flight as I knew that I would never be able to drink a lot of beer. We selected 5 different brews and they were numbered in the order to drink. We selected a pumpkin ale, a IPA, a Hefeweizen, a Saison and a raspberry wheat ale. My two favorites were the Saison and the Hefeweizen.

Here is our flight. I also tried an Imperial Stout which is a heavy dark brew. Not my favorite.

Here is a picture of most of the group with my friend's husband who was a designated driver. Here we are before heading home.

It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. We all agreed that we should do more road trips and spend a bit more time with each other outside of our monthly meetings. Speaking of which, we meet tomorrow night to discuss Boys in the Boat which I just finished last night. Good thing as I am leading the discussion! I really enjoyed this book-loved the writing and was captivated by the boys' stories. I still can't wrap my head around how mean Joe Rantz's stepmother was and the concept that you could abandon a child on a mountain without money, food, dry adequate housing etc and assume he would be okay. Clearly times were a bit different. Curious to see how the group responds to the book. Now I just need to email a few questions to generate discussion.

Birthday present to me!

Last January my husband gave me a trip for my BIG birthday. My first choice was to go to India and visit the Taj Mahal something I have been fascinated with for years. My husband suggested we include Nepal as we were (relatively) close. I met with the travel agent, did some research and was just about ready to book a trip for the spring when Nepal was hit by not one but two earthquakes. Well that finished that trip. So, we did nothing about taking a trip. I love to travel and have lots of places I would love to visit and one is Normandy and the WWII sites of D-Day and have been intrigued by the idea of bicycling through the country side. Well one Saturday morning, when I opened my email, there was one from the Vermont Biking Tours announcing that there were openings left in the following trips and the first one listed was a Normandy and Brittany trip. Well my husband and I are not impulsive but he suggested I call and get more information and in about 30 minutes we had booked and paid for the trip. In full. We needed to wait for confirmation (of hotels) which came about a week later. Of course, crazy people that we are we needed to reacquaint ourselves with biking!! So for two weeks I rode the bike at the gym and figured out a 10 mile loop to get into shape. Of course we were walking 5 miles a day so that definitely helped. My husband suggested we spend a few days in Paris before the trip and a few after the trip. So with the help of my travel agent we booked hotels, etc and on Sept 15 away we went. The weather the first 8 days was not so great but we had a great time. Paris is, well, Paris and was beautiful and lovely and we walked every where.

We walked up the Eiffel Tower and then took the elevator to the top. We did a lot of touristy things as it was the first time my husband had been to Paris. We toured the Catacombs, the sewers, walked in the Tuilleries and the Jardins du Luxembourg, climbed the Arc de Triomphe, visited the Louvre, Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle. We visited Versailles and Giverny ( Monet's gardens). We left Paris and began our biking trip in Bayeux. The biking was really good and while sometimes I couldn't bike all the way up a hill I still got everywhere.

Here I am in action. Many of the roads we were on were similar to this one. Lovely vacation. Food was wonderful, nice group of people, well organized. We had a cider tasting, oyster tasting, saw Mont Saint Michel, Omaha Beach, the American cemetery, Saint Malo (the site of All The Light We Cannot See). We had fabulous guides. We would definitely do another with maybe a bit more prep time! I took one book to read and didn't look at it once. So I will post a few more pictures next time.