Please Point Me In The Direction Of The Nearest Spinning Class

This morning the fam and I had one final hurrah before Elise had run to an exam and Memere and Granddad had to head off to Boston to catch their flight home.

The first stop Magnolia Bistro.  As you can all tell from my blackberry photo, they were VT's first certified green restaurant.  How fancy right?  The food was AMAZING - I started the day off with pumpkin bread french toast.  After a piece and a half I was sufficiently stuffed and have packed the remaining bit in my carry on for breakfast tomorrow!  I even have  VT syrup in my cupboard to make the experience legit.

And this dear reader, is the point at which everything started going down hill.  Being the conscientious person and credit card holder, I decided to pay my bill a few days early.  You could imagine my shock when my account was overdrawn by several hundred dollars.  It turns out someone decided to go on a shopping spree with my debit card - no es bueno.  An hour and three customer service reps I was in need of a drink!!

Thank goodness we decided to take a tour of the Magic Hat brewery. As you can see all that stress melted away once I had my picture taken in front of one of their traveling vans!

Because it was a Monday, we were on the self guided tour.  As soon as you started climbing the stairs, you could hear the rattling of the beers on the line.  The whole thing was pretty cool and we got to see everything from start to finish.

The empty bottles are put on the line and come to the first machine that fills them with the beer of the day and later caps them.

The bottles then move down the line to where the labels are glued to the bottle. 

All the while the shipping boxes are assembled.

After the grand tour (the parentals were excited to see them bottling beer this time) you are invited to go down stairs and give some things a try.  There is a long bar and were probably about ten beers to try including their fall and winter seasonal beers.  My favorite was the fall seasonal beer, HEX; sadly production is winding down to get ready for the darker, heavier winter ones.

I learned some great things about this company including 1) they have some of the best names for their employees  2)  they are a socially responsible beer (this does not surprise me all that much)  3)  they are a huge supporter of the Women's Rape Crisis Center here in Burlington!  I am swooning left and right here people.  The company basically has captured my business from now until the time!!

We grabbed lunch and wandered around Church Street.  The final stop was Lake Champlain chocolates where I picked up some delicious Aztec Hot Chocolate (think Mexican hot chocolate).  It will be perfect once the cold weather hits PGH!

And now my fellow readers, I must depart as they are calling for me to board my plane.  Burlington, it has been real and I think you made me gain five pounds!

Q:  What do you call a cow who just had a baby?

A:  Decafinated

THANK YOU FOLKS ... I WILL BE HERE ALL YEAR LONG

(or until mid July)