Christmas in...September!

As many of you know, I am obsessed with Christmas. But as many of you also know, I usually try to hold off until after Thanksgiving to give into my urges of merry tidings and good cheer. And that was my strategy for this year as well except that good old Mother Nature had another plan. We were minding our own business, driving home from our camping trip when the rain became hail...then became....SNOW!
Can you believe it? Here we are in September, and here I've been trying my best to keep my holiday spirit at in check, when all of the sudden it starts to snow! And oh my goodness, let me tell you! I'm not talking about a couple of sissy flurries. No. I'm talking about a full on, no expense spared, honest-to-god snowstorm!!! Woohoo! It was so beautiful I could hardly stand it!
In my wildest dreams I'd only hoped to see a little fall color on the trees during our trip. But Lady Nature overdid herself, and gave me Christmas in September!
I was lucky in addition because a.) I was not the one driving through the two inches of icy slush on the road, and b.)  my Sweetie had a Christmas album in his CD case. (BTW, this is something anyone who knows me has on hand in case of such emergencies.)
So what did I do? What any other normal person would, I pumped up the volume on The Blenders holiday album, sang along, felt Christmassy all over, and took hundreds of photos of the beautiful storm!!!
I don't believe in miracles, so I don't mean it literally, but it was a Christmas miracle! It's a world record for me too. My first Christmas music in September,!?! Holy cow. And it wasn't even weird, because if you'd been there you would have thought it was the middle of December. How awesome is that? Don't believe me? Throw on a holiday album and take a look at these photos and see if you don't feel like Christmas has come early this year. (BTW I didn't take these in black and white, they are in color, it's just that it was so snowy!)

The Brewing Lair

The Brewing Lair

While I was camping up in the Sierra this weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the most remote (well, except for perhaps Silver Gulch Brewery in Fairbanks AK) micro-brewery I've ever been to. It's just outside the tiny town of Blairsden. And when I say "just outside" I mean about 200 yards. And when I say "tiny town" I mean the whole of it includes a hardware store, a florist (odd I thought) and a laundromat.
Anyway, the entrance to The Brewing Lair, as it is called, was about as noticeable as any other winding dirt driveway along the highway...except for the cutout sign of a rather ominous comic-book man in a fedora and trench coat holding a pint of beer. Things were looking good!
We followed signs painted on wood pallets up to the tasting room, which also happens to be the brewery. The building that housed everything was clean lines and modern, but it also had a woodsy feel because of the corrugated rusted metal siding, and the array of hand-hewn patio furniture surrounding it that comprised the seating area. Most of it looked like it was made from the redwoods on the property.
When we got out of the car we were greeted by two dogs. One was white and fluffy, the other looked like a Rottweiler mix and was clearly the boss. She greeted every car (all three) that pulled in while we were there.
The brewery is run, and was built by, a single person. He was described to us by a local as a "savant who had eclectic taste, and who excelled at everything he put his hand to". From my experience, that clearly was the case. The place was meticulously thought out in every detail.
There were five beers on tap, and so we got a sampler, which included a taste of each of them. My two favorites were the Simco, which was a "Single hop session IPA". I don't have any idea what that means, so don't ask, but it was light, hoppy, and had a ton of citrus (grapefruit) flavor to it. Yum-ee. The other was a dark beer, a porter of some kind made with 20 pounds of coffee. I can't remember what it was called, but we joked that it should have been named the Double Buzz.
It just so happened that the sun peaked out enough to dry the outdoor chairs, and so we enjoyed a couple pints while absorbing the sun into our chilled bones.
I have no idea how the owner makes a living at it, being all the way out there in the middle of nowhere, but I can say he makes a damn fine beer, and has a gorgeous tasting room. We will be back. Oh yes, we will be back.

The brewmaster

Our tastings!

My favorite is at the front!

The brewery/ tasting room

Inside.

Graeagle, CA

The nearest town to our campsite at Gold Lake was a quaint little place called Graeagle. It's pronounced "Gray Eagle", and was apparently named after a nearby creek.
There are about 750 residents in Greaeagle, and by most standards it's a pretty tiny town. It is located in what the locals call the "Lost Sierra" (i.e. north of the area where most  tourists dare venture). But for all it's remoteness it was charming, and had all the necessities. There was a grocery store with a good selection of coffee and sundries,  and a cafe that served homemade soups and baked goods, and sold candy and tea by the pound. The hardware store was located in the next town over, a mere mile or so away, and had everything from door hinges to Christmas ornaments, and wine glasses. What else do you need?
Since we'd spent the better part of the morning freezing, getting soaked, and trying to make breakfast under a makeshift shelter at our campsite, we decided we'd braved the weather long enough to retain our "hard core" camper status and headed into town.
Our first stop, the grocery store was, as I mentioned, well stocked. The floors were creaky old wood ones, and they slanted every-which-way, but the store was full and the isles packed with everything you could think of, and they had a surprisingly good meat department stocked by local farmers.
After that we went to the hardware store in Blairsden. It was one of the nicest ACE hardware stores I've seen. On top of all the normal stuff they had clothes, fall decor, dishes, candles, wine glasses, souvenirs, and sporting goods of all kinds. It was really nice.
The next stop was back in Graeagle at the Graeagle Mill Works Cafe. It was about the most charming, homey little cafe I've ever been to. Nestled in an old house (all the businesses in town were in similar converted homes) it had mismatched tables and chairs, little homemade crafts for sale, a candy counter, and a really sweet waitress (who'd dog was attacked by a bear we overheard her telling a local patron!).
The Cafe had fresh baked items like pumpkin pie, and snickerdoodles the size of large pancakes. The kitchen of the restaurant was actually the kitchen of the old house! Ha ha. They had homemade soups and sandwiches, and espresso drinks and tea. I ordered tea, and I got a whole pot of water with it just for myself! The taco soup was delicious, and it was so nice and warm in there after our windy morning in the rain! It felt like heaven! What am I talking about, it was heaven!
After that we went to a small brewery back in Blairsden...but I'll save that for the next post.
All in all I really enjoyed the town of Graeagle, and can't wait to visit again!

Our shelter at camp.

Exactly.

Don't steal.

The "infamous" Graeagle Store

Warming up at the Mill Works Cafe

A beautiful sight on a cold rainy day

Candy and baked goods!

Festive too!

Downtown Graeagle

Port Huron, Mi

Here are a couple photos from my wanderings around Port Huron when I was back in Michigan. Some of the highlights were Freighters Restaurant where I had the best macaroni and cheese OF MY LIFE! The Blue Water Bridge of course, and the Detroit Edison energy plant. We also stopped at the Great Lakes Maritime Center for coffee and to watch the boats go down the river!

Watching freighters go by at Freighters Restaurant

My lobster mac and cheese. SO good!

The 'ol Blue Water Bridge

A close up

Detroit Edison plant. Pretty no?

Sturgeon at the Maritime Center

The ships that went down in the 1913 storm:(

Oberon and an Old Fashioned at Freighters!

From West to East

This is a little out of order in terms of timing, but when I was on my way home to Michigan over Labor Day weekend, I had the coolest flight path back east. My flight from San Jose went to LA, and then cut up across the American west in a northeast direction. We flew over Las Vegas. I saw Lake Mead, I could just barely make out the Hoover Dam. I even saw my field area where I did my masters thesis! I just made out the western portion of the Grand Canyon as we continued on. Then we flew over Zion National Park (I'd recognize those red cliffs anywhere) and over either Cedar Breaks National Monument or Bryce Canyon NP. I think it was the latter but I couldn't tell for sure. We flew over Capital Reef NP and the eastern part of Canyonlands, and I saw Dead Horse Point State Park. I was looking for Arches NP, because I know it was right there, but I didn't see it for sure. I did however find the rock formation that the arches in Arches are made from and got a couple of shots of those. (They form what are called fins, or from up high they hind of look like plates resting in a drying rack. Then eventually the wind wears away the center and an arch is formed.)
After that is got cloudy and I couldn't see much, but isn't that still pretty great? I had a free aerial tour of most of the national parks in Utah, and quite an entertaining flight. My good camera was in the overhead bin, so I took all of these with my iPhone. Enjoy!

Morning Clouds over LA

Lake Mead

Zion NP

Bryce Canyon NP or Cedar Breaks NM

Capital Reef NP

Fins belonging to the same formation as rocks in Arches NP

Canyonlands NP

Canyonlands NP

Dead Horse Point State Park

Arches NP is in the background there somewhere!

Maybe part of Colorado NM?

Sunset over Michigan