When I was growing up in North Carolina, our state was probably best known for tobacco and basketball. Turkey and sweet potatoes were also a big deal, but that’s not typically as sexy to people. It probably wouldn’t surprise you that we had some pretty old-timey laws related to alcohol until the 70s and 80s—but eventually, we got around to legalizing brewpubs. After all, if we aren’t pairing beer with our basketball and cigarettes, what are we even doing? By the early to mid-90s, we had microbreweries popping up all over the state , particularly in the mountains of Asheville. As most beer tours will tell you, excellent water quality makes Asheville a prime location for brewing. Meanwhile, beautiful summer scenery and frigid winter temperatures make it a fantastic place to get drunk. From these key elements, an "if you brew it, they will come" situation evolved. Highland Brewing grew from the basement of a local taproom into a sprawling operation just outside of town, inspiri
The first time we visited London was before kids. We flew into London on a red-eye, each toting a giant travel backpack the weight of an average 6th gr ader. It was the type of bag you might use to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail and looked like the chrysalis of a new human being hunched over your spine. It was too large not to check on a commercial flight, but had been universally recommended by all the travel sites for getting on and off trains during a trip that would take us through four countries in two weeks. Of course, both straps on a bag that size have to be in working order, unless you plan to bear-hug it like a bag of mulch or drag it by a single strap like a dead dog through the street. Unfortunately, those were essentially the options recommended by customer service when Ray’s bag arrived at the London airport, brutalized and missing a strap. After a heated debate with airline staff over who should pay for the bag’s replacement, we eventually left with a credit to