Day 28, snow, beer and new friends in Flagstaff

by Josef Kelly

I am adjusting to sleeping on a small, inflatable pad with a sleeping pad every night; I didn't sleep as well as I thought in a bed at the hostel.

Waking up early as usual, I started with the coffee. The hostel provides endless coffee all day - my dream come true.

My goals for the day:

  • Catch up on my blog & other tech projects
  • Mail some stuff home
  • Grab some groceries
  • Sample the local beer fare

By 10am, it was snowing. Its only May. Oh well, first goal completed.

When the snow stopped falling, I headed over to a FedEx and paid $16 to send a few things home - pretty much everything that has never been used on the trip. That includes my hammock setup, which I thought would be used daily. Nope.

Groceries. Done.

On to the best part, the local breweries. First stop was Dark Sky Brewing. They had a massive tap list and I tried two of their IPAs. Both were great. One of the bartenders mentioned that due to their small system, a lot of their brews are limited. They just keep experimenting.

Next was Mother Road Brewing. With a bit more lively atmosphere, their beer was just as good. Once again I stuck to the IPAs.

I met a couple traveling around the southwest, Mike and Jeannie, and spent the next couple hours chatting with them.

They are fantastic people, with the right attitude towards life, adventure and great beer! I am so thankful we crossed paths.

Mike and Jeannie

The universe works in strange ways. We discovered that we'll all be in the same area on August 21st, which happens to be a total solar eclipse. I'm excited to meet up with Mike and Jeannie in a few months to watch the eclipse!

Joe