Food, Travel, & Love

26 January 2021

Get this: we left Fort Laramie and headed to our next destination, but got caught in a small snow storm. When we spoke with the locals, they said it had came out of no where.

Did we say our hotel was past our destination, down several mountain passes and 30 minutes east of where we needed to be? As we were driving, we could only see the vehicle in front of us and it was pitch black at 5 o’clock in the evening. It was quite an adventure! Something you should know about Emily: she is a planner to the max. When things alter our plans, she struggles. However, she did great rolling with the various changes this trip.

When we arrived it was hard for us active people to be at our hotel at 530 at night. We decided to grab take out and make the best of it…

As we have come to the dinner part of our post, we realized that we did not take any pictures. We were over the day by the time we arrived to the hotel and were getting hangry. We can assure you, our dinner was tasty and we would visit Golden Phoenix if we were ever in Rapid City again. The following is what we ordered:

Egg Roll (recommend), Crab Angle (do not recommend), Sweet & Sour Pork (highly recommend), Fried Rice (recommend), and a chicken dish we cannot remember, but know we enjoyed.

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily

25 January 2021

We traveled to South Dakota in the Summer for Emily’s birthday. The central area we explored was not overly pretty, nor were the people exceptionally friendly. However, this Winter visit was much prettier; the people- no real change.

We traveled North until we arrived in South Dakota. Fort Laramie to the Black Hills is less than a three hour drive. The Black Hills were lovely. The hills is not our favorite vacation spot as every crevice seems to be a tourist trap, but the views were pretty awesome. 😉

At this point you’re probably wondering, “When are they going to share the big surprise?” We calculated it this evening. You have THREE more posts until we reveal the big attraction. Get excited!

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily

24 January 2021

We love history! History we both enjoy is American war history. Only about 1.5 hours from where we stayed in Cheyenne was a Fort. With our love of American war history, why wouldn’t we go?

Emily was entertaining as every 20-30 minutes with enthusiasm would say, “Mountains!” We live in Kansas: we have NO mountains and hardly any hills, except for the Flint Hills; the only good time to drive through those is at sunset.

When Emily researched the spot to visit, lots of reviews said the Fort could be seen in a little over an hour. Not sure if those people were running through Fort Laramie, but we were there over two hours and felt we could have stayed longer.

Can you imagine the soldiers that stood on that field? Do you think the soldiers knew they were living a part of American history? It really is incredible to think about.

Fort Laramie had tons of things to see: a museum, an educational video (had it been open- thanks Covid), a creek to explore, remnants of old buildings, several remaining buildings, and much more. You need to take a trip to Fort Laramie and see the history for yourself.

Had it not been chilly, super windy, and non-Covid conditions, we could have spent minimally half a day at Fort Laramie. We talked about returning in the future for another visit with a picnic lunch.

There was so much to explore at Fort Laramie. We plan to assemble a video with all the pictures in the future. As we disused this particular Fort visit, we would consider Fort Laramie in our top 5 Forts of America. Take your family or friends and explore how the West was settled.

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily

22 January 2021

We have learned that sometimes, you have to eat/drink at the chain places. It’s sad, but major branded coffee houses have driven the mom & pop places out of business. When we travel, we almost always need an extra jolt of caffeine to keep going another 100 or 300 miles down the road.

That being said, if we must try a chain…we go for the places we cannot get in Wichita. We had never heard of City Brew Coffee, but decided to give it a shot. (No pun intended)

Chris ordered the Grizzly Granita with two shots of espresso added. The drink was blended and flavored as chocolate & peanut butter. While Chris liked it, he felt they needed to leave some of the chocolate out of his drink. Emily ordered an Iced Mocha with peanut butter and oat milk. Emily really enjoyed hers, though it was not her favorite drink from this vacation. (A tease for another post)

Upon arriving, Emily asked for recommendations. The barista pointed to items featured on the menu. Emily’s thought was, “I can read. I want to know what the locals like.”

For this particular post, we decided to add Emily’s usual coffee shop rating scale. Cleanliness (5), Cost (3), Customer Service (4), Espresso (5), Food (0), Location(s) (3), Milk Alternatives (5), Seating (4), Speed of Service (5), and Unique Finds (4). Grand total for City Brew Coffee is 38.

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily

21 January 2021

We are usually big Best Western fans, but after this trip, will probably find different lodging. The front desk was nice enough upon arrival, but after we got to our room, we were never able to reach them. We called three different times and never got a response. Thankfully, one of our questions was about take out and the other was about a laundry bag, so nothing major.

The hallways and room smelled clean. However, the bathroom had no hand soap. We travel with our own supplies, so we were covered. (More on that point later.) All the linens were also clean. The bed was the comfiest we slept in during our trip.

We figured breakfast would be different with Covid, but we didn’t realize how different. The breakfasts we are use to from Best Western are typically freshly made. When we arrived for breakfast there was a very basic continental breakfast. They did offer mass produced boxed biscuits and gravy that was so peppery we could smell it 6 feet away. We opted for the filling station across the street which had breakfast pizza.

Now…back to the toiletries. We mentioned we take our own supplies. The reason we do this is because we collect the small hotel toiletries and donate them to the Ronald McDonald House. RMC provides lodging for family’s whose children are having procedures done at the hospital and need a close place to stay.

If you would like collect your hotel toiletries instead of using them, we will gladly coordinate a time to pick them up and take them to RMC the next time we are there.

To learn more about RMC’s mission, please visit their website: https://rmhcwichita.org/

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily

1 January 2021

Happy to be back with you all in the new year. We hope your year started off swell. We wanted to share our NYE with you. We decided to treat ourselves to a charcuterie board.

While the board was a bit steep in price at $60, we felt every penny was well spent. The suggested serving size was 2 as a meal or 4 as an appetizer, but we felt 6 probably could have enjoyed it if pairing with a rustic Cabernet Sauvignon. We had given Kimberlyn a list of likes and dislikes; everything on the board was delicious and paired well. We will be ordering another masterpiece again.

https://www.smorgasbordsict.com/

Food, Travel, & Love- Chris & Emily