Last Saturday we made the trek to the City Pages "Beer Fest" in Uptown Minneapolis. This is normally one of the best events in the summer. It combines sunshine, cheese curds, and beer. This year we had one more attribute to add to the list: hail storm.
I won't go into the excruciating details of the evening, but lets just say outdoor beer fests and hail storms do not mix.
It started harmlessly enough. We had a long line to get through, but this being a beer fest, the line is populated by beer drinkers, overall a jovial talkative group. After about 20-25 minutes of waiting we were about to get inside, when we got the warning about thunderstorms approaching Hennepin County. It is an outdoor festival with no real room for cover, but we decided to go in. I think the famous last words were "Hennepin County is a big county."
Turns out we didn't make it inside before the rain began. And it came down. Lots in big painful drops. The first one that hit me felt like a small bird had run into my head. We had some cover under the tent, which was good for the upper body, but a small flash flood developed, and our feet were caught in a 3" deep river of water. Then came the hail.
Or rather the first hail storm. We rode this out under the tent. It was fairly small hail - pea sized - but it still hurt when a stray one hit. Eventually this passed, the rain stopped and the drinking could commence.
This lasted for about five minutes. The the rain came again. And then the hail. This time it was personal.
The hail started small again and it was mostly an annoyance (hail does not improve the taste of beer). Then the big hail started falling. Big @ss hail. Hail that felt like rocks. It went from funny, to comical, to painful, to downright scary in about 11 seconds. And there was no cover to be found.
Almost none.
There is a code among guys you are supposed to follow. To quote Maverick, "never leave your wingman." I hope in the Book of Men there is an exception made for hail storms, because this is exactly what I did. There was a small bar table with two people crammed under it. There was room for one more head, which is exactly where I put my size 7 5/8" noggin. We rode out the storm while Mr. Gassman toughed it out, without any beer.
The rain and hail stopped, but it would return several times. The most disturbing part was when the sun came out, but then the hail returned. How can it be fricking hailing and sunshining at the same time?
We had a good break in the rain for a few hours, where we could focus on the beer. We were soaking wet, but since we were guys, we didn't want to leave the beer. So faced with such a quandary, how are you supposed to get warm? Simple - we smoked cigars. Not only did we get warm, but the smell helped thin out the crowds in front of us when we went back for more beer.
We got some good drinking in, we finished the cigars, and we were about to get some food. Then the rain returned. At this point, the beer fest would be closing in less than an hour. We looked at the sky, we looked at our soaking wet selves and almost simultaneously said "f-this! lets get the f-out of here!"
When I woke up Sunday morning, my head was hurting. I am fairly certain it had more to do with the hail than the beer.
Ahhh, but what memories!
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