Road Tips

Miss Phay Cafe - Davenport, IA

A year ago this past summer, we had heard that a new restaurant was going to open in the space of a former Mexican restaurant in a space just north of the downtown area of Davenport on Brady Street hill.  We would drive past the place for the next few months and we saw little to no work going on in the space.  Suddenly, earlier this spring we noticed that work was starting on the space.  Things started to take shape and we could see that they were putting some nice touches on the place.  It turned out that it was going to be a new Asian restaurant called Miss Phay Cafe.  One recent night when I didn't feel like cooking, my wife and I made the trek down to Miss Phay Cafe to check the place out.  

Mun Luangruang grew up in Thailand and knew her way around a kitchen at a very early age.  She would help her grandmother cook food for customers of her fathers rice mill who came far and wide to have their rice processed.  Luangruang eventually immigrated to the United States 1996 to join her family in Los Angeles.  Her father had opened a Thai restaurant in Los Angeles and Mun and other family members helped out.  She knew very little English when she came to the U.S., but working in the restaurant helped her learn the language. 

While in Los Angeles, Luangruang met a man whom she eventually married.  Her husband got a job at John Deere in the Quad Cities and the two moved to the area in 2000.  In 2001, a new Japanese steakhouse was opening in Davenport and Mun got a job working there.  It was at the restaurant where she met she met Kevin Zhang, a fellow Thai immigrant who was culinary-trained in China and Switzerland before moving to the U.S.  At the time, there was only one Thai restaurant in the Quad Cities and the two felt there was a need for another good Thai restaurant in the area.  In 2002 they opened Exotic Thai on E. 53rd St. in Davenport.  

Zhang soon left the endeavor and opened Crazy Wok - later renamed Tantra Asian Bistro - a competing Thai restaurant in Davenport.  Luangruang then partnered with her father and brother to open a second Exotic Thai in Moline in 2004, then they opened the LemonGrass Cafe, a combination Thai/Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Moline.  

Initially, they announced that they would open a second LemonGrass Cafe in Davenport last year.  But they decided to rename it Miss Phay Cafe instead.  Miss Phay is an imaginary character who grew up in Bangkok and has cultural backgrounds from Thailand, China and Vietnam.  The fictional Miss Phay immigrated to the United States and is said to tell stories of her homeland through her foods and traditions.  By enthusiastically presenting her cuisine, culture and beliefs, Miss Phay brings part of her life to people in the Quad Cities.  

Or something like that...

We were able to find parking just in front of Miss Phay on Brady Street, the main northbound street out of downtown Davenport.  (see map)  The building that houses Miss Phay has seen a number of businesses and restaurants come and go out of the location over the years.  Most recently, it was the home to a Mexican restaurant that closed up about two years ago.  

Stepping inside Miss Phay, you go directly into the bar area.  It's rather nice in there with hard wood floors, a small bar, some booths, and a subdued lighting scheme.  Miss Phay also has coffee and Asian-style breakfast items that are served in the bar area from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.  

We were greeted by a young lady and taken into the main dining area through an opening from the bar side.   The room had a large floral print on the wall with a two level dining area.  There was a small alcove on one side that had banquette seating on either side of a fireplace.  Asian art and bamboo basket light shades were very noticeable throughout the room.  

The young lady gave us a couple menus and we took a quick look at their drink menu.  They have a handful of specialty cocktails at Miss Phay Cafe including a signature drink called Passion Project - Malibu rum, guava liqueur, passion fruit juice, lemon and lime juice, and finished with fresh basil and mint leaves.  Wine and beer were also available from the bar.  My wife got a glass of the Forest Glen merlot and I got a pint of the Easy Eddy hazy pale from Big Grove Brewery, one of the rotating tap beer they have at Miss Phay.

The menu tilted more toward Vietnamese cuisine, but there was definitely an emphasis on Southeast Asian specialties.  There was a lemongrass pork chop on the menu, Asian barbecued pork, a bok choy stir fry with a choice of chicken, shrimp or pork belly, and a Cambodian-style rice/noodle soup, ground pork, Vietnamese ham, pork belly, shrimp and a fish ball.   It was all pretty interesting.  

I wanted to try one of their spring rolls, so I ordered up a couple of the shrimp spring rolls for my wife and me.  A small tub of peanut hoisin sauce came on the side.  It was actually pretty good.  I thought that I probably could've had a couple orders just for myself for dinner and I would have been happy.      

But I ended up going with a bowl of pho - chunks of steak and brisket with meat balls and the regular pho ingredients including bean sprouts, chopped basil, green onions and ginger.  Fresh basil leaves and a spicy hoisin sauce came on the side.  The base of the pho is a hearty beef broth that's rich in taste as it's simmered for 8 hours.  Rice noodles are added to the pho just before serving.  It was very good.  I did my best to finish what I could, but it was a lot of food. 

My wife likes the chicken dishes over at LemonGrass Cafe, so on this visit to Miss Phay she went with the vermicelli with a grilled lemongrass and turmeric chicken breast.   It came with chopped lettuce, sprouts, cucumbers, and fresh herbs.  Chopped peanuts and crispy shallots were sprinkled on the top of the chicken breast.  A bowl of Nuoc Cham, a sort of sweet and sour dipping sauce, came on the side.  My wife thought her meal was absolutely delicious.  However, like me, she found the portion to be a little too much.  When our waitress came back to check on us toward the end of our meal, she asked my wife if she wanted a to-go box. But my wife declined saying that it could never be as good re-heated as it was in the restaurant.  

Our dinner was made even more interesting as a man dining alone was obviously hitting on our waitress.  He was seated at a table near us, but still spaced enough for social distancing.  He asked her out twice and she rebuffed him both times.  But she was still friendly to him and it was obvious this guy was smitten with her.  We try not to listen to conversations at other tables, but this guy was pretty easy to hear.  

We found Miss Phay Cafe to be a nice little place to get an Asian-inspired meal.  We immediately decided that we would add Miss Phay to our rotation of Southeast Asian food restaurants that we'll go to in the Quad Cities.  It had everything that we like in a restaurant - a nice atmosphere with a friendly and accommodating staff.  They had very good food and having beer, wine and specialty drinks is a plus.  As I said, I could go back just to have a drink and some spring rolls.  We really enjoyed our visit.  

Road Tips 15 Year Anniversary

On October 28, 2005, I published my first Road Tips blog post on the now-defunct Town Pump in Clear Lake, IA.  It was a small, three paragraph entry long before I had a concrete idea or format that I wanted to go with in my blog.  In fact, I just re-read the entry and I'm pretty embarrassed.  It looked like it was written by a 9th grader who waited until the 11th hour to do a report.  (The only reason I think that is because I was once a 9th grader who waited until the 11th hour to write a LOT of reports.)   The first couple of years were really choppy and it was difficult to find my voice.  It took some time, but I eventually found my way to the scheme of things that eventually became the signature of Road Tips.  

Five years ago today, I wrote an entry on the 10 year anniversary of the blog.  It included the history of Road Tips, my inspirations, and other sorts of things that shaped the blog into what it was then. (Click here to read that post.)  Quite actually, the format hasn't changed much - if any - since that 10 year anniversary entry.  

As we all know, it's been a difficult year.  With travel all but shut down for me back in March, you've allowed me to go back into the archives and dust off some of the more memorable visits to restaurants and places I've been to over the years.  It's been sort of fun to read some of those entries and reminisce about some very remarkable and unforgettable places I've been to.  We took a couple of vacations this year and ate at some pretty good to very good places along the way, so you'll continue to read about those for the next few weeks.  Hopefully - and I'm being very hopeful here - I can get back out on the road in early 2021 when life, as we knew it before the COVID-19 pandemic, gets somewhat back to normal.  

As I've said numerous times over the years, many blogs don't last very long and that was even more telling to me when I recently went through my browser bookmarks on my computer of all the blogs that I followed for a number of years.  Many of them were food and restaurant blogs, much like Road Tips.  There were others that I had picked up along the way and read from time to time.  I had 81 blogs bookmarked and I started to go through to see which ones were active and pare down the ones that weren't.  It turned out that I trimmed 53 blogs out of my bookmarks.  Some were abandoned URL's, but many were just inactive with the last entries being anywhere from 3 to 6 years ago.  (I found one that I had bookmarked - actually, it was a friend of mine from Michigan - whose last entry was 11 years ago!)  

One thing that has happened recently in regard to Road Tips - I've run out of the allotted number of categories that I can use for the blog.  I tried to add a couple categories when we went to Northern Minnesota earlier this summer and Typepad won't allow me to add categories any longer.  Heck, I don't even know what the limit is or how many categories I even have.  I'm too lazy to count them or even find out.  I may have to consolidate some of the categories or take some of the ones where there's just one or two entries under a given category (or city) away.  

Yes, the pressure is on to maybe go back and edit out some of my previous entries.  And that may be hard as I have a bit over 2400 entries over the past 15 years.  That's a lot of writing about a lot of restaurants, travel, events, and observations.    

But today, I'm not going to go back into the history of the blog, nor am I going to wax nostalgic on the run Road Tips has had.  But 15 years is quite a long time in the blogosphere.  I've often said that this turned out to be a hobby that has taken on a life of its own.  Readership hits go up and down, but I'm happy that there are still people who continue to indulge me to write about my travel experiences.

I'm not certain there will be a 20th anniversary of Road Tips, times change and so do people and trends.  There's a lot of places to find reviews of restaurants and travel destinations on the Internet.  I'm just happy that I still have enough of an audience after all these years that keeps me going.

Once again, thanks for looking in!   

Bemidji Brewing Company - Bemidji, MN

When we go on trips, my wife and I like to search out brewpubs or microbreweries in the areas we end up.  We figured that choices would be pretty limited in Northern Minnesota, but it turned out that there was a small microbrewery in Bemidji called - appropriately enough - Bemidji Brewing Company.  The only problem was that it was closed the first couple of days we were there.  Finally, when it opened on Wednesday, we stopped in to try some of their beers.  

Hibbing, MN native Tom Hill was a student at Bemidji State University in 2003 when he and his roommate discovered there was more than just domestic beers available to drink.  The only problem was that the selection in Bemidji at the time was less than desirable.  But it turned out that another friend had started to brew his own beer at home.  Homebrewing was something that Hill never thought about, but after talking with his friend he found that the process was similar to making wine at home - something his father had been doing for years.

His friend had been making brown ales and stouts and he ended up giving Hill a book on home brewing.  After reading through the book, Hill became obsessed with the art of home brewing and tried to learn as much as he could about it.

After graduating from Bemidji State with a degree in design technology, Hill took an internship in Austin, TX.  It was there that he was exposed to Austin's burgeoning craft brew community.  He enjoyed his time in Texas, but he really wanted to get back to northern Minnesota.  After six months working in Austin, Hill went back to Bemidji State to enroll in a grad program and to teach a class on machining.  

It was back in Bemidji that Hill met another craft brew enthusiast by the name of Justin "Bud" Kaney.  Kaney had taken the machining course Hill taught and the two bonded over some of the beers Hill was making.  Hill became so obsessed with becoming a brewer that he quit school and moved down to Minneapolis to work in a microbrewery there.  But this was 2008 going into 2009 and times were tough with the Great Recession going on.  Finding a brewery that would take him on as an apprentice brewer was pretty much out of the question.  

Hill eventually found work as a machinist, but in his spare time he studied more of the art of brewing beer.  He helped out at Northern Brewer, a home-brew supply store in St. Paul, he became a certified cicerone learning about all aspects of selecting and serving beers to people, and he enrolled in the World Brewing Academy's Concise Course through the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago.  

In the meantime, Bud Kaney had moved out to Rhode Island to work for Hasbro Toys.  But he just knew that he didn't want to be sitting in a cubicle designing parts for toys on a daily basis.  He ended up calling Hill to discuss the possibility of doing their own microbrewery.  

Through all of this, it turned out that Hill's and Kaney's girlfriends - now their wives - were into the home/craft brewing thing, as well.  The four got together back in Bemidji to try different beers, and Tom and Bud would discuss about running their own microbrewery with Hill as the head brewer.  That dream came true when the two couples formally incorporated their new nano-brewery, Bemidji Brewing Company which was named after a brewery by the same name that was in Bemidji nearly 100 years before which shut down due to Prohibition.  

Pictured at left - Justin "Bud" Kaney, Tina Hanke-Kaney, Tom Hill and Megan Betters-Hill.  Photo courtesy The Growler magazine.  

The group had some obstacles to overcome - primarily financial.  But they instituted a Kickstarter program on-line that raised over $17,000 to buy equipment and cover other start-up costs associated with brewing beer.  Secondly, they had get the proper state and federal permits to brew beer.  And third, they had to convince others to try their beer.  

The group set up shop in the community kitchen at the Harmony Food Co-op in Bemidji.  They brewed beers in a 25-gallon brewing apparatus and used a barrel-aged mixed-fermentation process since their first day of brewing.   Kaney and Hill took their beers around to some of the bars in downtown Bemidji and one - Brigid's Cross Irish Pub - started to sell their beers.  Bemidji Brewing Company was finally starting to gain momentum.

Over time as Bemidji Brewing's output gradually grew and more aging barrels had been acquired, Hill and Kaney knew that they couldn't continue to work out of the kitchen at the Harmony Food Co-op.  In 2013, the group found a building that was less than a block from the food co-op that was perfect for not only their brewing tanks, but as a tap room, as well.  The group worked with the Bemidji city council to pass an ordinance to allow on-site sale of their brewed beers and for growlers to-go.  Once the new brewing apparatus and tanks were in place - and setting up a tap room with a small outdoor patio off to the side - Bemidji Brewing Company opened in their present location in July of 2013.  

We had seen Bemidji Brewing Company beers at a handful of places we had visited when we first got to Bemidji on our northern Minnesota vacation in August of this year.  Some places, that's all they had for craft beers on tap.  But I wanted to go to the brewery first before we had one of their beers out in one of the bars or restaurants.  We tried to go there on Monday, but it was closed that day and on Tuesdays.  

It was just after 1 p.m. when we pulled up to Bemidji Brewing.  (see map)   It was a nice day, but we decided to head inside to try some of their beers.  We found a nice little space with knotty pine accents, heavy duty tables with metal chairs, and a walk-up bar with a corrugated tin facing.  It wasn't big, but tables were properly spaced for COVID-19 restrictions.   

The brewing operation was behind large glass windows on the backside of the tap room.  It was a pretty impressive operation with kegs and canning equipment.  There was also a small kitchen off behind the bar area and they had a short menu of items to munch on consisting of things such as a traditional bratwurst on a bun, a couple flatbread pizzas, a pretzel with cheese sauce, meat sticks, stringed cheese, and a smoked lake trout dip that sounded pretty good.  

They had a very nice, but small outdoor patio area off to the south side of the building.  We spent some time out there one evening on a subsequent visit to Bemidji Brewing.  It was a nice place to chill out.  

Their available beers were listed on the wall behind the bar.  I stood there for a moment looking at what they had when one of the young guys working that day came out with a beer card for me to look over.  "You don't need to stand there when you can be sitting down looking at this," he said when he handed me the card.  

My wife wanted to try a flight of beers.  She got a 5 ounce glass of the summer lager, a glass of the Oktoberfest (it had evidently just come out), a glass of their traditional IPA, and a German blonde ale.  I tried samples of two beers - the espresso porter (it was too forward in taste) and one other one that I really liked. 

That one was a hazy double IPA which was absolutely delicious.  That and the IPA were my beers of choice at Bemidji Brewing.  But I especially liked the hazy double IPA.  In fact, I bought two sixers of both the double IPA and the regular IPA before we left Bemidji to go home.  I wish I would have bought more as they didn't last very long after we got home.  

My wife didn't care for the summer lager - I tried it and I have to say that I agreed with her.   I saw it on tap at a couple three places around Bemidji and I'm glad I didn't try it before I sampled it at the tap room.  She also liked the IPA, but wasn't too enamored with the Oktoberfest (I wasn't either - it was all right), and she didn't care for the German blonde ale, but I thought it was not bad.  

After spending some time at Bemidji Brewing Company sampling beers and hanging out, then having more of their beers at other establishments around town, I have to say that there were some things that I really liked and others that I didn't.  But everyone is a little different in their tastes and likes, so you shouldn't think that some of their beers are clunkers.  They've done a fine job marketing their beers across northern Minnesota and the tap room at Bemidji Brewing seems like a fun place to hang.  We really enjoyed going there.  

Mazzola's - Steamboat Springs, CO

During our trip to Steamboat Springs, there was an Italian restaurant that we had seen when we were there in the past.  Mazzola's Italian Diner looked intriguing to us as it was located on the lower level of a building on Lincoln Ave., the main street through downtown Steamboat Springs.  We studied the menu that was posted outside Mazzola's front door one day, and as we're always up for good old school Italian food, we decided to give Mazzola's a try one evening.  

In the 1960's, Roy and Mary Ann Mazzola ran a restaurant in Denver, but loved going out to Steamboat Springs for their getaways.  In 1970, an opportunity to buy a restaurant in Steamboat Springs presented itself and they opened Mazzola's Italian Diner in a stand-alone building on what was then the outskirts of Steamboat.  The Mazzola's had five kids and all of them worked in the restaurant at one time or another.

In 1977, the Mazzola's sold their Italian restaurant to Curt and Mary Weiss, a local couple who had moved to Steamboat Springs three years earlier for Curt's job as a property manager.   Roy and Mary Ann Mazzola moved to Meeker, CO in 1978 to open Mama Mazzola's, a popular pizza place there.  

The Weiss' ran Mazzola's for a little over seven years before selling to Cooper and Tracy Barnett in March of 1985.  Cooper Barnett had previous restaurant experience as he was the manager of the now-gone Sidestep restaurant in Steamboat for 17 years.  

The Barnett's ran Mazzola's for the next 19 years which included a move to their downtown Steamboat Springs location during that time.  By 2003, however, Cooper Barnett was getting burned out working in a restaurant, and Tracy and he started to look for new ownership.  

In the summer of 2004, they found someone in Rex Brice, a trained chef who also had a restaurant consulting business in addition to being the co-owner of a local coffee house.  Brice had always wanted to own a full-service eatery, but he knew that the key to being a restaurant owner was to own a number of them.  After buying Mazzola's in 2004, he started Rex's American Grill & Bar located in the Holiday Inn on the southside of town.  From there, Brice opened restaurants such as Big House Burgers and Bottle Cap Bar in 2008, Lil' House Country Biscuits & Coffee in 2009, the Laundry Kitchen in 2012, Salt & Lime in 2015 and he bought the Creekside Cafe in 2018.  

Pictured at right, Rex Brice.  Photo courtesy Steamboat Pilot.  

We were able to find parking just a few doors down from Mazzola's on Lincoln Ave.  (see map)   The restaurant is basically situated in part of the basement of The Bristol, a boutique hotel that dates back over 70 years.  The front entrance to Mazzola's gives the impression that it's just a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant - and in a way it is.  But the front door at Mazzola's takes you to a set of stairs on the left which lead to the basement restaurant.

Mazzola's is in a long narrow space with an L-shaped dining area.  Dark mahogany walls are the main accent in the restaurant.  Banquette seats with tables were toward the back of the restaurant.  And in the back of the restaurant was a small area with tables and a couple booths.  The lighting was subdued in the place which made the atmosphere laid-back and cozy.  

We were greeted by a young man who sat us in a booth directly across from the small bar at the front of the restaurant.  He handed us a couple of menus and asked if we wanted anything to drink.  They had an IPA from the local Storm Peak brewery on tap and I got one of those.  My wife started out with a Tito's and cranberry juice.  

Pizza, pasta dishes and a handful of Italian entrees were the main part of the menu.  They had about a dozen pasta choices on the menu and four or five Italian specialties to choose from.  They had a lasagna made with Colorado-raised bison on the menu, a traditional fettuccine alfredo caught the eye of both my wife and me, and vodka shrimp with penne pasta noodles and pancetta in a tomato cream sauce sounded interesting.  They had a butternut ravioli that would have been more appealing to me if it had been meat-filled ravioli.

Starting off dinner, we were served a basket of toasted bread with garlic butter in a pesto oil mixture with roasted garlic and kalamata olives.  The dinner salads consisted of a lemon-garlic dressing that is made in house.  The dressing had a nice zippy taste to it.

For our main dinner that evening, my wife went with the chicken piccata.  It featured a chicken breast pan-seared in a lemon-butter-caper sauce and served on a bed of fettuccine, then topped with fresh arugula, sliced cherry tomatoes and green olives.  My wife got a glass of pinot grigio to go along with her meal.

I was torn between the baked meat lovers (sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon) penne pasta with bolognese sauce and topped with mozzarella cheese, or the chicken parmesan.  I ended up going with the chicken parm that evening.  It featured a breaded chicken breast baked with mozzarella cheese, then served on a bed of spaghetti noodles with a tangy marinara sauce.  The chicken parm was topped with fresh chopped basil.  I got a glass of the Hahn cabernet to go along with the meal.   

While I think I would have liked the baked meat lovers penne pasta a bit more, the chicken parmesan at Mazzola's was pretty good.  The chicken was a bit more dry that I would have liked, but the marinara helped with the overall taste of the meal.  But the portion was large and it was very filling.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best chicken parm I've ever had.  

My wife also thought her chicken piccata was a bit over-cooked.  She really wanted to get a side of fettuccine alfredo, but that would have been $9 bucks and she thought that was a bit too much for her to just try three or four bites.  But she did enjoy the arugula greens along with the lemon-butter-caper sauce that was used to cook the chicken in.  She thought her meal was fine, but nothing special.  

We'd have to say that Mazzola's was a fair to good Italian restaurant.  While we thought our meals were good, it wasn't much better than average compared to other Italian restaurants we've been to.  The service was prompt and friendly, the atmosphere was cozy and warm, and the selection of wine and craft beers was adequate.  Mazzola's has been around for 50 years so they must be doing something right.  It would be worth a try if you're looking for family-style Italian food in Steamboat Springs.  

Sparkling Waters - Bemidji, MN

While my wife and I were in Bemidji for a summer vacation earlier this year, there was a restaurant that was walking distance from our hotel that we had passed a number of times.  It turned out in talking with locals that it was one of the better places to eat in the area and came highly recommended.  One night we headed over to Sparkling Waters for dinner.  

Doug and Reva Howe were franchisees of the Mr. Steak restaurant in Mankato, MN.  An opportunity arose in the mid-1970's to open a Mr. Steak in Bemidji and the Howes moved to the area soon thereafter.  The Howes ran the Mr. Steak for 10 years and sold the property to Kathy Guess who turned the restaurant into a Bonanza steakhouse.  

Just after the turn of the century, Reva Howe took a job as the sales manager/coordinator for the new Hampton Inn and Suites located just across the road from the Howes old restaurant.  When Kathy Guess shut the restaurant down at the end of 2007 after not wanting to sign another 10 year franchise agreement, Reva got the notion that she'd like to resurrect the old building into a new restaurant.  The building was in need of repairs and updating when the Howe family repurchased the property in the spring of 2008.  The building was given a facelift and added on to with extra dining areas and an upstairs area.  With updates complete and a staff in place, Doug and Reva Howe opened Sparking Waters in October of 2008.  Their son Logan is the operating manager for the restaurant.  

Sparkling Waters is located in between the two one-way main roads on the far south side of Bemidji.  (see map)  It's actually on the isthmus between Lake Bemidji to the north and the smaller Lake Irving on the south side.  There are drive-in entrances on either side of the restaurant, but parking is available in a larger lot on the south side.  

We went in the south main doors and the restaurant seemed like it was closed down as there wasn't anyone in sight at the hostess stand or in the first dining area we saw.  But it did seem pretty nice in the place.  There was a nice little holding area just as you come in the front door, a nice dining area that looked like it could be closed off for receptions and meetings, an upstairs dining area and patio, and a couple of other dining areas near an open-window kitchen where we found where people were actually seated.  We finally found someone who worked there and told her that we'd like to have dinner.  It turned out that most people come in through the door to the bar area on the opposite side of the restaurant during the week and that's why we didn't see a hostess.  

We were seated at a table in a little alcove area off the bar and given a couple menus to look over.  Our server for the evening was a nice young lady by the name of Jessica.  My wife started off with a Lavinia martini - one of the specialty martinis made in the Waves Lounge at Sparkling Waters.  It consisted of Absolut raspberry vodka, Chambord liqueur and lime juice.  I asked if they had any of the Kona Big Wave and Jessica said that they did.  I got a bottle of that to start out.  

The menu at Sparkling Waters wasn't very deep, but that's a good thing in our book as some restaurants know their place and specialize in a few things.  In Sparkling Waters case it was beef, fresh water fish and seafood, and a couple of pasta dishes.  Small plates/appetizers, salads and sandwiches are also available on a separate menu.  

Because the menu is pretty short, it was going to be pretty easy to figure out what I wanted to have that evening.  They have prime rib every day that they're open (closed on Sunday) compared to other restaurants that may only have prime rib on Friday or Saturday nights.  Barbecued pork ribs are available at Sparkling Waters, as well as shrimp, lobster tail, a USDA Choice filet, and a Mediterranean seafood pasta dish that featured mussels, shrimp, kalamata olives, chopped tomatoes and capers over a bed of pasta.  

My wife went with the Atlantic salmon.  It had a honey glaze and grilled lightly.  It was served with a vegetable medley - some things we weren't certain what they were in the medley - and my wife had a choice of potato.  She got the garlic mashed potatoes.  She thoroughly enjoyed the salmon and was very impressed with the vegetable medley.  There was some sort of squash in the medley, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly.  My wife got a glass of the Cavazza pinot grigio to go with her meal.  

I also went the fish direction with the tantalizing Walleye a la Meunière - Minnesota walleye dredged in a seasoned flour, then cooked in a white wine/lemon/butter sauce.  It was topped with capers and the same vegetable medley was on the side.  My choice for potato that evening was the twice-baked potato.  It was served in a small bowl with the fish and veggie medley.  I also wanted a glass of wine with my meal and I chose the Merryvale Starmont chardonnay.  

The walleye was simply outstanding - light, flaky, not fishy in taste at all.  The meunière sauce was tangy and rich, and it went extremely well with the walleye.  I especially liked the twice-baked potato that was sprinkled with chives.  And the vegetable medley was surprisingly very good.  I did like the squash, as well.  

The meal wasn't very filling, so we decided to get some dessert.  My wife was torn between the raspberry/caramel drizzled cheesecake and the housemade chocolate/cherry ice cream.  I said to Jessica, our server, "Let's do both!"  

She sort of laughed and said, "You can't go wrong that way!"

The cheesecake was huge!  The raspberry/caramel drizzle was more of a pour on the slice.  It was very good and I asked Jessica if they made the cheesecake in house.  "No, I'm sorry," she said apologetically.  "We get it from Sysco, one of our food service purveyors.  But, it's good, isn't it?"  I couldn't disagree with her on that.  

My wife was very happy with the ice cream.  A mint leaf adorned the top of the scoop and she said it had a great flavor with the chocolate and cherry combination.  She made quick work of the ice cream and helped me put a significant dent in the very good and decadent cheesecake.  

After dinner, things were winding down and I asked Jessica if I could get a scotch.  I got two fingers of The Macallan 12-year-old scotch that my wife took a couple sips of as she said she felt she needed to "help me out" in drinking it.  With music from artists such as Della Reese, Frank Sinatra, Trudy Desmond and Johnny Hartman playing in the background all evening long, it was a nice and relaxing end to a good meal.  

As we were enjoying the scotch, Reva Howe stopped by to talk with us.  We were asking questions about the place and she gave us the history and run-down of how she and her husband had started the Mr. Steak in 1977 in the same building, then sold it when the company changed their menu to a more "healthy" alternative about 10 years later.  

She told us that she always harbored feelings for the Mr. Steak restaurant and for the building in general.  "When they built the Hampton Inn over across the street and I started to work there, I would look over here and sort of dream about having the building again," she lamented.  "When the lady who bought the building from us decided to close down, I knew I wanted it back."  

My wife was quizzing Reva Howe on the ingredients of the vegetable medley we both had that evening, especially the squash.  "That is a squash," she told my wife when asked.  "That's a white bush scallop squash."  (Click here to see a picture of the squash.)  She said that it's a summer squash and her son, Logan, raises them in his garden at his home outside of Bemidji.  "In fact, he raises a lot of the vegetables we serve here at the restaurant in the summer," Reva said.  

The next evening, we had finished up our meal at another restaurant and were hoping to have an after dinner drink.  However, the bar at the restaurant had closed, so I told my wife that maybe we needed to head back out to Sparkling Waters and go into the Waves lounge to see if they were still open.  There were five people seated around the three-sided bar and I asked the bartender if he was still open.  "Well, technically, we close at 9 p.m.," he told us. (it was a bit past 9.) "But if people are here and I don't have any place to be, then I'll stick around."  

It turned out the bartender was Logan Howe.  We had told him that we had dinner the night before and had talked with his mom about things around the restaurant and around town.  He said, "Yeah, she went home early tonight.  She knows things are in good hands when I'm here."  And then he laughed.  

My wife was asking him about his garden and especially about the white bush scallop squash we had the previous evening.  He went back into the kitchen and brought out a couple of the small squash.  "They cook up very easily," Logan explained to my wife.  "Just cut 'em up and bake 'em."  He handed the two squash to my wife to take home with her.  

Two women at the bar and a couple on the opposite side were regulars.  There was a traveling salesman sitting at the bar, but it appeared that Waves was a regular stop for him when he would stay in Bemidji.  We hung out for about an hour and a half, and my wife was significantly over-served by Logan.  It was fun to hang out like one of the regulars as everyone was friendly and talkative.  

It was a great meal on one visit and a fun time in the lounge the next night at Sparkling Waters and Waves Lounge.   Everyone we came across at the restaurant and lounge were personable and friendly.  We thought our meals were very good - I can't rave enough about the Walleye a la Meunière that I had.  And my wife really enjoyed her honey-glazed grilled Atlantic salmon.  For beef and seafood - or combinations thereof - this is probably the best place in the immediate Bemidji area to eat.  Good food, good drinks, good service, and good atmosphere add up to a wonderful experience at Sparkling Waters.  

Taste of Ethiopia - Davenport, IA

A new Ethiopian restaurant opened in downtown Davenport about a year and a half ago and my wife and I had been thinking about going there to check it out, but never made the time to do so.  One recent weekend, a friend of ours who used to work with my wife years ago came back for the weekend.  She and her husband are pretty adventurous when it comes to their tastes of cuisine and it turned out that they eat quite regularly at Ethiopian restaurants in their hometown of Indianapolis.  My wife had mentioned something about the new Ethiopian restaurant we had and since our friend knew about the food, we decided to have her accompany us for our first visit to Taste of Ethiopia.  

Genet Moraetes grew up in Ethiopia when a civil war broke when she was a teenager.  The strife between the junta government and anti-government rebels continued for a number of years before Genet decided that she needed to flee the war-torn country for her own safety.  She got a student visa for a college in the Washington D.C. area and left Ethiopia at the age of 25.  

After landing in the Washington area and entering school, Genet worked in a restaurant as a waitress.  It was at this restaurant where she met George Moraetes, a native of Davenport who was stationed at a nearby Army base.  The two started a romance and eventually were married, then moved back to the Quad Cities where George worked as a telecommunications technician.  

In the Quad Cities, Genet Moraetes found two other ladies who grew up in Ethiopia - Tigist Anberger and Saba Gebresilassie - and the three ladies began to make foods that they grew up with.  Friends and family were impressed with their Ethiopian foods that the three decided to open a food tent on the deck of the Freight House Farmers Market in 2016.  Open every Saturday from May thru October, their Ethiopian specialties were such a hit that it gave George and Genet Moraetes an idea.  Why not open their own brick and mortar restaurant?  

A space that had been vacated by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society opened up at the old Union Station building just across the street from the Freight House Farmers Market.  The Moraetes petitioned the city to lease the space for 5 years, and in October of 2018 that request was granted by the city.  The couple and family members spent the next few months renovating the space and hoped to be open by the spring of 2019.

However, the Flood of 2019 made them change their plans.  The area around the building was inundated with flood waters and the Moraetes had to push back their opening by a few months.  Construction workers putting the finishing touches on the interior of the restaurant had to wade through flood waters to get into the place.  But by July of 2019, floodwaters had receded and Taste of Ethiopia opened up for business soon thereafter.   

We parked in the lot on the north side of the building just south of River Drive and just north of LeClaire Park in downtown Davenport.  (see map)  The front door to Taste of Ethiopia is on the south side of the building and we walked around the building and up the ramp to go in.  

We were pleasantly surprised with the dining area at Taste of Ethiopia.  Hard wood floors, dark-red table tops, a well-lit atmosphere, and a very clean environment is what we found.  A young lady by the name of Sonia came out to greet us as we came in and told us we could sit about anywhere.  There was an outdoor patio, but it was a little cool in the later part of the day/early evening, so we sat at a high-top table inside.  Sonia dropped off menus for us and I was pleasantly surprised to see they had beer and wine available behind the little bar area.  My wife got a glass of Barricas Malbec, our friend got a glass of Bricco Riella Moscato d'Asti, and I got a pint of the Goose Island IPA they had on tap.  

Looking through the menu, our friend guided us through the unfamiliar terrain of Ethiopian food.  They had primarily beef dishes, but there was a spicy chicken entree - Ye'Doro Kay Wot - and a fried pollack fish feature, as well.  There were a handful of vegetarian options on the menu, as well.   And Taste of Ethiopia had a number of items that could be shared as an appetizer or as a stand alone meal.  The Ye'Siga Sambusa featured hand-wrapped shells of pastry filled with steak, green peppers and onions.  The Loaded Tib Fries sounded interesting as they featured beef cooked with ginger and garlic and served on fries and topped with scallions.  They also had Ethiopian-style tacos - a beef taco plate (spicy or non-spicy beef) and a fried fish taco plate.  For the less adventurous, Taste of Ethiopia had chicken strips, catfish nuggets, and chicken wings (boneless or bone-in).  

After she explained many of the items on the menu, our friend suggested getting two of the combination plates for 2 people - a meat combo and a vegetarian combo.  With the meat combo, if came with 4 sides and the vegetarian combo came with 6 choices of sides.  

With the meat combo, we ordered the spicy chicken and the Ye'Siga Kay Wot, a spicy beef simmered with onions, garlic and spices.  Our sides with the meat combo included spicy lentils, regular lentils, cabbage and green beans with carrots.  

Our vegetarian combo consisted of a beet salad, gomen (Ethiopian collard greens), spicy lentils, cabbage, potatoes with carrots, and a chickpea stew called shiro.  The items on both combo plates came on a bed of Ethiopian flat bread called injera.  And rolled up injera bread came on the side.  

From there, our friend basically showed us how to eat the food.  The injera bread could be unrolled or torn off the plate to dip into the sauces or vegetable dishes.  She took some of the spicy beef and put some on the injera before eating it, similar to dressing a tortilla in a Mexican restaurant.  The injera had an interesting flavor and had sort of a spongy consistency.  My wife and I both liked it.  

As for the overall meal, well, it was very interesting, to say the least.  For Ethiopian food newbies, I would have to say we liked the spicy beef and the spicy chicken selections.  I'm not big on lentils, but I really enjoyed the spicy lentils that our friend picked out.  My wife enjoyed the beet salad a lot, and she seemed to like the chickpea stew, too.  

After we finished dinner, our friend said that her husband always likes to get an Ethiopian coffee after he finishes his meal.  She said that it was more like espresso and I like to have a large espresso a couple times a week.  I usually don't like to have espresso at night, but it was a Saturday night and I figured I'd be up later than usual anyhow.  

Well, the Ethiopian coffee just about knocked me on my ass!   The caffeine kick completely zipped me up.  It was sweet and similar to espresso in taste, but it was a bit more watery.  I joked to my wife and friend that it was like drinking liquid meth.  Wow!  I think I was up until about midnight that night and it was around 6:30 p.m. when I finished the coffee.  

I'd always wondered about Ethiopian food and now we finally had the chance to try it at the somewhat new Taste of Ethiopia in downtown Davenport.  I don't know if there was anything we disliked about the place - the food was fascinating, the service was friendly, the place was clean and comfortable, and the overall vibe was pleasant.  The food was akin to Indian food, but only in the sense that it was sort of an eclectic comfort food.   George Moraetes dropped by the table to chat after dinner and we told him that it our first visit and that my wife and I would be back.  Even if you're skeptical of Ethiopian food, you should at least give the Taste of Ethiopia a try if you're a rookie at Ethiopian cuisine. 

Steamboat Springs, CO - 2020

My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary earlier this year.  We had hoped to go to California, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, those plans sort of went by the wayside.  We had moved our May vacation dates to early September and we were trying to figure out what to do.  When we were out in Colorado a couple years ago, we had a spur-of-the-moment visit to Steamboat Springs that turned out to be surprisingly excellent.  From that point on, Steamboat Springs was my favorite place in all of Colorado.  Of course, I haven't visited all of Colorado, so Steamboat Springs is my favorite place in Colorado - up to now!  So, it was always a goal of mine to get back out to Steamboat Springs, hopefully sooner than later.  (Logo courtesy Redbubble)

We were hanging out at a local Quad Cities brewpub one evening in late August and we had pretty much made up our mind up to that point that we were going to use the open invitation my sister's fiancé has given us for staying for a week at his lake home along Lake Panorama in west central Iowa.  But my wife had other ideas.  "What about Colorado," she asked. "Wouldn't it be nice to get back out to Steamboat?"  

I said, "Well, we could drive out the first day to North Platte, spend the night, then get into Steamboat the next afternoon."  Then she said, "Why don't we fly?"

I checked prices on my United Airlines application on my phone for the dates we wanted to fly to and from Denver out of Moline.  Yikes!  Tickets would be $478 per person round trip.  My wife then suggested that I look up flights out of Des Moines.  "Maybe we could come back from Colorado and go to the lake for a couple days," she reckoned.  

I looked up flights out of Des Moines.  It was somewhat better - $177 per person round trip.  And then I thought, "Wait a minute.  We're halfway between Des Moines and Chicago.  Wonder what fares are at O'Hare?"  I did a quick check and couldn't believe my eyes - $84 per person round-trip.  I about fell off my seat.  It was so unbelievably cheap that I knew it couldn't be right.

When we got back home, I got on my computer to make sure that the price I had seen on my phone for our flights was correct.  It was - $168 round trip for two people.  Then the wheels started to turn.  We could drive to Chicago, spend the night at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare - my home away from home when I'm in Chicago - leave my car there, then fly out of O'Hare the next morning.  We could spend a week in Colorado, fly back to O'Hare.  Spend a night back at the Hilton Garden Inn, then drive back home the next day.  

And, being a Lifetime Diamond member of the Hilton Honors program, I still had a bunch of points left over from our trip to northern Minnesota just a couple weeks before.  I started to look up room points for Chicago, Denver (one night) and then Steamboat Springs.  Turned out that I could get rooms with relatively little use of the points.  

I turned to my wife and said, "This is stupid!  I'm booking all of this right now!"  She was giddy finding out that we were going to Colorado for a week and we didn't have to drive.

But, yes, we'd need a car once we got to Colorado.  Well, I still had a bunch of points through Hertz that I've been wanting to use for awhile.  But, when I went to the Hertz website to see if I could rent a car through them on points, it wouldn't allow me to.  I tried a couple three times to rent something through Hertz using points, but it wasn't going to work. 

So, I ended up checking to see how much a mid-sized car would cost for a week at Hertz.  It would be $475 a week, but adding on taxes and fees would boost to about $600 bucks.  Then I remembered that my company had worked out a deal on rental cars through National.  I went to the National site, put in my Emerald Club number and up popped a Volkswagen Passat (or similar) for $375 a week.  With taxes and fees, it was going to be about $470 for the week.  (Taxes and fees on rental cars at the Denver International Airport kills you.) I didn't hesitate - I booked it.  I figured that we would probably be saving $400 bucks by being able to park our car at the Hilton Garden Inn instead of at O'Hare, so to me that was a push.  Everything was booked, and a week later away we went.  

Flying during a pandemic is rather interesting.  Everyone masks up in the airport and on the plane.  But the TSA doesn't seem to care about social distancing.  They were very adamant about keeping the line moving - even though there weren't many people in line for screening.  One lady was impatient with me as I was removing things from my carry-on bag imploring me to hurry up.  Even when the pandemic wasn't happening, I don't think I have ever been hustled along that brusquely by a TSA agent.  

The flight was a little longer than usual - we were forced to fly up north over Central Wisconsin and then down in a southwesterly direction to get to Denver due to severe thunderstorms that were coming in from Iowa.  (The whole time we were gone, it rained nearly every day in the Quad Cities and in Chicago.  My neighbor monitored our rain gauge while we were gone and we ended up with just over 9 inches of much needed rain that fell the week we were gone.  It had been weeks since we had seen any appreciable precipitation fall and we were definitely in a drought.  But the other plus was that if we had decided to hang out at Lake Panorama that week, we wouldn't have been able to do anything as it rained there, too.)  

It was already in the upper 80's in Denver when we landed around 10:15 a.m.  High temperatures had been in the upper 90's and into the low 100's over the previous couple of days and it was supposed to continue like that for at least another couple of days before a massive cold front was predicted to come down on Colorado dropping high temperatures by at least 50 degrees and promising the first significant snow of the season.  We knew that the weather could change before we left and we were somewhat prepared for it.  

We got our bags at Denver International Airport and took the shuttle bus out to National.  On the way out to the National terminal, I checked the National application on my phone to see where I could pick up the car.  It informed me that there was a problem with processing my reservation and that I had to see an agent at the desk.  Well, when we got off the shuttle, there were three long lines to get into National and Alamo, which shares a building with National.  I was pissed because I figured that we'd be standing in line for over an hour to get a car - not a great way to start our vacation.

As we were standing there for about five minutes, a young lady who was an agent for National was coming down the line to make sure people were in the right line.  She came up to me and asked if we were with National and I said, yes, we were.  But I indicated that I was an Emerald member and there seemed to be some confusion about my reservation and I needed to see a desk agent.  She asked if she could see my Emerald number and I pulled up the app on my phone and showed her.  She studied it for a moment and she said, "Oh, we can take care of that at the gate.  It's probably a credit card number or something that we didn't have.  Go pick out a car and get on your way."  

I was somewhat astonished - and very thankful - that we were on our way to get a car so quickly.  Emerald members can pick out whatever kind of car they want in a special lot.  My wife and I wheeled our bags over to the lot and we saw a number of mini-vans and a handful of cars.  "Not a lot to choose from," my wife said.

However, we did see two cars that were side-by-side - a Nissan Maxima and an Infinity Q50.  Wait a minute - I can take a Q50 for a week?  For $375 bucks plus taxes and fees?  Well, that was a no-brainer!  We started packing up the Q50, got all settled in, got in line, got to the gate, the gate agent sorted everything out, the gate lifted and we were on our way!  

Our first stop had to be for lunch and, of course, if I'm in Denver we have to go to the Cherry Cricket.  We got there just before noon, got in right away and I immediately ordered a cold IPA while my wife got a vodka/cranberry.  Of course, I had to get a cup of their great pork green chili.  And that was followed by one of their great burgers with pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and green chiles.

My wife got just a regular burger for her lunch, but I was also astonished that she remembered and asked for Cherry Cricket's green chili cheese fries.  This cholesterol-laden, artery-clogging plate of supreme flavor and goodness is always a treat.  Of course, there was no way that we could come close to finishing the plate of unhealthy decadence, but we did make a significant dent in it.

Not much had changed inside the Cherry Cricket from the last time I had been in a year ago - save for the social distancing directives.  But outside, I was sort of surprised to see that they had taken the back parking lot out and put in a sun-drenched back patio with artificial turf and colorful rubber tiling.  The back wall was covered with vines and a number of metal tables with umbrellas were spaced out in the patio.  Actually, as it was warm and sunny that day, if I would have known that they had the patio in the back, we probably would have sat out there.

We took off after lunch for a nearly 3 hour journey up to Steamboat Springs.  It's straight shot out of Denver on I-70 up into the mountains, through the Eisenhower Tunnel at the Continental Divide, then down the other side to Silverthorne, CO.  

From there, we took Colorado Highway 9 up to Kremmeling where it met up with US Highway 40 that took us all the way into Steamboat.  The scenery along Highway 9 is breathtaking at points along the way.  It's not quite as magnificent as Highway 9's route south of Breckenridge that we took a couple years ago, but there's still some noteworthy places to turnout and enjoy the scenery.   This is picture from a turnout near Rabbit Ears Pass just south of Steamboat.  

Getting into Steamboat Springs, we checked into our hotel, the Homewood Suites on the far south side of the town.  This hotel is new from our previous visit to Steamboat - we stayed closer to the downtown at the Hampton Inn our last trip - and it offered small kitchenettes and a living room area giving the room some space to stretch out a bit.  

After getting settled into our hotel, my wife and I decided to go get reacquainted with Steamboat Springs.  Some things had changed, but much was the same from our visit two years ago.  There was some construction work going on in the downtown area, but we were able to travel pretty easily around the area, even with the heavy traffic from people enjoying their weekend in the town.  

Since we knew a precipitous drop in temperatures would be coming in less than 24 hours and temperatures were to remain cool the rest of our stay, our second day in Steamboat was packed with various outdoor adventures we wanted to experience.  It was a gorgeous day, to say the least.  Southwesterly winds brought in warm air - the temperature got up into the upper 80's that day - and pushed much of the smoke from the wildfires north of Denver away from the area.  

As it is in the mountains with low humidity, mornings start off cool and crisp and with little to no wind.  We went out for coffee and espresso, and as we were driving toward the downtown area, we saw a hot air balloon that was just getting ready to lift off from a parking lot off the main drag heading into Steamboat.  We took the backstreets and got to the parking lot just moments after the multi-colored balloon took off with six or seven passengers.  

After coffee for my wife and espresso for me, we parked our car in the parking lot of the Howelson Ice Complex near downtown Steamboat Springs for a walk on the beautiful paved path along the Yampa River.  We walked the trail everyday we were in Steamboat on our previous trip and it was absolutely beautiful.  The combination of the babbling stream, the tree-lined bike path and the mountain vistas made for a pleasant walk.  We walked a mile up river along the path before we turned around and made our way back down to where our car was parked.  

One of the big things that I had on my list of things to do was to run up to Pearl Lake State Park and hang out there.  I was completely enamored with Pearl Lake on our previous visit.  The lake is pristine and quiet, lined with trees and with stunning mountain views sitting at 8100 feet above sea level in the mountains about 25 miles north of Steamboat Springs.  We went out there a couple times during our last visit to the area and I figured that we'd probably go out there at least two more times during this visit.  

My wife, being the smart one in the family, suggested we get a couple sandwiches to take out with us to have a picnic at Pearl Lake.  We stopped off at the Yampa Sandwich Company in downtown Steamboat to pick up a couple sandwiches before heading up to the state park.   

Pearl Lake is about a 40 minute drive from Steamboat Springs via County Highway 129.  It features a number of curves and rises, so 45 miles per hour is usually all the faster you can go on the road.  

The road out to Pearl Lake winds through valleys with farms and ranches situated along and near the Elk River.  The broad fields of green and gold are nestled in between mountain ranges as far as the eye can see. There are a few places where you could turn out and take in some of the sights along the roadway.  

One of the more impressive sights on the way up to Pearl Lake is the stately mountain known as Hahns Peak.  The nearly 11,000 foot high mountain is one of the highest in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest that stretches from north central Colorado through northeast Wyoming.  The distinctive peak is visible for miles before the turn-off to Pearl Lake.  

It's a $9 a day user fee for Colorado state parks, something that I had no problem paying given how nice the parks are. Unfortunately, that particular day a lot of other people had the same idea that we did and we found the parking lot at Pearl Lake to be nearly full when we pulled in.  

But even with all the people in the area that day, it was still great to just be able to hang out and relax on a beautiful day in the mountains.  There was a light wind and wisps of clouds showed up on the horizon, but there was still sort of a haze in some areas from the forest fires off in the distance.  We did notice after a bit that there was cloud that was billowing up behind one of the mountains to the south.  I figured that it was one of those mountain monsoons that bubble up from time to time on warm days in Colorado.  

Since it's one of my "happy places" on earth, we hung out at Pearl Lake for about an hour having our picnic lunch and walking around part of the waterfront.  We decided to head up the road to another place that we had visited in the past - Steamboat Lake State Park, about 3 miles up the road from Pearl Lake.  Steamboat Lake, to us, isn't quite as nice as Pearl Lake.  It's bigger and has more camping and boating options, but it doesn't have that cozy feeling Pearl Lake has.

Further up north a few miles is another lake - Hahns Peak Lake - that is about 8600 feet above sea level.  We drove back to the campground on a winding road that went up to about 9500 feet before dropping down to the lake nestled in a narrow canyon.  It was pretty primitive back in there, but there were still a number of campers in the small campground.  We were sort of amazed that some of the larger campers were able to get towed up and down into the campground.  It was a pretty significant rise and drop to get there.

As we were making our way back up the road to get out of the campground at Hahns Peak Lake, we realized that the billowing cloud was not the genesis of an afternoon mountain thunderstorm, but a forest fire that had flared up that started from a lightning strike just a day before.  The Middle Fork fire was about 10 miles north of Steamboat Springs and had grown to 3300 acres within 24 hours.  (It eventually grew to about 6000 acres consumed by mid-September.)  It had been extremely dry in Colorado through the latter part of the summer and that was helping compound the forest fire problems in the state.  A huge fire north and west of Fort Collins - the Cameron Peak fire - had consumed over 100,000 acres and was responsible for some of the milky skies that we had during our trip to Colorado. 

(Update - as of today the Middle Fork fire has now grown to over 16,000 acres consumed.)  

We made our way back into Steamboat Springs and a quick visit to the Yampa River Botanic Gardens.  We had been there on our previous visit and I wanted to go back to check the place out.  Quite actually, we seemed to be somewhat underwhelmed with the floral and plant displays they had on hand.  We figured that it probably had to do with the on-going drought.  Nonetheless, we did get some ideas on some plants that we want to plant next year to help attract butterflies and hummingbirds.  

One place just outside of Steamboat Springs that we neglected to visit the last time around was Fish Creek Falls.  Located about five miles east of downtown Steamboat, we had driven up there the day before to check the place out.  (see map)  However, the two parking lots were full and we decided to come back this day when we figured not as many people were in town.  

It turned out that we were pretty smart as there were about a 1/3 the number of people at the falls parking lot from the day before.  It was $5 bucks to park in the lot that takes you the trail to get to the falls - all on the honor system - and, once again, I had no problem dropping a finsky into the box.  

It's about a quarter mile walk down to the 280-foot falls that was nothing more than a trickle of water compared to other times of the year.  A number of rock climbers were scaling the sides of the canyon when we were there.  There's a 2.5 mile trail that was described as "advanced" for people who wanted to go up to the top of the falls.  Getting back up to the parking lot was sort of a chore for us.  The altitude was over 7000 feet in the parking lot at Fish Creek Falls and getting back up the hill to the lot took some effort.  We aren't in the best shape, but we certainly aren't sedentary in our lifestyle.  People who were in much better shape - and much younger - were having to stop every few steps to catch their breath.  

From the trail heading up to the parking lot, we could look up and see the smoke from the fire a few miles away billowing up over the ridge.  It was pretty amazing that a fire could flare up so quickly like that, but the dry brush compounded with dead trees from the mountain pine beetle infestation that's taken out millions of trees in the Rocky Mountains can allow a fire to spread pretty rapidly. 

We had such a full day that we decided to head back down into Steamboat to grab a drink at one of the many bars they have in the downtown area.  We were sitting in a place that had overhead garage doors that opened to an outdoor patio area and I got up to use the restroom at one point.  I noticed that there was sort of an orange hue from the sunlight coming into the place.  The smoke from the forest fires had come in over the town and gave the sky a milky consistency and turned the sun into this large orange orb.  It was sort of surreal to see.

As I said, we knew that the weather was going to change for the worse.  A cold front accompanied with strong winds, rain and snow with falling temperatures was expected to hit overnight.  I was sort of resigned to the fact that the warm weather was going away and going away fast.  Knowing that the weather would change so drastically from one day to the next, I took a picture out of our hotel window showing the ski resort on Mount Werner outside of Steamboat Springs the day before the storm hit.  

And on the upper right is the view from the same window about 24 hours later.  The wind had increased to over 40 miles an hour with gusts up over 60 mph.  Wind gusts on the peak of Mount Werner were clocked at 114 miles an hour during the height of the storm.  They had predicted 2 to 6 inches of snow for the area, but we ended up getting a dusting.  Areas to the east of where we were - toward Denver and the front range of the Rockies got anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow out of the system.  

The temperature in Steamboat Springs the day before was 83 degrees (F).  Less than 24 hours later, it was 33 degrees.  My wife had packed a puffy coat that she had bought a long time ago that worked pretty well for her on this trip.  I, on the other hand, had just a long-sleeved t-shirt and a sweatshirt to go over that.  Still, I didn't think we'd be heading out that much that particular day.  

But, of course, we did.  We didn't feel like getting penned up in our hotel room all day long, so we drove around the town looking at some of the damage the storm had inflicted on trees while dodging downed power lines.  (Photo courtesy Steamboat Pilot)

We ended up going to a few stores in the downtown area to look around and to get out of the storm for awhile.  We were talking with one lady at one of the stores who told us that she had lived in Steamboat Springs for over 40 years, and that she had never experienced weather like this before so early in September.  "Oh, we've had some cold weather," she told us.  But for this early in the season to have this strong of a storm with snow, no never before."  There were others who we spoke with during the course of the day who pretty much echoed what the lady initially told us.  It was really some sort of a storm.  And we'd been through a derecho just a month before, so we were sort of old hats at this type of a sustained storm.  

We couldn't while away the storm having drinks as many restaurants and bars were either closed for the storm or opening later in the day. With not much else to do, we decided to hit a liquor store to have some drinks in our room waiting out the worst of the storm.  It was at a liquor store not far from our hotel that I found something that I'd heard about many times from friends, but had never had before - a bottle of Pliny the Elder, a double IPA from the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA.  I'd heard many times about the virtues of Pliny the Elder from friends in California and from others on beer forums who declared Pliny the Elder as the best beer they had ever had.  I'm not certain, but I believe at one time the beer was limited in its availability.  That's why I was so surprised to see some bottles in a cooler at the liquor store.

My take on the beer?  It was good - not quite the earth-shattering and life-changing experience some of my friends said they had when they first drank Pliny the Elder.  But at the time that it came out over 15 years ago, Pliny the Elder really pushed the envelope in terms of hoppy and full-flavored beers.  A number of other breweries have caught up - and possibly passed - Russian River and Pliny the Elder by now.  

There wasn't much else to do that day other than nap, wait for the storm to move out, then go get something to eat.  I figured this was going to be a wasted day and it certainly was.  

The following day, the weather was much nicer with clearing skies, light winds and temperatures in the upper 50's.  It was actually pretty nice without being too brisk to be out and about.   When we were up at Steamboat Lake a couple days prior, we stopped into the park ranger station to get some maps on lakes in the area.  The lady ranger we talked with told us about Stagecoach State Park, approximately 17 miles south of Steamboat Springs.  My wife thought it would be nice to head out there and check the lake out.  

Stagecoach State Park is a nearly 1650 acre park with a 820 acre reservoir in the Yampa River Valley of the Flat Top Mountains region of west central Colorado.  The dam was finished in 1989 after only 37 days of construction.  The park was dedicated soon thereafter and features campsites, a marina and a beach area.  

Just south of the lake is the small village of Stagecoach.  It sits at the foot of a mountain that was developed in the early 70's as the Stagecoach ski resort.  Ski runs were carved out of the north face of the mountain and three chair lifts were installed.  The resort opened in 1972, but the corporation backing the ski area pulled its funding a year later.  Everything - including houses being built in subdivisions at the base of the ski resort - was abandoned after that.  A family came in and bought up much of the property years later, but they have no plans to resurrect the lost ski resort.

Once again, it was a $9 dollar daily fee to use the park at Stagecoach.  We talked with a nice lady who was manning the booth at the entrance of the park.  She gave us the rundown on what was around the park.  I asked her if she was working the day before during the height of the storm.  "Oh, I sure was," she said.  "I didn't have many visitors yesterday."

Stagecoach Lake was absolutely beautiful.  It's more spread out than Pearl Lake, so Stagecoach isn't as cozy. This view is of across the lake to the south where the former ski resort was and the small town of Stagecoach is today.  You can see the old ski runs etched into the side of the mountain if you click on the photo above to make it larger.   The waters were crystal clear and there was little to no wind causing glass-like effects on the lake at times.  It was nice to hang out along the shore and relax on the waters edge.  

We drove around the lake and got out at various points to take in some of the scenery.  The Flat Tops off in the distance were interesting with a thin cloud layer shrouding the mesa.  It turned out those mountains were about 15 miles off in the distance.   

There were a number of buttes that jutted straight up around the lake.  There was more forestation on the south side of the lake while the north side had more a high desert landscape.  The lady at the front gate told us that we may see mule deer and possibly some elk in the hills around the lake.  She also informed us that over 200 species of birds could be found around Stagecoach Lake, the highest concentration of different types of birds in Colorado.  

We ended up on the far side of the lake by the dam.  There was a parking lot there and we wandered down a stone stair-step path toward the waterfront.  There was a path over the dam and around the lake on the other side.  I tried to get my wife to walk with me over the dam, but she has a thing about bridges and dams, so we didn't do it.

Going right out of the parking lot was a road that took us down below the dam.  I was a little skittish driving the rental car down this steep gravel road, sort of wondering if I could get back up.  But it turned out to be a lot more easy than it looked.  

And we're glad we did because it took us to another parking lot with a long lane that was blocked off, but allowed hikers and mountain bikers to get back up to the back of the dam.  A stream of water was shooting out of the turbine housing which can generate up to 800 kilowatts of power an hour.   

Walking downstream along the Yampa River, we encountered anglers in the water or on the banks fishing for trout.  The water wasn't as swift further from the dam and the stream had a light flow that allowed the fishermen to stand with little to no resistance.  The water was clear and you could see the large river rocks lining the bed of the river a couple feet deep.   

We wandered along the riverbank for quite some distance stopping every once in a while to chat with the occasional angler or to take a break on a large boulder near the bank.  The babbling water churning over rocks made for a very relaxing soundtrack to the day.  

It was sort of tough to leave Stagecoach Lake, but it was time to move on after being out there for nearly 3 hours.  We ended up driving a few miles west and south of the state park to the small town of Yampa before turning back north to go up to Steamboat Springs.  

Our next day was our "wild card day".  We had no plans, no place to go, nothing that was pressing, just a day where we could do what we wanted to do.  Bless her heart, my wife suggested heading back out to Pearl Lake as she surmised that it wouldn't be as crowded through the week as it was the few days before when we were out there.  

Once again, we decided to make a picnic out of our trip.  We went to the Steamboat Meat & Seafood Company to grab a couple of sub-sandwiches they make in their deli.  When we were in Steamboat a couple years ago, we grabbed a couple sandwiches for a picnic that ended up being at Pearl Lake.  My wife thought it would be nice to do it again with sandwiches from Steamboat Meat & Seafood.  But two sandwiches, a couple bags of chips and a couple bottles of water were expensive - it came to over $30 bucks.  But that was like any place in Steamboat - eating out is expensive.  I don't think we paid less than $30 for any meal we had while we were there.  The weather was cool with a mix of sun and clouds that day, but the winds were still pretty light.  It was definitely sweatshirt weather and it was a little cooler up higher in the mountains.  After lingering at our little spot on the bench on the overlook of the lake, we decided to drive down to the marina (on weekends, you can rent kayaks at the marina at Pearl Lake, if you don't have your own) and take a hike over to the dam.  It was just over a half mile of walking through the forest and along the shoreline to get to the dam.  However, there were a couple areas along the trail where we had to dodge or climb over trees that had fallen during the storm from a couple days before.  But the hike was enjoyable with the cool weather that day.

The weather turned colder while we were up at Pearl Lake and we reluctantly decided to leave and head back toward Steamboat Springs.  My wife had been reading about some dude ranches in the hills above Clark, a small unincorporated town about halfway between Steamboat and Pearl Lake.  We took off down a side road and slowly climbed up the mountain side that came up from the Elk River.  We came across a couple of guest ranches, but they looked rather primitive and spartan - not the kind of accommodations that we would probably enjoy.  

Our final day in Steamboat featured a walk along the Yampa, a visit to the Bud Werner Memorial Library (we were told by one of our servers at a restaurant we ate earlier in the week that it was a great place - we thought it was OK), a hike up into the hills overlooking downtown Steamboat, then a wistful trip around the town to take in the sights one final time.  It was tough to leave Steamboat, but we made a promise to ourselves that we'd be back again.  

The drive up and down through Rabbit Ears Pass, then down to Kremmerling and finally on to Silverthorne to catch the Interstate back to Denver was pretty uneventful.  We did stop in Kremmerling and drove around that small high desert town checking things out, almost stopping in at a small microbrewery they had in their small downtown area.  The heavy snow on the top of the mountains along the Continental Divide was amazing to see so early in September.

When we got to Silverthorne, I did a quick check and found that if we went on straight through Dillon, the road would eventually take us up and over the Continental Divide at the Loveland Pass.  I had never gone that way before and I thought it would be sort of cool to do that.  

Driving up toward Loveland Pass, we passed two of the more famous ski areas in Colorado - Keystone and  Arapahoe Basin - also known as "A Basin".  A Basin is known for its long skiing season, sometimes stretching into June.  With the recent snow they got on the slopes, a lot of skiers were hopeful for an early start to the season.  But the weather was forecast to turn warm and dry again - right after we left.  Figures...

The Loveland Pass has a small turnout area where you can park and get pictures of the sign and the area around the Continental Divide.  At just under 12,000 feet above sea level, the weather at the pass was not hospitable.  The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees from when we were down in Silverthorne and the wind was whipping at over 30 miles and hour.  

Loveland Pass is part of the White River National Forest which encompasses over 2.2 million acres in central Colorado on the west side of the Continental Divide.  The rocky high sierra with the snow capped mountains in the background was a stark contrast of beauty.     

We came down the highway from the Loveland Pass and it took us right on to Interstate 70 heading eastbound.  A few miles down the road is the small town of Georgetown just off the Interstate.  My wife and I decided we needed to stop for a restroom break and we went into the town's visitor center to do just that.  My wife saw some things in there while she was wandering around and wondered if we could go to their historic downtown area that the visitor center was touting.  

Downtown Georgetown features a number of shops and boutiques that reminded me a lot of Galena, IL, only nestled in a tight valley between mountains.  The city dates back to just before the Civil War when the Colorado gold rush was taking place.  However, in 1864, silver was discovered in the mountains surrounding Georgetown and mining camps sprung up almost immediately.  By the 1880's, Georgetown was one of the more important towns in Colorado and had their own opera house that hosted nationally known entertainers of the day.  But the silver boom eventually went bust and Georgetown's population had dropped by nearly 2/3rds by the turn of the 20th century.  By the 1940's, less than 400 people lived in the town.  However, Georgetown has staged a population renaissance over the past 20 years and today nearly 1200 people live in the village.  

After getting out of Georgetown, we started to head back down toward Denver.  My wife had spotted a Duluth Trading Company on our way out of Denver a few days before in west suburban Golden.  She wanted me to stop in as she loves Duluth Trading and the closest one we have is in the western suburbs of Chicago.  

Now, here's a pretty good story about our experience during and directly after our visit to Duluth Trading Company...

My wife was looking at clothes at Duluth Trading, and I'm just sort of walking around looking at pants, new hiking shoes and the little library of interesting books they sell there.  My wife came looking for me and asked me to hold some items for her while she tried some tops on.  There weren't a lot of people in the store and I was approached three times by different people who asked if I needed help.  Nope, just waiting on my wife.

My wife decided which tops she was going to buy and we went up to the counter and paid.  We went out to the rental car, put the bag in the trunks and we took off.

As I was leaving, I noticed a Golden Police Department cruiser with two officers sitting in the parking lot not far from our car.  I pulled out of the parking lot and made our way onto the Colfax Ave. expressway.  My wife had noticed that as soon as we pulled out, the cops started to follow us.  "That's strange," she said as she looked into her passenger side rearview mirror.  "Those cops have followed us since we left the store."

Suddenly, the cop car lights up and I look into the rear view mirror and I see him coming up fast behind me.  I was doing 55 - the speed limit - and I pulled over into the right lane expecting him to pass.  Nope, he pulled in behind me.  "Is that for me," I asked incredulously wondering what in the hell I'd done.  My wife assured me that it sure was.

We pulled over and the two cops came up to either side of the car.  I rolled my window down and asked the cop on my side what I had done.  He asked me what I had been doing.  I said, "We just came from Duluth Trading Company."  He asked how long we had been in there and I looked at my wife and she said about 20 to 25 minutes.  Then he wanted to know if we had been to a restaurant before we had gone to Duluth Trading.  I told him, "No, we're just coming down from Steamboat Springs."  

I asked the officer what this was all about and he said, "We had a report of a couple that was fighting in a restaurant nearby and they left in a car that matched the description of your car and they were reported to pull into the parking lot at Duluth Trading Company."  

I looked at my wife and we both had this funny, yet incredulous look on our faces.  I shook my head and said, "Fighting?  Us?  No, that certainly wasn't us."  He asked for my license and asked to see the receipt from the store.  I said, "Well, it's in the sack in the trunk.  I can get it for you."  

He told me to stay in the car and to pop the trunk.  I looked in my rearview mirror as the officer and his partner went around to the back of the car and pulled the Duluth Trading Company bag out of the trunk.  They looked through it and the partner sort of disgustedly threw the bag back into the trunk.  Sort of like he was mad that we were probably telling the truth.

The cop came back to my window and said, "You guys sure you weren't at a restaurant earlier."

"Not around here," I said to him.  "We came down from Steamboat Springs, went up over the Loveland Pass, then stopped in Georgetown before we came here."  I wasn't going to tell him that we had stopped in a brewpub in Georgetown, but that was only for a couple an hour before.  

He had run my license and said, "OK, well, if your license check comes back clean, you're free to go.  Moments later, his radio squawked something and he handed me back my license.  Then he did something that sort of surprised me - he handed me his business card.  He had written his partners name on the card as well.  He said, "If anything comes up where you think anything was wrong with this stop, don't hesitate to contact the Golden Police Department.  This is my name, this is my partners name.  Sorry that we had to stop you, but your car - with two people in it - fit the description of what was called in to us.  We just had to check it out."  

And with that, we took off toward downtown Denver.  My wife and I were both sort of stunned from the experience.  "What the hell was that all about," my wife said laughingly.  I told her that we obviously look like two people who fight all the time.  Either that, I surmised, or the employees at Duluth Trading thought we were shoplifters.  It really didn't make any sense and we had a good laugh over the whole episode for the rest of the trip. 

We spent one night at the Hilton Garden Inn Union Station in downtown Denver.  Actually, it wasn't all that close to Union Station and it was sort of on the outskirts of downtown Denver.  It was close to Coors Field and the Colorado Rockies were playing the Los Angeles Angels that night.  But with COVID-19 restrictions, we couldn't go to the game.  But from our top floor room, we could see the right side of the infield, so any plays between 1st and 2nd were visible from our room.

After a nice dinner in the LoDo District in downtown Denver at Venice Ristorante, a place I hadn't been to in about 12 years, we went across the street to Union Station to look around.  My wife seems to remember being in Union Station as a young girl, but I'd only been by the place on previous visits to Denver.  It was a vibrant place with a number of restaurants, shops and a hotel in the building.  It's still the main terminal for Amtrak service to and from Denver, as well as terminals for bus and light rail service through Denver's Regional Transportation District, or RTD.  There were a lot of people milling about inside the massive lobby and in front of Union Station when we were there.  

The next day was the flight back to Chicago, an overnight stay at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare, then a drive home the next morning.  I promised my neighbor that we'd being nice weather home as it had rained 7 days straight while we were gone and it was sunny and in the low 70's when we got home around 11:30 a.m.  Our lawn had gone from dormant when we left to a lush green by the time we got back home.  It had been over a month since I last mowed and I knew mowing was probably going to be one of the first things that I would have to do after we got home.  

So, that was our wonderful trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  We got a great deal in our travel and lodging bookings that worked out nearly perfect in our favor.  The weather - for the most part, save for the inland hurricane/winter storm one day - was nice.  And the laid back and friendly atmosphere in Steamboat was exactly why we went back.  We ate in some good places, we experienced high country nature and beautiful scenery, and we had a relaxing and refreshing time while we were there. My neighbor keeps telling us that if we really like Steamboat Springs, we'd love Grand Junction, CO.  But to me, I don't know how much better life can be once you get to experience Steamboat Springs.  (Photo courtesy City of Steamboat Springs)

Slim's Bar & Grill - Bemidji, MN

During our trip to Northern Minnesota this past summer, we made a handful of discovery trips north of our home base of Bemidji during our time there.  On the north side of Bemidji, just off the old U.S. Highway 71 that is known as Bemidji Ave. N. was a cabin-type bar and grill that caught my eye, then caught my fancy.  One day while we were coming back into Bemidji from a short jaunt up north of the city, I decided to stop in to see what Slim's Bar & Grill was all about. 

In 1965, Ernie and Rosie Jacobson opened what was one of the very first pizza places in the state of Minnesota, Jake's Pizza, in Albert Lea.  Jake's was such a hit that with the help of Ernie and Rosie's son Larry, a second Jake's Pizza place opened in 1968 in Fairmont, about 60 miles west of Albert Lea.  Larry eventually sold his interest in that Jake's Pizza to his brother Mark in 1970 and ventured up to the Bemidji area to open up another Jake's Pizza.  Eventually, through family, friends and franchisees owning various locations, a total of 18 Jake's Pizza restaurants could be found throughout Minnesota and northern Iowa.  

Jake's Pizza had some competition in the Bemidji area when two other pizza places opened up in the 80's.  Larry Jacobson decided to turn Jake's Pizza into a new venture - L.T. Jacobs, and then opened a place called the Hard Times Saloon in downtown Bemidji.  L.T. Jacobs proved to be a rather unwieldy concept, so in 1989 Jacobson and his wife Connie opened Slim's Bar & Grill - basically a "slimmed" down version of L.T. Jacobs.  It turned out to be the right idea as it wasn't a large place, it was casual and homey, and above all, it was a profitable business.  

In 2005, Larry and Connie Jacobson sold Slim's to their son Karl and his wife Erin.  They continued to run the business up to Karl's untimely death in 2013.  Lisa Friese had been a longtime employee of the Jacobson family working in their restaurants starting in 1980 when she was still in her teens.  In 2014, Lisa Friese and her husband John bought Slim's from the Jacobson family.  The Friese family continues to run Slim's today.  

From the highway, you can see Slim's Bar & Grill through the trees just past the corner of Bemidji Ave. N and NW Anne St., just over a couple hundred yards west of Lake Bemidji  (see map)  I could see the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign on top of their entry way from the road and it looked like the quintessential northwoods dive bar. I mentioned something to my wife about the place on probably the fifth time I had seen it and she said, "Well, let's go back and have a beer!"  

It was a beautiful afternoon and we walked into the place.  It WAS the quintessential northwoods dive bar complete with a three-sided bar, knotty pine walls with deer racks, trophy mounted fish, pictures of hockey teams from Bemidji State University, and vintage artwork signs from the original Hamms brewery.  They even had Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap!  The smell of fresh made burgers wafted in the air.  

The bartender that day was a young guy named Chris who was personable and friendly.  My wife asked if we could sit out on the patio since it was so nice and he enthusiastically said, "You bet!  Go on out and I'll come out to take your order."  I protested that we could order inside and take them outside and Chris said, "Naw, go on out.  I'll be out there in a minute."  We immediately liked the guy.  

We went out and few moments later Chris came out to get our drink order.  I ordered up a Bemidji Brewing Company pale ale that they had on tap, while my wife got a Tito's and cranberry.  I downed the pale ale pretty quickly and Chris came out a few minutes later wanting to know if I wanted another beer.  My wife was still about halfway through her mixed drink and I said, "Yeah, I would.  I saw you had PBR on tap.  I'll take one of those."  I hadn't had a Pabst beer in a long, long time and it certainly tasted pretty damned good sitting on Slim's patio on a sun-drenched afternoon.  

When we were finished, we took our glasses in to the bar to drop off for Chris.  He protested, saying, "Aw, you guys.  You didn't need to do that.  I would have come out and gotten them."  I looked over in the corner behind the bar and saw that he had a couple burgers cooking on a flat grill.  I asked him if the burgers were good - they SMELLED good - and he said, "Best around.  We always get the Best Burger award that the local paper gives out."  

I also noticed that they had soup specials each day and the next day was going to be chicken and wild rice soup.  Wild rice soup was one of the main things that I wanted to have when we were in the northwoods, but no one seemed to have it.  I told Chris that we'd be back the next day for lunch.  

True to my word, we made it back out for lunch the next day around 1 p.m.  We had gotten there the day before after 3 p.m., so there wasn't much of a crowd in there.  However, we got in on the backside of a busy lunch hour.  Chris was there, as was owner Lisa Friese and another guy working the bar.  Chris saw us and his face lit up.  "Hey, you made it back," he said with a big voice.  

We took a seat at a booth along the wall opposite the bar.  The menu was on the table and we took a quick look to see what they had other than burgers.  Well, really, the main thing on the menu WERE the burgers.  But they also had Jake's Pizza on the menu - a nod to the Jacobson family's first Bemidji restaurant.  But curiously, they also had a couple selections of pizza on the menu under the heading of Dave's Pizza.  There's a Dave's Pizza in Bemidji and I thought it was sort of strange that they would have two different styles of pizza - or if Dave's Pizza delivered to Slim's.  I just didn't know.  

But that was just about it for food on the menu.  Slim's also had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on the menu, as well as homemade chili, and nachos with various toppings available.  

The burgers at Slim's are made with beef from Stittsworth Meats from Bemidji.  (We found that many other restaurants in the area used meat from Stittsworth Meats.)  Their buns are sourced from Raphael's Bakery, a bakery/cafe in downtown Bemidji that we neglected to visit.  And they had bottles of Beer's Black Dog barbecue sauce on the tables.  "That's the owners brother," Chris explained to us as I was asking since they didn't seem to have barbecue on the menu.  "It's good stuff.  We sell it here, sometimes by the case!"  

I had to start out with a bowl of the chicken and wild rice soup.  It was a fair-sized bowl that was filled to the brim of a rich and hearty concoction of chicken, wild rice and chopped carrots.  It was simply outstanding.  And it filled me up rather quickly.  I was worried that I had spoiled my appetite for the burger.  But it turns out that it didn't.

My wife got just the regular cheese burger, while I went with the pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushroom and bacon burger.  A thick onion slice came with the burger (fried onion are available on request) along with dill pickles.  The bun was lightly toasted and the burgers came with a bag of potato chips - no fries or onion rings or wings at Slim's Bar & Grill.  The burger is a 7 ounce flat-grilled burger that was juicy and full of flavor. Multiple napkins were needed to go along with the burger.  It was an outstanding burger, to say the least.  

If I lived in the Bemidji area, I'd eat at Slim's at least once a week.  It was a great little northwoods bar with a great burger and a very friendly staff.  They have pizza available at Slim's, but that's about it - pizza and burgers.  Daily soup specials through the week complete the menu.  The beer selection was adequate and the chicken and wild rice soup was superb.  I liked everything about Slim's Bar & Grill, from the northwoods kitsch to the outdoor patio to the friendly service to the excellent burgers.  Slim's was one of my favorite places we visited on our trip to northern Minnesota this past summer.  

The District Pub - Eau Claire, WI

My wife and I spent a night recently in Eau Claire, WI.  I have an account in Eau Claire and I usually just drive over from the Twin Cities (about 90 miles) and head back after I'm done with the meeting.  I've only stayed in the city a couple nights over the years, but one time it was at a boutique hotel in downtown Eau Claire by the name of the Lismore Doubletree.  We stayed there on this trip and looked for restaurants in the downtown area that were open for dining.  My wife was looking for a good ol' fashioned Wisconsin-style fish fry that evening.  The front desk had given us some suggestions, really pushing a couple restaurants a few blocks away.  But we didn't want to get back in the car, so we looked for places that were walking distance from the hotel.  One place that I found on-line sounded good - a little grill and pub about a two block walk from the hotel called The District Pub.  

Dave Zempel was a Seattle-area native who came to Eau Claire to study at Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  He fell in love with the area and decided to stay in the Chippewa Valley once he graduated from college.  Zempel dabbled in a couple of things - he owned bars in the nearby towns of Menomonie and Altoona - and he also owned a wedding venue on an old farm about an hour drive north of Eau Claire.  But he also wanted to put in an upscale pub in downtown Eau Claire.  

In 2016, a sports bar in downtown Eau Claire by the name of Playmakers shuttered their doors.  The building was up for lease when Zempel found out about it and he jumped on it for his new restaurant concept.  Extensive renovations to the interior gave the tired building new life with large windows letting in natural light, a new bar area was put in place and a new kitchen installed.  By August of 2017, the District Pub was ready to open.  But extensive construction work in the downtown area near and around the District made it tough for patrons to get there.  Word quickly spread that the new place was nothing like Playmakers (or the previous restaurant, the Haymarket Grill) and people found ways to get to the District Pub.  

The District Pub is located at the corner of Graham and Eau Claire streets near where the Eau Claire River empties into the Chippewa River.  (see map)  Actually, we walked a block too far before turning to go to the District, ending up along the Eau Claire River.  We went around a building and walked back a block to the entrance of the District.  We went inside and checked in with the hostess stand on the middle level near the bar.  As we turned to walk back down the stairs to get a table on the lower level, we looked out and the sky had burst with heavy rain.  30 seconds earlier when we walked in there didn't appear to be any hint of rain.  But driving into Eau Claire that day, we ran into a handful of those late afternoon pop-up hard rains.  And downtown Eau Claire was getting one of those as we sat down.  

There are three levels at the District - the lower level is at street level and features a handful of booths and tables.  Coronavirus restrictions were in place in the dining area, so tables were spaced out and every other booth was closed off for seating.  It was cozy in there to begin with, so I can almost imagine how that little area would be if there weren't any restrictions in place. 

The bar is on the second level, just about five feet above the lower dining level.  Corrugated metal accents were on the face of the bar as well as on the back walls.  There were some high-top tables in the bar area, as well.  A number of flatscreen televisions were on the wall behind the bar - all turned to a Milwaukee Brewers game, mainly because, well, there aren't much sports going on these days.   The District had 30 beers on tap featuring both national, regional and locally produced beers.  

Just past the bar on the second level were some stairs that took you up to the third level.  We saw some people going up there, but there appeared to be a sign that said that level was closed.  We never did go up there to check it out while we were there.  

We took a table near the floor-to-ceiling window marveling at our luck of not being stuck in the downpour that was going on outside.  Our server for the evening, Ashley, came over with menus for us to look through. I ordered a Sierra Nevada hazy IPA while my wife got a vodka/cranberry to start out.  

Most of the items on the menu at the District are your typical sports pub fare - appetizers, wings, salads, sandwiches, and pizza.  One page was fully devoted to their burgers.  They had over a dozen specialty burgers on that page and at the bottom they had their "build-your-own" burger section.  I wasn't especially certain I wanted a burger that evening.

However, I didn't want pizza and the sandwich offerings - which included 8 different variations of grilled chicken sandwiches - were sort of sparse.  It looked like I was going to be forced to get a burger after all.

My wife was hell bent on getting the fish fry that evening.  That evening they were featuring deep-fried haddock along with a baked potato and cole slaw.  It was served on a tray with faux newsprint.  My wife was more than happy with the fish.  The batter was light and the haddock was flaky and delicious.  It was also very filling.  She had a few bites of the cole slaw, which she thought was pretty good, and a couple bites of the potato, which was on the small side.  But she didn't care - she was much more interested in the fish. 

I ended up getting the Swiss and mushroom burger.  I asked Ashley if they could put some bacon on the burger, too.  And the saving grace is that they had tater tots as one of the side choices.  I asked Ashley if they had any hot sauce such as Cholula, but the only thing they had were packets Frank's RedHot Sauce.  No condiments - not even salt or pepper - are on tables during the pandemic.  That worked out, though.  

The burger patty sat on a sliced tomato and some lettuce leaves.  It was cooked perfectly, a bit of pink on the inside and it was juicy and delectable.  It was a glorious mess (a nod to the Slakingfool) with the Swiss cheese and a house sauce they drizzled on top of the burger.  The Swiss/mushroom/bacon burger from the District was definitely a multi-napkin burger.  And the bun stayed together very well with all the messiness.  It was a very good burger.  

For a casual, bar-style meal that wasn't too far from our hotel, we were both happy with what we had at the District Pub.   They had a pretty good beer selection with a full bar, the menu was sort of typical of most sports bars with burgers, appetizers, and pizza - but they did seem to have an inordinate number of chicken sandwiches on their menu, and it was a nice little relaxing spot to have dinner and to watch some baseball.  If you make it to the District Pub at some point, I would recommend getting a burger and my wife would definitely recommend doing the fish fry, if it's available.