Bacon In My Backyard

Last Saturday, there was a Craft Beer Fest in Columbia along the main drag of Locust Street. Not much of a main drag.  As promised, I am writing about bacon a bit. Bacon Bits.

It was a good time. I typically eschew Beer Festivals these days for the same reason I don't go to expensive all you can eat buffets (or relatively cheap ones for that matter). Because it costs a decent amount of money to gain entrance, there is a desire to get my money's worth. My cheapness drives my consumption. Sure, I will go back for my tenth plate of fried shrimp.

I will make a couple of exceptions. Ommegang's yearly Belgian Beer Fest in Cooperstown, New York and Columbia's Beer Fest. Columbia is close to home and with a combo of hitching a ride with my neighbor down part of the way, taking the shuttle bus from a closer location to and from, and walking, there was no need to drive. Ommegang has camping on its grounds. So, if I were to return to the event, I would just set up a tent and chill.

One of the highlights of the Columbia Craft Beer Fest is to get a slab of this bacon on a stick. It is like a Popsicle for adults. I had one of these two years ago, there was no Fest last year, and again this year. I  thought that this company with the bacon on a stick stand could get an old ice cream truck and troll through neighborhoods for adults with cash all too willing to pony-up for this treat. Sooey!

This weekend, I had a good chunk of my family here to the domicile. About a year and a half ago I was scheming with one of my brother's, who lives in Pittsburgh, to come to Columbia where we could complete an Iron Man of sorts. Mountain-Biking, Kayaking, and Hiking, followed by eats and beers. Some family things intervened and we changed and put off the plans.

This year, yesterday, my Dad and another brother also came up. Pop was the rib-master and my brother joined us for the hike up to the top of Turkey Hill, which was the last event yesterday. That turned into a bit of adventure that I perchance may write about next week.

So, we knocked out some pretty challenging mountain-biking at Rocky Ridge (yep, a lot of rocks), kayaked down around some islands and then back upstream which had a couple of difficult currents to paddle against, and then finishing it off with a climb to the top of Turkey Hill. We started around 10 AM and finished at 4:00 PM. Each leg of the day, we came to my house and got our fill of water and some peanuts to fuel our activities. I changed my entire workout wardrobe yesterday 3X. Three shorts, three shirts, and assorted shoes and bandannas. All drying on my clothes rack to be washed tomorrow. It was a exertional yet fun day.

For a lot of years, I wasn't exactly proud to have a Columbia address. It is a rough town that began a long slide downward after narrowly missing becoming that nation's capitol instead of D.C. Inviting my family up for a fun weekend to partake of the local outdoorsy resources has been my gradual realization that there is actually a lot of cool activities to do around here with physical fitness within 15 minutes of my house. Since I like being active, I am much happier here than I would be in NYC where people ride Pelotons inside air conditioned gyms.

In other words, there is a lot of bacon here in my backyard. Sooey!