Holy crap! Now THAT was a weekend!
It seems like all we've been doing since spring is dodging the friggin weather, yeah? Sun one minute, rain the next! And whens the last time we had a weekend where it DIDN'T rain? Hell if I can remember-
But having said that- it was still a damn good weekend! (the kind where you're thinkin' you deserve Monday off, am I right?)
I started my weekend as soon as I got out of the show and I headed to the White Mountains. I love to photograph foliage season and that's been a real challenge this year. There's color for one mile, and the next all the leaves are down, or completely green. I know experts on predicting and reporting the foliage season- and they say it's the worst year for foliage in decades. Regardless- I went up thru Franconia Notch and Sugar Hill to see what I could see. And all I got was rain and whipping wind.
The only shot I got was up on Bear Notch Road (which connects Bartlett NH to the Kancamagus by going up and over the mountains. Here's what it looked like from one of the pull over look outs along the road-
Photo: Greg Kretschmar
That was the only place I photographed on Friday. That's very rare for me- but I couldn't find anything that worked. Ugh. But- WHATEVER!
Got home, had dinner - and watch the UNH Wildcats beat #1 ranked BU - WHICH WAS AWESOME! Congrats the UNH for a great game and start to the season!
Saturday morning Valerie says to me - "Hey! Isn't BrewFest today? Lets GO!". I said - "Right on then, lets GO!" So, we grabbed our Brew Tour partners Gary and Lorraine- and headed out! We had a blast! And one of our first places to hit- was one of our local faves- Corner Point Brewing Co! We consider them our "home base" - haha. We just hit different breweries each Friday (when schedules allow) and we're already up to 33 or 34 that we've visited so far!
And look who else we ran in to -
THE NEWLY MARRIED COUPLE- THE MCMULLENS!
By the way - if you missed the news, Scott and Amy got married on Friday afternoon with their families by their side! Congrats to them both!
We also met these folks! Kayla and Cassie were there!
And our friends from Northwoods Brewing Company were there too!
Even BLAKE SHELTON'S COUSIN WAS THERE! Meet Drake Shelton!!!
Apparently the guy works at LIARS BENCH BREWING COMPANY in Portsmouth!!! haha
From BrewFest- I shot over to the Portsmouth Film Fest to host the Comedy Panel at 3S Artspace! The panel included Tom Bergeron, Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings, Scrubs, Quantico), writer John Rineman (Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon), and the legendary Marcy Carsey - who is one of the most successful producers in tv history. Marcy was responsible for some of the biggest tv shows in history (Happy Days, Barney Miller, Soap, Cosby Show, Roseanne, That 70's Show, and was the head of NBC). It was standing room only in the room - and it went pretty well!
Photo credit to MrClarkaFella for the borrow. I couldn't find any other pics yet! hah a-
So what do you do after doing a brewfest all day, then hosting a panel at a major film festival that night?
Well, if you guessed "YOU AND YOUR WIFE VALERIE GET UP AT 4AM AND HEAD TO THE KANCAMAGUS HIGHWAY IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS TO GO CATCH A SUNRISE!" - HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT! hahah -
Here's a moment just before the sun came up, and then a shot from the camera when it did-
Photo: Greg Kretschmar
I shot this from the CL Mangum Overlook at the top of the Kancamagus Highway. Wasn't sure if I was going to get anything because sunrise in the mountains lately has been challenging, with clouds constantly along the horizon. BUT- I got a kiss from Mother Nature this morning, which was nice!
We then headed down the Kanc to Sabbaday Falls, before we crossed back over Bear Notch to Rt 302 -
And then it was up through a rainy Rt 302 and back down 93S to North Woodstock where we hit The Woodstock Brewery for breakfast-
Great place!
And lastly- heres my gripe of the weekend-
I saw this three times this weekend. What the hell is wrong with people who pull into the MIDDLE OF AN INTERSECTION in the last moments of a green light- and BLOCK THE FLOW OF FRIGGIN TRAFFIC with their car????
I watched this guy pull out, wanting to get going- but because the line of traffic didnt/couldnt' move- neither could he! So he pulled out and basically blocked the traffic that had a GREEN LIGHT!
What the **** are people thinking?
Here's an idea - how about you WAIT at the light till you get green light AND you have room to pull in!!!
Whew- glad I got that off my chest-
Other than that little thing (3 times, mind you) - it was a really good weekend. Hope you had one too -
g