With my (questionable) decision to move out to Virginia for 6 months came months and months of planning on which route to take.  It was a tough decision on whether to head South and hang with a Wee Man and a Germexican  or go North where the beer flows like the salmon of the Capistrano.  Alas, the North won (again)  despite the inevitable fact that one joe1510 would be making an appearance.  Here's how it all went down (or at least what I remember).

Day 1: Smelly Fachina

Wednesday morning I wake up and start packing everything I "need" into the back of my Jeep.  I got it about half way filled and I started to wonder if I was going to be able to fit everything.  After some rearranging, I managed to fit everything and still have an open space that was about 2 feet x 4 feet.  Hopefully Smells isn't bringing much .

After about a 10 hour drive, the Smellster finally arrives to our rendezvous point.  He opens his trunk and I see a small carry-on size suitcase and a 12 pack shipper.  This is no good.  Long story short, I ended up leaving my bag with my hardhat/coveralls/etc. in his trunk in order to fit his excessive amount of travel gear.

From there we headed over to Odell to see what they had going on.  Unfortunately they had a band playing, so the joint was packed to the max.  We ordered a couple of tasters and finally found somewhere to sit.  I proceeded to give Smelly the pilot tray that he could handle (His highest ABV = 6%, my lowest ABV = 6.5%)  In the middle of our drankin, this amazing fella leans over and asks what Smelly thinks of his tray because they have the same one.

Smelly: Meh, it's ok.

DB: It's pretty intense man.

Smelly:

DB:  Well....what do you normally drink?  I usually drink Coors Light or Miller High Life.

Smelly:  I usually drink stuff like this, but this isn't very good.

DB:

I think we pretty much left after that and grabbed a growler of Double Ninja  

From there we stopped at a couple Likka Stoes then made our way to Grimm Brothers.  We ordered a couple pints then Oxy showed up and took us oot back.  Since this was Smelly's first time there since before it opened he got the whole rundown on all their beer and then we went back to the lager cooler.  This is where the magic happens.  We proceeded to try a bunch of different homebrews including a Sour Pumpkin and Eisbock that were both titties.  Then some rum from the local distillery was broken out.  I believe this is where Smelly began slurring his speech.  What a fuggin lightweight.  Anyhoo, we then left and made our way to a friends in Denver where Smelly proceeded to fall asleep with a full glass of Old Ruffian in his hands

Day 2:  Hey Nebraska, Go F#*k Yourself

We managed to wake up at the ass crack of dawn the next morning and begin our trip through Kansas to our stopping spot of Kansas City.  The second I start driving, Smells is out like a light.  After about an hour I realize I'm on I-76 instead of I-70 .

Me:  Oh f#$k!

Smelly:  :snore: huh? :sleep:

At this point it wasn't worth turning around since the two roads run parallel and have nothing except county roads that connect them.  It ended up being a decent detour as we got to visit Nebraska Brewing Co. which was pretty sweet.  The look that the dumbass, butterface bartender gave Smelly when he asked for stickers was priceless.  As was this sweet stalker picture I managed to get from across the street.

Day 3: Chicago Cornhole

Finally, the night Chicago died.

After making a quick pitstop at Schlafly we continued our way towards Chicago.  Things were looking good until we hit the lovely town of Joliet.  From there we managed to sit in traffic for a solid 2 hours.  I came within seconds of driving off of a bridge to end it all.  When we finally made it to Joe's place, we walked in to find Jay was already waiting for us.  I once again came within seconds of taking my life .

After bringing in the beer I had brought, Jay proceeded to yell at me for not bringing him enough AK Smoked Porter.  I may or may not have forgot how much he wanted, but I figured 1 was better than none.  Then Joe busted out a Vanilla BCS for me and I had to bust out the .  After a few minutes Emerge and one of his buddies showed up and we continued drinking the random beers that were around.  

Then two of the most amazing things of the entire trip happened.  

Numero uno: We were watching LSU and Texas A&M when Smelly made the point that LSU had no black people in their marching band while their entire football team was black.  There was then a shot of the band doing something and Emerge yells "There's one right there, it's like a unicorn!"

Numero two:  Joe gets a text and immediately starts laughing.  "I just got a text from this guy I haven't talked to in a couple days.  It says Yes, it's called a murder boner"  Needless to say murder boner has become my new favorite phrase.  It's quite the versatile phrase.  Here's some examples.

1:  Exclamatory Phrase - Murder Boner!  This can be used in celebration, anger, threatening etc

2:  Noun - ex: The murder boner took it's dog for a walk.

3:  Verb - ex:  If they don't hurry the f#$k up I'm gonna murder boner them.

It was all going good until Joe decided to make his own Bourbon Samichlaus and Bourbon Cutthroat Porter.  After that I know we had some pizza and went to a few bars, but I couldn't tell you much more than that.  I will rely on other witnesses for further details.

Day 4:  

I woke up at 11:00 in a panic.  There's no way we're going to make it to all of the places we planned on.  After going to get some food and making a trip to Half Acre and Binny's, we finally made it out of town by 3:00.  Made some stops at Shoreline, Livery, and Dark Horse along the way.  Didn't have enough time for Three Floyds and Bell's since we got out so late.

Dark Horse was awesome.  We showed up at about 11:30 to find what appeared to be a double wide with a Dark Horse sign on the front.  We went in and the ceiling is lined with these bad ass ceramic mugs that I really wanted.  As they were closing we asked if they had any merchandise and the bartender says "Yeah, come back this way".  We were then lead through a maze that went through the brewery and a bunch of office space to a secret closet in the very back loaded with shirts and other things.  Very few things were labeled as to how much they cost, so the lady pretty much made it up.

When we left I still had a thumping headache and we only managed to make it a little further before being forced to pull over somewhere in Ohio and get a hotel.  The rest of the trip was pretty lame except for stopping in Pittsburgh at The House of 1000 Beers, where I found Rabid Duck bottles going for $1 a piece and $4 bombers of Smutty Baltic Porter/Wheat Wine.  That store kicks some serious ass, even though some of their prices were outrageous.

Final outcome of the trip.