Eleven French Crepes

At Lee's Cyclery in Fort Collins:

Mr. Bruno Gerard Krioussis

Remember back in June at the Ride to Work Breakfast? Well, for some reason the organizers of that special bicycle day decided to do the same thing in December! When there's snow. And it's cold out. There were not as many stations and not as many riders (why not?) as in the Summer, but it was worth a bike trip to greet a few of the locations and get some free grub.

Staking out New Belgium early on was a mistake. They were quite popular in June so I got there early so I could have a chance to try whatever they were offering... Apparently they were not in to it this winter; No coffee was made at the start even though several employees were milling about. Ten minutes after the start of their supposed breakfast someone decided to heat up some cider on a propane heater. Fifteen minutes, still no coffee; I'm out of there so I rode up to Oak Street Plaza where there was hot coffee and egg & cheese burritos.

Later on in the morning I rode to Lee's Cyclery where Bruno was making breakfast crepes. Bruno was from the "Institute of Ecolonomics" which made me hesitate for a moment because I thought it had to do with "E. coli" but no; it's basically economic ecology but what they actually do -- I'm not sure. Check out the website and see if you can figure it out.

Bruno can make excellent crepes so I have to give Lee's Cyclery the "The BEST Breakfast Award". Sorry all the rest of the places. Next time, make crepes!

Brazil, A Taste of

Right here in Fort Collins:

Another Roadside Attraction

It's a little Brazilian kitchen in a trailer! If you bike on Mason Streets between Harmony and Horsetooth, you can smell something good cooking somewhere between the pawn shops and car dealerships.

Authentic Brazilian Food!

The place is called A Taste of Brazil. If you find it, you will meet Brazilian chef Rodrigo Rios. Ask about the daily specials!

Chef Rodrigo

Here Rodrigo is pointing to the daily specials. Besides the daily specials, he makes some kind of pastry called a "Pastel" which I have yet to try (prolly because the name reminds me of art class!) .

Άγιος Σπυρίδωνας visits Old Town

St. Spyridon (Άγιος Σπυρίδωνας)of Loveland came into town this weekend for the Greek Festival!

Saint Spyridon

We didn't go last year:

There were dancers on the menu

Here are the St. Spyridon Dancers

There were good things to eat like Souvlaki, Spanakopita, Dolmades and Paximathia. They also had something they called a "gyro sandwich", but it wasn't anything like what we used to get on the South side of Chicago (or any side for that matter).

Note: Saint Spyridon is NOT the patron saint of Spyders!

Iowa Ribfest!

Vegetarians beware!

Willingham's is here!

and the Cowboys from Fort Worth

and Chicago, of course!

Australian? Put another rib on the barbie?

Texas, OK, another Texas BBQ!

and yet another Texas BBQ and winner of the 2009 Naper-vile ribfest!

What, they never heard of Kansas City ribs? And why did they compete in Naper-vile ? In any event, a whole lot of ribs was et.

Yet Another Compiler Compiler

In Elbert, Colorado:

Bos grunniens

They have yaks at the Grunniens Ranch in Elbert.  As the name grunniens is the species name for the Tibetan Yak, it seems appropriate. Why they are not walking along narrow passages up Mt. Everest with a group of Sherpas is a mystery!

Speaking of Sherpas, we have a family of Sherpas living two doors down from us!  Our neighbors Sharon and Dawa  sometimes lead expeditions to Mt. Everest, but they also locally own the Mt. Everest Cafe in Fort Collins.  We go there often for some of the best Nepalese food in Colorado! The lunch buffet is excellent: Everything is good! Try some today!

Beef! It's what's for Dinner

A great place for steaks:

The 'S' in the sign is larger? Why is that?

When we see this sign from the road, we think it says "Moose House". Just weird!

CSU Football! GO RAMS!!! Wah-hoo!

What the hell do we know about football!?

Sonny Lubick

Not much, but we did go to Sonny Lubick's Steakhouse tonight. The food was very good. A lot of CSU football memorabilia all over the place... seems this Sonny fella is a big deal around town.
Afterwards we stopped in at Avo's bluegrass jam for the last jam of the year (for me) as we are heading for Chicago next week.

With a name like Schmickles

Ate some wild elk and buffalo today...

The local Home Depot has a lunch stand where you can buy the 'Wild Game of the Day'.

I had heard earlier about being able to get a 'Road Kill' license from the ranger station so I went down to the station to pick one up. It turns out you have to hit an animal with your car/truck/snow mobile BEFORE you can get a license! And then only after you have a ranger come down to the accident site and determine if the road kill is OK to eat. I'm not sure my little VW can take another hit, so I guess I should be content with eating a Schmickle sausage whenever I have to go out and buy hardware.

Failed Franchises

Fort Collins is a great place to live but...

CUBS & SOX PIZZA CLOSED FOREVER

They don't "get" pizza! Oh, sure, they have a few places that claim to have New York or Chicago style pizza, but they don't come close. All the campus style pizza places are clones of Domineeks! and taste like Chuck-Up E. Cheese! The high class joints are not much better-- just more expensive. And what's with the sausage? All of Fort Collins must be contracted out to some dog food company in Sterling. There really are some fabulous restaurants in town, but PIZZA ! Fergeddaboudit!

Oh, and I think the Jeanne is becoming a Colorado Rockies fan!

Ice Cream!

RAGBRAI is over, but I still have over 5GB of photos and movies to look though. Also, right now we have been busy doing a few things around the house. So, the heck with bandwith, I'm going to post a few things this week in video format. 

I think I stopped at Beekman's home made ice cream maybe four or five times to have a root beer float.   The ice cream makers are powered by antique gas engines. There's even a 95 year-old man that hangs around the ice cream truck to fix the engines when they break down!