Celebrating Christmas before hitting the road

Yesterday was Christmas! Well, in a way.

Through my friends at Positively Cleveland, I was introduced to a group of writers visiting the area. After a great meal, we headed out to Fat Head's - a brewery with bar and restaurant that had brewed, in limited supplies, its' Christmas Ale.

Christmas In July is something that has evolved over the past few years in Cleveland. Ted, the big chief at Fat Head, was only too willing for us to taste eight different brews.

They were just a small selection of those available. Christmas Ale was tapped on the day we tasted and, without prejudice, tasted superb.

Whilst there, I met one of the locals who was around 70 years of age and had visited over 300 breweries and tasted - wait for it - over 8,000 different beers! He keeps a log book of the beers tasted, but had not a trace of beer belly on him!

This morning was the time to leave Cleveland to head towards New York before Saturday's flight home.

A couple of hours into the journey I stopped for brunch. A fantastic corned beef has with real American (loosed) has browns on the side and scrambled egg.

A hearty meal was needed as I was only a fraction into the drive. As I ate, I was watching the local news channel that revealed that the overnight low of 75 degrees broke a record that had stood since 1935 in that county.

Plenty of iced water was again the order of the day. The drive was not helped by four major sets of roadworks on Interstate 80 East, one lasting for 11 miles.

Tuning to 1640AM gives traffic and weather reports, wherever you are. It proved to be company as I was motionless for quite some time as lane closures caused tailbacks, and took a photo to show the highest temperature of the day.

But also, the accuracy of the weather forecast - sorry, truecast - again didn't fail to amaze.

The weather guy read out storm warning number 521 (I presume for the year), with possible lightning strikes for the rest of the day, and a severe thunderstorm warning for 2.13pm tomorrow. I shall be checking my watch at 2.13pm and make a complaint if there is no storm.

Or will I? I fly tomorrow, and can do without any of that nonsense!

Roadsign of the day was spotted on the I80: Buckle up. Next million miles.

It wasn't quite that far to New Jersey, but I have arrived and booked in to a bed for the night.

Tomorrow, it's just a 30-minute drive to Manhattan, traffic permitting, for my trusty Subaru and I to part company.