South Carolina!

[berryman]

I love your part of the world.

I think I recall you mentioning you have been to https://cockaigne.com/ They just opened back up this year after being closed for quite awhile and was sold to new owners. Not far from me and Mother-in-law lives almost across the road from that place. We should start a new thread on all of our travels and think a lot would be surprised have been in the same area. FDave went to suny fredonia college close to me and hit the bars there the same time period I was going to them.

[bpgreen]

Brian, I know we are getting off topic on original post but enjoy to hear of others travels around the country. I have never been to NYC, but have been in Atlantic City and been to Ithaca many times,and have been out west but not Utah.

I used to spend a lot of time in Provo UT, for work reasons. Back in that time (pre-Olympics) you had to get access to a "private club" to get a beer for the most part. Someone had to sponsor you. I managed to get that to happen and hung out at a little club where all of the "bad" BYU students went. Beer was limited to 3.2%, so you could order a pitcher for yourself and be just fine. You could get ONE beer in a restaurant like TGI Fridays, but even in a place like that the bar was never actually open, it only existed because it was built into the floorplan. If you tried to order a second beer, you would get the stare down like you sprouted devil horns, and they would refuse to serve you. Also, coffee was unavailable there (no hot caffeinated beverages were available) because it was against the religion of folks, and Provo was more then 90% said folks. But Mountain Dew, that was just fine, so everyone who needed a fix, that was the ticket. (they had a revelation of some sort at some point that it wasn't caffeine that was bad, but only hot caffeine, don't ask me to explain, I dunno).

That all said, it was great being able to get up into the mountains in 15 minutes, and it was lovely there, just had to keep an eye out for the random mountain lion (rare to actually see one, but they were there).

As far as Boston, I had to travel there often for work as well. Boston is the only place I've ever been where I could be staying in a hotel where I could literally look out the window and see the place I needed to get to for work, but had to drive 30 minutes to actually get there, because a divided highway separated the two places, and you had to literally get on to it, go to an exit 5 miles away, then get back on to it, go to some other exit 5 miles the other way, and then drive from there to the place intended.

Also 1st time I was in Boston I was in a rental car from VA with summer tires, and it was snowing like mad, and everyone was literally going 70mph out of the airport on a 4+ lane road that narrowed down to 2 lanes into a tunnel that got you outa there, and it was utter madness. Also that trip I was so freaked out from the driving because when I slowed down there was this cop that flashed his lights and told me to drive faster over his mic, that I missed my exit and ended up driving down the coast all the way to Salem wondering WTF Boston went. (pre-GPS times LOL). That was fun.

I've spent a good bit of time around Chautauqua, also have done a lot of Nordic skiing in Allegany State Park / Art Roscoe. I been to pretty much every town around the Finger Lakes in NY just farting around. I love your part of the world.

Things have loosened up a bit, but they're still weird.

Wer can now get 5٪ abv at grocery stores. That's not as big as it seems. 3.2 abw is 4 abv.

I think you can now order a beer if you still have beer in your glass, but they ruled that a flight of beers constituted x beers, even if each was less than 2 oz, and only two drinks can be ordered at a time. So basically, the law allows 12 oz of wine in a single glass, or 24 oz in two, but outlaws 6 oz of beer if it's in 6 glasses.

And I agree. Boston driving is wicked crazy.

[Crazy Climber]

And, we "park our cars" -- we don't "pahk owah cahs."

CC , People think I should sound like Brooklyn because am in NY, I am in the far western part of NY and might have a hard time understanding them in the East. How you doing with the SC twang. It will catch on before you know it....

I used to work with a guy from Rochester. He sounded...like me! No (perceived) accent at all. Yeah, I can relate to the obvious expectations -- "you're from Massachusetts? Boston! You must pahk your cah, right?"

Regarding the SC twang, that might take a while, I think. For now, I'm trying to work "y'all" into my vocabulary as much as possible.
Actually, there are so many people around here that are not from here that it's amazing. The state of SC is growing in population like crazy. It's actually more common to come across a transplant than a native. "Where are you from?" is a common conversation starter. The answer is rarely "from around here."

[Crazy Climber]

I had a project in Springfield about 10 years ago. Flew into Hartford.

There was a huge liquor store out there (Table & Vine? I think ). They probably had 3 or 4 aisles of beer, and one of those aisles probably had more shelf space than the entire state owned liquor store near me. I was just starting to bottle in glass, but didn't have a capper, so I'd buy Fischer and Monchshof (neither is available here) and bring the amber flip tops home. I still have some of those.

I'd also sometimes go to the deposit place and ask if they had amber flippies (they'd often separate them out) and buy them for the deposit cost.

Are you in the insurance industry? That seemed to be the big employer in that area.

I used to live less than 10 miles from Bradley Field. I was literally a mile from the MA/CT border.

Table & Vine!!! They got a lot of business from me over the years. It's probably about the size of a typical Dick's Sporting Goods, filled with beer, wine, and liquor. What's not to love? Not only did it have a fantastic selection, as you said, but they sold all of their beers as singles or packs. The shelves were stocked with 4-packs and 6-packs of craft beer, but they also listed prices on each SKU for singles, and you were free to pull one can/bottle out of any pack and buy them individually. 10% discount off the singles prices if you made a mixer-sixer.
Regarding empties, unfortunately, a couple of years ago they replaced all of their return/deposit staff with machines, so loading up on empties for bottling is no longer possible.

There is a shop in my newly-adopted hometown, called Bottles, that has a very good selection of craft beer, much of it local. They sell some singles, but they don't allow you to break up packs. It's good, but it's no T&V.

LOL, yes, I am in the insurance industry! They didn't call Hartford "The Insurance Capital of the World" for nothing. I'm actually in IT, but have worked for insurance companies my whole career. Been work-at-home for close to two decades; I hope it can continue 'til retirement; I've grown to love the 'commute.'