Leap Year, Donuts and Lips of Faith

Team Vanstra decided to celebrate Leap Day and survival of another dreaded February on Wednesday by embarking on one of our occasional but extremely enjoyable all day adventures. We began the day by caffeinating ourselves at Saints Rest Coffee House in Grinnell with giant lattes. Then it was off to the Bass Pro Shop in Ankeny where a certain male member of the team was going to buy a new fly rod but became embroiled in indecision and ended up buying two shirts instead.  We also spent an unreasonable amount of time looking at the impressive hot sauce selection at Bass Pro.  If you love hot sauce, then you might want to stop in and check it out, but frankly any sauce named 'Fire in the Hole!' or 'Camo Ammo'or 'Flaming Bass' ... well, they just don't sound that appetizing.

Donuts and beer-Breakfast of Champions

But, we did manage to work up a thirst and a bit of hunger, so we made an inaugural visit to Uncle Buck's, the restaurant/bowling alley at Bass Pro where we enjoyed a Sam Adams Boston Lager and an order of steaming hot donut holes with raspberry jam.  We fondly referred to this meal as the breakfast of champions.

Then with a deep breath, mutual nod and a fist bump we headed toward...the West West Des Moines Jordan Creek area so we could check out Costco.  Bargains are bargains when you are Dutch, even if it means venturing into the abyss of the Jordan Creek area. Since neither of us were members (and the membership costs money), we decided to check out the store first. It's mindboggling how much stuff you can get at Costco that I've never seen anywhere else. Since we both suffer from situational ADHD, we walked around the store for an incredibly long time like two little kids in a huge toy and candy store saying things like "holy cow, look at this" and "OMG, I need one of those" until reason and sanity returned. We bought a membership and managed to get out without inflicting too much damage to our bank accounts, and look forward to heading back again in the spring.

Royal Mile

We then made a quick stop at Trader Joe's for some cheese and Two Buck Chuck wine and then headed downtown to our beloved El Bait Shop (which just won the City View prize for Best Bar and Best Beer Selection in DM) and found our favorite spot at the bar. We tried a new IPA from Hinterland Brewing in Green Bay, WI as well as several of our old favorites, such as the Bell's Two Hearted Ale. We finished off our day by walking to The Royal Mile (recently voted best downtown bar) and sharing an order of Shepard's Pie and Fish & Chips and admiring their impressive scotch collection (115 single malt scotches to be exact!).  We don't drink scotch but is was still impressive.  Planning now begins on our next all day adventure which will most likely be toward the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area.

Our new beer of the week that we recently tried is from the Lips of Faith series of beers brewed by New Belgium Brewing in Ft. Collins, CO. This particular beer was called Super Cru and was brewed with Asian pear juice giving it a different but pleasant flavor. And at 10% ABV, we wisely choose to just share one bottle...actually a bomber, and only got kicked out of one state park doing it.