My Epic Weekend In Pictures: Beer & Food Fest + FUN!

I'm going to be guilty of being that guy whining I need a weekend to rest from my Epic Weekend In Pictures. My long holiday weekend was fun and memorable. We will start my Epic Weekend In Pictures with Thursday afternoon, because we made a rather Epic announcement. From now until July 28th, we are doing a massive Pet Food / Supply Drive. We've teamed up with Sussex Rural Electric and Father John's Animal House, and the drop off location is at Franklin Sussex Auto Mall. With the forces of all these folks teaming up together along with our radio stations, I truly believe this could become the biggest Pet Food / Supply Drive in our area's history. All of us love getting to be a voice for those who can't stand and speak up for themselves. You can see all of the information about how you can help us by clicking here.

Doing Pet Of The Week on location at a venue outside our radio station can be very challenging. There are so many behind the scenes logistics that need to go perfectly, and fortunately for me, everyone brought their A Game. We were able to do our Facebook live video and recordings on location successfully, and I was able to drive back here to our radio station getting everything on air and online just in time. Success. Hard work and well worth it!

Fridays can be pretty hectic and fast paced at radio stations when you're going into a holiday long weekend. Well worth it. Long story short you basically hyper focus to cram a couple of days work into one so you can be off on that day. Well worth it!

Friday night I knew it was definitely in my best interest to keep things low key with my action packed weekend ahead. I met up with my core team of Jasen and Carrie, enjoying ice cold drinks at the Minerals Moonshine Tiki Bar on a hot summer night. It's always a great night when you're with your besties having fun. It's like that line from "It's A Wonderful Life," no man is a failure who has friends.

It wasn't a late night adventure, I warned everyone that it would be an early night for me because of everything we had going on this weekend. I was so excited for Saturday, over the years it has turned into one of my favorite days all year. Crystal Springs New Jersey Beer & Food Festival is truly one of my favorite events all year. All you can see across the beautiful golf course field is smiling faces. Tons of fun food, barbecue, and yes, 200+ different kinds of beer. I was able to bring my bestie Carrie, her first time ever going to Beer & Food Festival. This was the first time I have ever changed into one of my winter sweaters for Beer & Food Festival. The brilliance of my friends at Crystal Springs by having this event on the Saturday of Father's Day Weekend. I have so many friends who went there because their significant others brought them to the event as a Father's Day present. Even though I haven't been blessed with children of my own, it was still an amazing weekend.

I know me. Even if I'm at a party where there's amazing food, I still sometimes forget to eat. To combat this, I went to Jimmy Geez and did some protein loading with their Spicy Garlic wings. Success and it definitely helped open up my sinuses for sure! I'm very happy with my decision to eat early to avoid worrying about forgetting to eat.

It's funny. My bestie Carrie was so excited for her first time at Crystal Springs NJ Beer & Food Festival, but was also worried about potential turnout. There were several other events all across Sussex County on Saturday. I explained to her how I had zero concerns, knowing what a monster event this is. Driving by Crystal Springs Saturday morning while they were still setting up I just rolled my windows down to smell the delicious food they were starting to cook up for us.

Crystal Springs NJ Beer & Food Festival was PACKED. It might have been their largest one yet. While it was a comfortable cool Saturday afternoon that felt more like Fall than Summer, there were still smiling faces as far as the eye could see. One of the fun things when you go to an event is running into friends you haven't seen in person recently. One of the fun things is getting to enjoy it with your friends like Margie, Artie, and Damian My Favorite Realtor. To be candid, the 200+ beer offerings doesn't hurt either, lol.

We had a blast at the Crystal Springs NJ Beer & Food Festival. We were there from 3:30-6:00pm. By Saturday night it was great to just relax at The Minerals Moonshine Tiki Bar. It was rather quiet, which worked great for me. While it's fun running into so many friends both old and new, things can get rather tiring after awhile. It was great to unwind in quiet Saturday night.

Then Sunday Happy Juneteenth! One of my best friends JG and I enjoyed lunch at Hef's Hutt by Great Gorge Golf Club. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be on the golf course, or even right beside it like we were.

I was in bed early to rest up for another Epic adventure, our annual DPD Wiegand Farm Golf Classic.

This is one of my favorite days all year. (I know, again all in one long weekend, go figure.) The Catholic Charities Diocese Of Paterson Department For Persons With Disabilities is near and dear to my heart for sure, close to home. This was my second year being able to attend and golf at this tremendous event. It's another phenomenal event where you run into some old friends and make new ones too.

You see the many great people it takes to pull off a massive event like this. I'm proud to report we had a record breaking 400 golfers! It was packed with smiling people having fun on a gorgeous day. My partners in crime, Samir, Ron and Kevin from Visions Federal Credit Union were fortunately terrific golfers and very patient with me. They gave this beginner many helpful tips. I hit a shot on the green for the second time in my life! I also had a great drive towards the end. Basically I started off okay, in the middle was awful often missing the ball (as I called the shot Steve Allans,) then at the end made some progress. Golf is such a funny, entertaining and at times evil sport. Usually if you just simply hit it straight, you're fine. If you have ever golfed, you know that is just so often much easier said than done. We had a great day. I was able to run into my friend Sean who is one of the many great people DPD helps.

I ended up after the event with a wonderful free stogey they gave me at the event. Success.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. I hope you had a great weekend too. Time to start planning next weekend! I think there's a chance Rock, Ribs And Ridges might be involved lol.