Fork, knife or spoon?

Our trip was a one of new experiences for me and the world of food was no exception. As you can probably imagine, we ate out quite a lot being on the road for so long. Incredibly we stopped at only TWO places that I had ever been to before: Starbucks and Subway. The rest of the fast food places or restaurants were new to me, so I got quite a good sampling of American food. :) Those who know me, know that food is rather important to me and I can be quite passionate about it. I like a lot of different foods, LOVE to cook and try new things and just really enjoy eating good food. I'm particularly a fan of intelligence displayed in cooking and always look for creativity in making a dish go beyond your average chicken and potatoes. Of course, I wasn't expecting particularly awesome food on this trip as I knew it would be mostly fast food places, which are generally less than exceptional, but it was fun to try new places.

Early in the trip we went to a Steak and Shake which was pretty cute and quick with satisfactory food. The shake I had was a little disappointing as it was pretty much just ice cream which I had to spoon into my mouth or risk fainting from the exhausting task of sucking the sludge up a straw. (wow that makes it sound REALLY distasteful...it really wasn't that bad.) My favourite part of this place was just the setting. Little 50s diner-ish with happy music and lots of natural light. Arby's was also pretty good. I had a beef sandwich...kind of their big thing...with a beef dip. Nothing really to rant and rave about, oh except I REALLY liked their curly fries. Those were pretty fantastic. Mostly I was impressed that their food wasn't swimming in grease or flattened into a smushy mess. Also, there was quite a stack of sliced meat on the sandwich...which is important :)

I also went to my first Chick-fil-A! I had heard SO much about this restaurant and didn't realize it was only a fast food place. My expectations were pretty high as I walked in and I wasn't disappointed. I mean, not that the chicken sandwiches were anything really all THAT incredible but they were definitely good. They're fries were rather lovely tasting as well. Mostly I just had a lot of fun there with my friends.

doesn't it just look so yum!!

I must say, the giant fresh leaf of lettuce was pretty beautiful and the spicy cheese was delish. Oh and I must give them some points for having real LIVE flowers in those vases. That was nice to see in a fast food place.

bawk bawk bawk

ketchup, a must-have

cracking up because Cort was taking a million pictures

Our trip to Cincinnati for the express purpose of a meal at the Cheesecake Factory was pretty fun. Now THAT was a great restaurant. Jess and I shared a teriyaki chicken meal which was rather wonderful. The white chocolate raspberry cheesecake we shared was AMAZING. One bite and I pretty much melted. So creamy and silky and AWESOME. It was just a beautiful taste, exquisite...if that makes any sense. Suffice to say, I'm a fan.

Cincinnati as we were leaving. For some reason I like this shot even though it was taken rather spazztically out the window as we were flying over the bridge and is therefore just awesomely blurry. Just a happy memory I guess.

Drove the half hour back to the museum with Cort, Caela and I in the backseat. Pretty much my favourite part of the night as Caela and I spent the whole time giggling, while everyone took turns teasing, making ridiculous jokes and just having a blast.

The last place worth mentioning was actually at Silver Dollar City in Missouri. There were various little food places throughout the park that cooked their dishes in these HUGE skillets. Lots of great spices, flavourful meats and perfectly fried vegetables made this meal one of my very favourites on the whole trip! Simple yet impressively well put together and basically a party in your mouth. Loved seeing the chefs at work, hearing the sizzle of flaming hot skillets and the parade of happy smells delighting my nose. Eating under the shade of a million rainbow-coloured leaves added to the atmosphere making the experience sublime.

impressive right????

oh wow, I'm hungry just looking at this!

Oh and I have to mention Andy's, the fabulous ice cream place we ate at 3 nights in a row while we were in Branson. Pretty incredible soft serve there! Open late, made fresh every hour, tons of options, just basically a lot of fun to stop at. 

And so that concludes the food part of my journey. I encourage you all to head out to a new restaurant some time soon and try something out of your ordinary. Who knows, maybe you'll find a new favourite!

Going to court

So today Lish, Jen, Cally and I went to the courthouse.


Wouldn't it be great if I just left it at that!?!? You'd all be like...WHAAAAAT??? WHYYYY??? ...or you might not really care and just move on...either way, I will tell you, don't panic! The reason was rather simple, Lish wants to get her passport so that she can come visit me in Canada (YAY!!!) and we tried getting the application from the post office but the person there was not of the highest intelligence and gave us the wrong paper SO off to the courthouse we went...so begins our story...

We walk in and see a sign saying "For Passports go to the courthouse on ....S. King St." so we are like...what? Where is S. King St. and WHY do they have TWO courthouses in this teeny-tiny town. So we ask the very nice helpful ladies there and they point out the front doors down this side street to the grey building. So we get in the car and head over, yelling at Cally (who is driving) that she passed it and we have to turn around and it is all quite hilarious. So we park and walk over to this very imposing building with big white columns and locked class doors with a sign "Push bottom to open door" and an arrow pointing right. So I go over to the right and there is like a little intercom thingy button and I go, "this button???" (of course there is also a little sign directly below it with an arrow pointing up which says quite clearly "button". No joke, the sign is there...so I press the button. We wait. Jen tries the door. A little short lady, dressed in severe looking clothing opens it asking what she can do. (we all immediately feel guilty and ready to turn ourselves in, like seriously, she was scary even in all her tiny shortness and I was like "AAAHHH IT WAS THE WRONG BUTTON" - in my head) Lish tells her we are looking for passport stuff and she points up the street to the other grey building...

So we head off to the THIRD COURTHOUSE, laughing our heads off at the whole situation and walk in to find a guy with like a big security scanning machine and computer and he asks what we are looking for...passports...and (hallelujah!) it's the right place. Upstairs we get the application and head out again (laughing of course).

After more conversation and debate in the car we head to DQ for icecream. As we drive in, Lish gives Cally a heart attack with a SUPER excited exclamation about a puppy she saw and (with more laughter) we make it into a parking spot. Now in  DQ, the guy at the till made our day with his witty statements and teasing as we make things complicated for him (Lish NEEDED a raspberry milkshake but it wasn't on the board so we had to ask and THEN she had to add pineapple to it.. luckily they have this ability at DQ so all was good). As usually happens when eating ice cream, the conversation moved happily through many amusing topics from Oreos to Canada to my brain to politics to ice cream to hugging the till-man (don't ask) and other such things.

All in all, it was a fantastic little excursion to town resulting in much enjoyment for all parties involved.