1. I had a few minutes of high anxiety this morning. I thought Debbie and I could take our time packing and getting ready to leave for Nelson, BC, but then I discovered that the port of entry north of Metaline Falls closed at 4:00. The point of entry north of Bonners Ferry is closed on Sunday.
Well, we kind of stepped up our preparations to leave and departed shortly after 11:30. We gassed up and, mercifully, the traffic heading west wasn't clogged with weekenders returning home over the 4th of July pass to points west.
In fact, we had an easy drive and arrived at the point of entry in plenty of time.
My anxiety had dissipated entirely as I backed the Camry out of the garage!
2. We stopped in the village of Salmo, BC at a hotel pub to give ourselves a break from being in the car and enjoyed a short beer and split an order of onion rings.
From Salmo, it was only a half an hour to Nelson, but we didn't have internet access to our maps app on our phones. We wanted to go to a brewery. We parked, managed to get a Nelson map to come up on my phone, but we had a much easier time when Debbie leapt from the Camry and asked a pedestrian if she knew where we could find a nearby brewery.
Soon we arrived at Torchlight Brewing not far from the shore of Kootenai Lake.
It was just what I'd hoped it would be!
Over the years, I've come to enjoy brewery tasting rooms that are similar to warehouses. They are airy, mostly concrete, sometimes take the form of a beer hall, and are unique from most bars and taverns and pubs.
I couldn't remember the last time I was in a brewery tasting room similar to this one -- was it in Seattle with Hugh? Possibly. All I knew was that I felt giddy.
Debbie and I ordered a flight and sampled a hazy IPA, an undefined ale, a golden stout, and a black lager. The hazy IPA strongly resembled hazys we'd enjoyed back East, especially in NY, and I thought the other three beers were unique (in a good way) from any beers I'd had before.
3. Before long, Patrick and Megan arrived at Torchlight Brewing. We had a happy reunion. Meagan and Patrick told us all about the great time they had Saturday night at the Joni Mitchell and Brandi Carlile show at The Gorge.
I ordered a 5 oz pour of a nitro stout porter.
Debbie and I split an order of tater tot poutine and a potato masala hand pie.
We brought our session to an end and caravanned into the hills of south Nelson and settled into our vacation rental home, a handsome house high on a hill overlooking parts of Nelson, Kootenai Lake, and the mountains to the north.
Who knows?
We might not leave this place while we're here!
(Yes we will.)
But once Patrick and Megan went to the store for some groceries and once we got the house cooled down with the air conditioning, we relaxed into a quiet evening.
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