16 April 2015

After a rest day in St. Augustine we are ready to roll. Two short days coming up, one to Jacksonville to see Mike one last time before Christmas and then on to Amelia Island.

The trip up was pretty bland. It was a gray cloudy morning, with rain in the forecast. Once we got out of St. Augustine the ICW went back to its rual nature. Along the shore was a huge flock of white pelicans, over 100 of them waiting for better weather to go fishing.

Got to Cove Harbor Marina about lunchtime. While walking up to pay I got some good pictures of another weed munchie / cutter. I had seen one up in Sturgeon Bay cleaning out the marina. This was very similar except rather than scooping them up they got fed into a grinder and spit out the back. I’d assume that the small bits would float and make a bigger mess. I asked and got told that they sink to the bottom and help choke off the other weeds.

The shower diverter knob had broken so I mapped out a few places to try to get a replacement. Spent some time with Crazy Glue to put the old one back together so I could get a screwing size. (M6 1.0 – which is almost 1/4” with a fine thread)

Mike came and picked me up. Home Depot zero – Ace Hardware had a metric wing nut so I can put something on there. They also had brass finials for lampshades that are ¼” with fine threads. So plan B and C in place. West Marine didn’t have any plumbing fixtures and it also looks like they are going out of business since the shelves were missing lots of items.

There is a camping world about 45 mins away, but I opted to use the repaired knob and order a new complete set and have it sent home. We are only about 35 days away, so I’m going to press my luck.

While Susan got set up to do laundry Mike and I played a few rounds of “Dead Man’s Draw”. Once she was able to join us we played “King of Tokyo” We got three games in before it was time to go to dinner.

But first, a brewpub stop! About a mile away was the Green Room Brewery. We were in luck, they were open. Some breweries are only open on the weekends. Asked about how many on tap, they said 16, and I said great, lets do a flight of all of them. The barman put them together and we carried them to the table and set up to try. The patrons in the pub were kind of surprised, evidently this isn’t a common occurrence. So we posed First Mate Pig by the 4 boat shaped flights and they snapped away.

As expected, some of the beers were good, some bad and some were amazingly good. Mike and I have different tastes, he likes more of the lagers and ales, I’m more stouts and porters. We did agree that the bad beers were bad though (really fruity ones). The surprise for both of us was our favorite was a barley wine. It was a little sweeter than most beers and while you could smell a fruit, there wasn’t a fruit flavor. They take 250 gallons of the beer and add 10 gallons of orange blossom honey before the fermenting process.

We then headed over to Engine 15 brewing for yet more beer and some food. Only 13 kinds on tap tonight. And yes, for those keeping track that is 28 different beers, it’s an ugly job but someone has to do it. Remember these are 2-3 oz pours and we don’t finish the ones we don’t like. So all up for the evening it end up being about 3 beers each.

After starting with chips and queso, Susan went with the beef brisket sandwich, Mike went for the steak flatbread, I went for the BBQ Cuban. It was fun tasting these beers and then comparing back to what we had had before.

After dinner it was dark and Mike dropped us off at our Marina. With all the trips through Jacksonville in the last 5 months it was great to spend time with Mike. It will be weird to not see him again until Christmas.