Parks + beer = our weekend

Not wanting to lose our last chance to enjoy the great outdoors before the 100 degree temps return starting tomorrow, we hopped up out of bed this morning and headed out to DeGarmo Park on the north end of town for an early morning walk around the soccer fields. The park is next door to the golf course the Canadian swings at, so he'd visited it before and thought it would be a nice change of scenery for us. Apparently it's fairly new, built within the last year, and even offers a dog park which was already busy with lots of furry friends playing chase together.

Clearly I designed this playground seeing as how it's in full sun and probably inflicts third degree burns on anyone who dares to tackle it. It's like Grandma's furniture in the formal living room - you can look, but you cannot touch. Though I did enjoy walking around on the squishy, soft rubber mat flooring material. At least when the children jump in agony off the burning hot playground equipment they'll land on something soft.

The park is just north of the Eaton Rd exit on Hwy 99 and the walking path on the east end of the park follows right along side of the freeway, only separated by what I hope is an incredibly strong chain link fence. The Canadian was tempted to stop and have breakfast with a Mormon looking group of folks who were using the big pavilion to cook up some seriously delicious smelling breakfast eats, but I was pretty sure Jesus would not be amused so we passed.

After finishing some morning chores we took a break and drove down the street to Spike's Bottle Shop which is right across the street from our gym. Last week there was a great article on them in the CN&R which talked about their extensive selection of craft and specialty beers so how could we not check it out?

Thankfully it was all true, they did have an incredible selection of beer and stuff that was completely different that what's available at Ray's up in P-town. We found two beers that were from Bamberg Germany which will be one of our cruise stops and is famous for their rauchbier (smoked beer). Chris found 5 different brews to enjoy over the weekend and there were definitely more to come back for later. Living in a beer town definitely works to our advantage!