So Country mouse aka Ronnie broke out the lesbian truck( that was half of beers for Vince) and headed west. While City mouse was picking Tranny Mouse up at the airport for a rendezvous in Pixburg. Let the drinking commence.

It had been a bad week at work with the crazies getting crazier and more politics then the Obama staff could handle. I needed out and got it.

My arrival was greeted with an Ommegang Witte. Nice start.

We went to Isabelles for a six course meal with great wine pairings by Trans mouse. The restaurant hung on a hillside with great view of the city. Food was ok, some better than others. We all had a course we liked best. Then a bit of site seeing at night.

The next day the mice made a nice breakfast and headed to Pix for some more site seeing. We toured all the neighborhoods and stopped at one of the Universities to see a church modeled after a chapel in France. Wish I could have taken pictures inside. Onwards to the Church Brew Works. The food is better than the beer. They had a decent lager made with quinoa.

Toured around some more and headed for the "VFW." This is becoming a haunt for us. Great beer store called the 6&Save with bar in the back serving Belgian beers. If you drink 16 you get a shirt that gives you a dollar off. City mouse made this goal this week. More on that later.

Always interesting people in there. We're now on a first name basis with a few.

We all pitched in and made dinner. Herb rubbed pork loin. Curried quinoa salad and a Thai broccoli salad. Better then our six course meal.

Sunday was Easter. So more food. Cliff and I explored a bit while Vince was at Church. I snuck a ride in on the route we found. Hills of course. Then we headed to Pix for some lunch. Nothing was really open. So we ended up at Images. They could smoke here and a couple queens were drunk and arguing with each other. LOUDLY. The beer menu wasn't bad. We didn't stay long. Enough of that,there's more fun people at the VFW.

Movie review. We watched Bottle Shock at mix of Little Miss Sunshine and Sideways. Not bad but quite predictable. Beers were poured.

Monday found us up at the crack of dawn to get Tranny Mouse back to the Big Apple. Then we went to Deluca's for breakfast. What a menu. It was tough to decide what to have. I went with the breakfast chorizo burrito. Vince had the veggie burrito. Yummy. The first pirates game was today and the fans were rolling in. Already well oiled at 8:30 in the morning. Lots of black and gold. The evening found us cooking in and then hitting the VFW. You'll see a trend here.

Tuesday is a blur. Wednesday we headed out to North Park. Vince road around the lake and I hit the MTB trails. Not bad after I found them off the cart paths. More exploring needed there.

Thursday Vince wanted to try the Velodrome at the city park. It's a half mile paved with a slight rise in it. I was doing an interval workout while V circulated. Then a Tri guy showed up and we rode a bit of tempo. The a big strong kid showed up an a Trek TT rig, fully kitted and was getting down to business. I tucked in behind he was lapping the 25-27mph range. I took a couple pulls and offered to help. He declined and was on a mission. I sat behind him for 40 minutes. Swoosh,lap after lap. Thanks kid. Today found us at the OTB bar in the south side. Now OTB is Over the bars. It's owned by a mountain biker and had a bike theme interior. Pretty cool. Good beers on tap. Most patrons were messengers drinking PBR talls. Food was great all bike named. The Penn Brewery Hefe was best. I'm leaning to session beers. Thursday we also went to see Beer wars. It was satellite feed of the movie. More like an event documentary style. Pretty cool. Then a live Q&A session after. Made us thisrty.Another round at the VFW,working on that shirt. Vince scored his tonight.

Friday was a little R& and having lunch with the friend of a friend from here. We went to another part of the city( drawing a blank,but it had to do with a war,so sweet cobbled climbs there.) and ate at The North Shore Legend. We were greeted by the "Food Artist" aka a chef. Very pleasant. Great food. JR was fun to meet.

Sushi was calling for dinner and City Mouse knew a place in a strip mall. It was superb and cheap.

Twenty bucks a head for each and it's BYOB. Ommegang was sacrificed. The off to the VFW.

The beers went down easy and cheap. With Vince's discount shirt. I'm halfway there. We met a husband and wife chef team and talked food. Talked with the locals that we'd made friends with.

A fun night. A great week I was recharged for sure.

Saturday was a nice weather day and hated to waste it with driving home.

Oh the Buffett reference. With XM radio we had Margaritaville on all the time in hopes of hearing Fins. After 97 hours of Jimmy we did. HA!. We did hear some new songs and covers by him I didn't know he did. We were "Buffeted" to say the least.

Spiced it up with the new Neil Young. You get a dvd of Neil doing some of the new stuff and great cover at a show. Neil, Rocks.

Enjoy life. OGQ