The best beer I have ever had was at the Xanterra run general store in the little resort just under Crater Lake. I got in right before dark as the trees turned red with the setting sun and felt quite a bit like someone had been beating me with a large and heavy stick. The walk that day had been hard, for no reason that I really understand, probably one of the hardest I have ever walked, and I was dead on my feet shuffling when I came into town. Restless Wind and Twisted were sitting at a picnic table in front the store munching fruit and nursing a drink. It looked so good I do not know if I even uttered a word, dropping my pack I went in, picked up an apple and a brew and sat down. The beer went down so smooth it was like silk flowing my skin in the breeze and when it hit my blood I could feel it start to flow through my veins and relax every mussel as it went. My mind cleared and relaxed and the evening slowly bloomed into something wonderful. Eventually I wondered off to find a campsite somewhere out of the way on the lawn of the resort, a thousand times better then when I walked in.
Following closely behind that beverage was one I ran into in August, left in an old spring fed watering tough somewhere south of Helena. It was a Rolling Rock, tucked down in the mud and gunk and cool as ice from the spring, and when we pored the brew into one of the Gatorade bottles we use to carry water (the beer bottle itself as a tad bit… slimy) it went down smooth and crisp as a late autumn day as we sat on a hillside in the sun, enjoying what the heavens had provided.A IMG{
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