Upstate

This weekend Matt and I traveled to Spencerport to visit family. I left work a couple hours early on Friday and we arrived around 9:30 with a delicious dinner waiting for us. Thanks Jill for a veggie version! I stayed up way too late with Jill discussing life then slept in way too late the next morning. If you did not know, Matt's step-dad Bill loves to brew his own beer.  I call it Bill Beer and let me just tell you, you can not buy this stuff in stores. I have not had a Bill Beer that I did not find extremely tasty so I was excited at the prospect of celebrating an Octoberfest with his Homebrewers Association. I went with Jill, Bill, Cevita and Stanley and we had a great time people-watching and mingling with the beer gurus. There were bratwurst, knockwurst and other-wursts galore and SO MUCH BEER. They had a chili contest and a beer tasting contest and a Bill Beer won! What did he win you might be asking, he won glory and a six pack of beer. What else could one need? We left after a couple of events of the beer olympics. They had a hopps picking contest and who could bottle and cap a beer the fastest. It was certainly entertaining watching the tipsy beer nerds compete. 

Jill and Me

Beer Tasting Contest

This guy taught us how to roast our own coffee beans with a heat gun. We learned all about first crack and second crack. I drank the coffee black it was so delicious.

Beware the Firewoman! 

John, or Hans, which is what he prefers to be called during Octoberfest. He played the guitar surprisingly well considering how much he had been enjoying the festivities.  

Saturday night was game 3 of the Cubs series. After a quick nap we headed over to Micah and Julie's house for the game. I'm really glad Ben came home from college to hang, actually, all the Courts were present. It was great to see Matt's Dad because we haven't seen him since the Florida trip. Matt's friend Tim came over with his girl Kristen and we all had a great time watching the Dodgers shut-out the Cubs. 

5 Courts and a Sauer :) Go Blue!

The initial plan for Sunday consisted of a 20 mile run in Spencerport then a drive back to Virginia. We woke up in the morning and realized that we had left the Body Glide which is an anti-chafing agent at home. There was no way I was running 20 miles with my thighs on fire. So we hopped in the car early and headed back to Winchester....or so we thought. 

A couple hours down the road Matt made a comment about really wanting to take me to this park in Ithaca. I told him the decision to skip the run was his and we detoured first to Elmira then to Ithaca. Matt went to Elmira College and it was neat to see where he spent 4 years of his life.  It is a pretty campus. Matt and his buddies always talk about this bar, the Branch Office where they hung out so after a campus tour, I suggested that he take me there for drink. It was only 12:30 but totally worth it. We walked in the door and Matt ran into one of his friends from college, what a coincidence. We hung out for a couple minutes, had a beer, played a little trivia and photo hunt. Matt wouldn't play me in Foosball because he knew he would get schooled. We talked to Stacey for a few minutes then got on the road to Ithaca. 

Mark Twain's study to the left

After a quick 45 minute drive we arrived in Ithaca and headed downtown first to have some lunch. Of all the restaurants in the city we picked The Mate Factor. We walked in, assuming it was your typical hippy restaurant but after we ordered our food and sat at the smoothie bar because there were no tables available we soon began to realize the restaurant was more than met the eye. All the men that worked behind the counter seemed like your regular run of the mill hippies. Beards, long hair tied back, flannels and sandals. There were two woman who worked behind the counter who wore long skirts to their ankles and long sleeved shirts. Their hair was long and tied back. No make-up just very plain Janes. One of the guys working the counter gave me some left-over smoothie and struck up conversation about Matt's shirt that his mom had bought him.  He began speaking of business ethics and before we knew it we had nearly an hour long conversation with him. He spoke of a "common-unity" that he was involved with. He spoke of a "radical" idea of living with your community, working with your community and the community governing itself. He told us that he had renounced his citizenship and we discussed the economy, family values, discipline, school systems and basically how the world is going to hell in a hand bag. He said the philosophy was all about loving each other then spoke of the demise of the family beginning with the woman working and families not properly raising children. He said that when people stopped spanking their children then issues such as ADD subsequently arose. He said that people choose a career and then a family so if the family fails then they have their career to fall back on and they choose and family then a career so if their career fails then you have the family to fall back on. He spoke of selfishness and capitalism and where is the ethics. We told him we lived in Virginia and he told us about a community that is in Virginia and we should visit at night because they would be dancing and singing. There were a stack of newspapers next to us which he wrote his name on. I thought they were local papers but turned out to be the newsletter to their CULT! Matt and I had plenty to read and talk about on the long drive home. Of course they don't consider themselves a cult but they sure do seem to have cult-like characteristics. The name of their "group" is The Twelve Tribes. Never once in the conversation did he mention God or Jesus and their publication skirted around the issue as well. However, after reading their website they are definitely a religious cult. I have never spoken with a cult member before that I'm aware of and it was quite an experience.  

The "common-unities" restaurant

After we left the restaurant still dazed from our experience, we drove to a beautiful park. Matt said the water level was low so it wasn't as incredible as he remembered but it was still lovely on a beautiful fall day.

Nature's way of making us smile.

We arrived back in Winchester in time for a great episode of Entourage.

What a great weekend, love you babe! 

Thursday Mel and I are traveling to California for our Wine Bonanza. I can't even tell you how excited I am. We are leaving the house at 2am because our flight is at 6am. We will be in San Francisco by 11am on our way to bubbles! We are coming back Monday, stay tuned!