Now i'll start off by recommending something that's worth your time and sanity. Spending 2 nights in a spot before you jet off to the next spot and subsequentially staying at the next spot for two days I think is sorta required for this sorta trip... specially the hard road with the drinking sorta trip. You don't really learn that lesson till you're 30 or so tho... so for you young whippersnappers with xl size livers... keep on rockin in the free world...

Getting up around 8 again is where i stood... an hour in the pool and bounced on out heading for the border. This is also where I go into my spiel about having a passport... some of you I'm sure don't... a good reason for having a passport when you don't need one is that it's good for a decade or so and it's a photo id that you can use if needed... anyway, psa aside...

I felt pretty good after the michigan beer festival, really good and on the go kinda ready... had my last 2 slices of pizza... and broke east toward the bridge. Very moderate going to traffic to canada... So breezed on thru and prepared for the big empty... the drive from detroit to toronto is a lot like the drive to minnesota after you pass wisconsin dells or out to dekalb from chicago or aurora to madison... not much to see, very flat easy going...

my first stop was guelph had 2 stops there only made one, cause it was longer than I expected as I got held up at wellington with an impromptu tour which was great cause it was nerdy and technical. Had a long conversation about turbidity.

But the drive was decent... straight shot... gps got me there just fine...

and while we're talking about that... big ups to the poi stuff offered over on beermapping... if you're a poi subscriber, basically you can download all the info for the entire state... folder it off to breweries, brewpubs, liquor stores etc... or just mass it into one folder... and you'll know where the nearest handful... 30 or so are around you within a 4 mile radius... it's good if you have a general idea of what parts of the city you'll visit and what you want to hit but... it's all in there and makes life so much easier... gps makes it super easy... anyway...

my shots :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8607365@N05/sets/72157624493793705/

guelph is out of your way and if you haven't set up a tour at either sleeman or wellington... I wouldn't suggest making the trip out of the way only cause it's way out there... you can better serve yourself hitting places like black oak and the other spots in oakville and the like heading up to toronto.

I also don't like to drive in toronto... it's like a continuous college town... all one ways and the like, so I usually park by one of the stations and train it out... I got into town about 2pm... so I didn't wanna hit the hotel just to have them tell me i couldn't check in for another hour...

I hit beer bistro, c'est what, volo, did 2ish hours in graffiti alley and hit the burlesque festival and that was it.

I like beer bistro... 3 oz samples for a buck n a quarter, tried 9 beers there... including the mill st. framboise, which was killer and probably the best beer I had the whole trip. But it's really got a nice bar and the place is belgian/french in it's decor. Not one of those places with too much signage on the walls, beer bistro has class written all over it... mussels are its specialty, big surprise. You'd do very well to hit this place early if you want to eat, cause much like chicago's hopleaf, I can see it really filling in the evening and just being a general pain in the ass to get seating at... off king street's subway station.

between beer bistro and my next stop was st. lawerence market... this is a must stop for those that like fresh fruits and open markets. Doing the research for toronto, there's a farmers market somewhere in the gta every day of the week...

http://www.blogto.com/toronto/ - this was great resource for places in toronto.

I was headed a bit south tho to c'est what... where I got my drink on like a big dog. 2 pints of coffee porter on nitro, 2 dead elephant ipa and a rasperry pilsner along with food was asskicking and intoxicating.

I've been here before and I gush about how cool it is... but I really like the basement bar that cest what has to offer... pool table, dart board... really nice dark relaxing enviormens it's a perfect drinking habitat...

stumbing out of there and back on the train, i hit volo which is off the wellesley stop on the subway... train time was about 10 min from king... and i was going over to osgoode for the graffiti stuff that came next...

volo is kind of the inbetween for beerbistro and c'est. it's den like, but classier, it's crowded, but managed well... good taps, easy drinking, easy times... beau's lugtread lager was great... it's a kolsch... it's great easy drinking, great mouthfeel, fucking great beer... if in the gta, search this out (as well as mill st. framboise and dead elephant ipa...) it's bottled so you can use the Lcbo search to see where it's available... so worth it. They also had scotch irish's corporal punishment on which is a really rich and tasty brown ale... really what I could have drank the rest of the night...

Having a good amount of beer and food in me by then... it was about 5ish and i wanted to get near the burlesque show to end my evening there... but I found myself drawn to the graffiti in graffiti alley... a series of alleyways that span about 2 miles of toronto and filled with production work quality stuff...

and I wandered... here are my shots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8607365@N05/sets/72157624617519392/

I started to notice the time, not that i checked it... I was just tired of taking pictures... and that's saying a lot... didn't finish graffiti alley... but knew i would return the next day.

finally made it over to the burlesque fest. there's a story in the comments, read along if you would...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8607365@N05/sets/72157624493724367/

after that I ended my night early 10 pm, and with the drive and all the walking around town... I slept well...