When travelling it is always fun to visit the local grocery store to see what kind of micro brews they carry. After checking into the hotel in Twin Falls, I headed over to Fred Meyers. Freddy’s always seems to have a better selection than any other grocery store. Sure enough, Looking through the selection I found one I had not noticed before, Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout. The 22 oz. bomber bottle was priced at $4.19 so into the cart it went (along with a Ninkasi Believer Double Red Ale, Ninkasi Oatis Oatmeal Stout, and a case of Session Black).

The Cappuccino Stout is Lagunitas’ December 2010 seasonal. Their list of Seasonal Ales describes it as:

Big, Dark and Scary Imperial-esque Stout Brewed With Plenty of Dark Malts and Roast Barley And Loads of Sebastopol’s Hardcore Coffee for Even Bigger Roasty Flavors and that Extra Krunk.
ABV: 9.2%

That list of Lagunitas seasonals has a couple of others I hope to check out sometime just because of their name, Hairy Eyeball Ale and Brown Shugga.

I looked forward to opening the bottle in the hotel room after a long day in the car but I was going to have to work for this. The hotel room did not have a bottle opener, a call to the desk was unfruitful and, since we were driving my wife’s car, my trusty opener was on the key ring I had left at home. Time to improvise. I worked the bottle cap open using a pair of tweezers, lol.

Pouring the dark beverage into the hotel glass, the coffee aroma was evident but not overpowering. The light tan head dissolved into nice lacing as I drank the first glass. The drink had a great taste, the beer and coffee working together yet the mouth feel was more of an ale than what I expect in a stout. Disappointed? How could I be disappointed with such a great tasting beer.  Will definitely keep an eye out for this to try again, with a bottle opener and a proper beer glass.

Lagunitas is located about 40 miles north of San Francisco in Petaluma, California and they seem to have a great sense of humor:

From our earliest days of striving to make consistently good beer, and instead making beer that ranged from vile, to barely drinkable, to wonderful, to elegant, to questionable-at-best. From being castigated by our West Marin neighbors to finally suffering an ‘eviction’ by our West Marin septic system. From landing in the welcoming arms of Petaluma, and actually getting our beer into bottles, onto the streets, and into the hands of sympathetic beer geeks, to steadily losing less money each month. From all this and more, Lagunitas Brewing Company is emerging as a battle-tested brewery capable of making great beer out of goat’s milk, brambles, and asphalt on the surface of the Moon, if need be.

As the poet once said, ‘Where, but for the grace of God and the kindness of strangers, go I’. Where go we indeed, whatever that means.

How do you get a good price on a hotel room? Priceline allows you to “Name Your Own Price” but what price should you name? The best help I have found is the BiddingForTravel.com forums. I have only used it to price hotels, but I know you can use it for flights and car rentals as well.

The basic premise is that after you have made a successful bid at Priceline you post your ‘deal’ on the forum so the next guy knows where to start his bidding. They also have some advanced bidding techniques I have used to be able to bid 2 or 3 times per day instead of the usual once-per-day allowance. I have used that many times but that technique needs to be the subject of a different post.

Today was the first time I have used Priceline to bid on a room while we were on the road. Since we got a late start and were not sure how tired we would be, we were not sure how far we would want to drive and therefor did not know where we would be spending the night. At 5pm we were an hour outside Twin Falls and decided we had driven far enough for today. This would really put BiddingForTravel to the test because Twin Falls is a very small town and so there would probably only be a few postings about prices folks had received.  Sure enough. I found 3 prices over 3 years:

3* Twin Falls, ID, Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs, $50. 09/18/2010

Started bidding at $42. Finally accepted at $50. Total with taxes and fees, $60.90. Hotel website lowest rate listed at $79. Used A-B link.

3* Canyon Springs/Twin Falls Red Lion Hotel 9/5/2010 $55

Thanks BFT…used A/B link…Sheryl COME BACK…it’s not the same place!!

3* Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs/Twin Falls 9/14/09 $50

Bid $48 yesterday. Won today at $50. Cheapest price on their website was $67.

Congratulations, your price of $50 was accepted by Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs/Twin Falls.

Interestingly they are all for the same 3-star hotel, the Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs, and they show winning bids of $50 and $55. Because I would only get one chance at this, I decided to bid $50 for a 2.5-star hotel and then try $55 for a 3-star if needed. (I prefer 2.5-star hotels because they are usually newer building and always include a free continental breakfast, whereas the 3-star hotels expect you to pay for breakfast in their restaurant.) Well, after putting in my bid, Priceline informed me that my bid had been upgraded.I was going to get a 3-star hotel for my $50 bid. Dang! looks like I will be paying for breakfast.

Finally, after winning the bid I went back to BiddingForTravel and posted my success to help someone else down the road:

Twin Falls -3* Red Lion Hotel Canyon Springs $50 01/16/2011

Read the 1 bid per year listed here that Red Lion 3* for $50 in 2009 and $55 in 2010 Driving in to Twin at 6pm so couldn’t take too many chances. Bid $50 for a 2.5* (Hoping to get a free breakfast) was upgraded to 3* Wish I had more time to have started lower. Used the A/B link of course.

It is sure nice to be able to get a good deal on a hotel room, especially at the last minute!  Anyone else use Bidding For Travel or another similar service?

What do you do after you have learned how to use a GPS and have found a couple hundred caches? You already know how to use a GPS and your geo-senses.

A Geocaching 101 class was held last February, giving some of the basics of geocaching along with searching for a couple of geocaches to help newbies.

How about a Geocaching 102 class to take your geocaching skills to the next level? How do you keep track of all your finds, keep notes about caches you are still looking for, and load all this information into just about any GPS. GSAK, the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife is just such a program. The GSAK web site says:

GSAK is the all in one Geocaching and waypoint management tool. Major features include: Multiple databases, sending/receiving waypoints to GPSr, Google maps, conversion to many mapping formats, PDA output (including CacheMate support), HTML output, extensive searching, macro support, backup and restore, distance/direction from other waypoints (including caches, locations, post codes) and much more

I have used GSAK for 7 years and still don’t know its full potential because it keeps getting better and better! And, because it can do so much, it can be quite intimidating to get started.

Geocaching 102: MeAndBrea used her ‘connections’ to get a room with computers at the Richland Community Center. Looked like we had a dozen people show up for the class that cost $5 per family for Richland residents and $7 if you don’t live in Richland. MazeRacer did a great job showing everyone how to get started (and then some) with GSAK. He asked me to be on hand to roam the room helping individuals with issues as they arose.

Do you have any ideas for a Geocaching 103 class? Or maybe even some ideas for GSAK 102?

First Tri-City Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting for the year! (Or at least the first one I have been able to attend.)

Global Credit Union just opened a new Home Loan branch on Gage in Kennewick. At a time when banks are closing, it is nice to see a bank that is expanding. Global Credit Union’s history, going back to its founding in 1954 to serve miliitary and civilian personnel at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. The entire story can be found on their web site.

It was standing-room only in the offices when it came time to cut the ribbon. Jack Fallis, the CEO, and a number of other executives from the home office in Spokane were on hand to cut the ribbon with Lori Mattson, CEO of the Tri-City Chamber of Commerce, and Sharon Brown, Mayor Pro-Tem of the City of Kennewick.

The food was catered by Country Gentleman and was fantastic as usual. Wine and beer were also provided. I must say that I enjoyed the meat balls too much and may not need dinner tonight.

It was fun to talk with various folks from the Credit Union as well as talk with others in attendance. Chamber events are always a great place to network. See you at the next one?

When I saw ‘Squirrel Sandwich’ on the menu at Bob’s Burger & Brew I just had to order it. The lean roast beef was grilled to perfection and smothered with Swiss cheese. Topped with tomato and held between two slices of toasted sourdough bread. The restaurant menu rightly warns that these can be extremely addictive.

When we walked into Matt & Mystie’s house this afternoon to celebrate my granddaughter Ilse’s 3rd birthday, I noticed something new hanging on their living room wall, a large laminated disk that in anyone else’s home would appear to be an oversized wall clock except that it did not have a clock face and Matt & Mystie already have an even larger clock with Elven numbers.

After lunch we had birthday cupcakes and watched the birthday girl open her presents, then Matt introduced us to the game of Crokinole. It probably can best be described as a game-table version of shuffleboard. We all took turns playing the winners.
All of us, from age 5 to 50, had great fun playing. I look forward to playing again.

Have you ever played Crokinole?