Yesterday morning while I was playing fetch with Duke in front of the Elks, a very nice man stopped his truck and asked if we were coffee drinkers.  Yep,  I was just thinking about brewing myself a fresh cup from our Keurig machine.  Anyway, I told him yes and he pointed down the road, telling me past the golf course was a great coffee spot.  He said the guy ships his coffee all over the USA and has the best coffee around.  That got my attention because there were no businesses out here in the country that I could see.

So this morning Paul and I got in the car, drove up the road and sure enough right in front of a farm house was a sign ESPRESSO and an American Flag waving.  We make the turn and see a little shack and an old truck pulled up to the window. We pulled into the wrong driveway and the man in the booth steps out and says “if you want help you got to get out of my yard and come around to the window the right way!”  Great, we’ve ticked off the owner, we probably aren’t getting any coffee.

Paul,  not being intimidated backs up, pulls around and drives right up to the window where once we started chatting with the guy he was very nice, just a bit gruff, like my husband!  Great pair.  We had a nice chat, told him we heard he had great coffee and ordered a cup of coffee and a latte for me.  Wow,  right out in the middle of nowhere I’m getting my Starbucks fix and it was 1/2 the price.  We paid $4.00 for both including the cup and tax.  Then before we left the guy says to Paul “you got a dog in there?”  Oh yeah,  usually we roll down the window for Duke to say hi but this time we were so thrown off by our start that we hadn’t.  Paul rolls the window down,  the guy offers Duke a milkbone and then he says, “can he have a Pupachino?”  What?  Well of course he can have a treat.  The guy proceeds to take a small cup, fill it with whipped cream from a can, sticks 3 large milkbones around the edge and holds it out for Duke.  You should have seen our dog,  all manners were out the window!  He ate as much of the whipped cream as his tongue would reach and then grabbed the milkbones and ate those too.

I wonder if I can order a Pupachino next time Duke and I go to Starbucks?

It’s hard to concentrate

Monday Becky picked me and we played 18 holes at Canyon Springs Golf Course where the course is challenging and the landscape is beyond beautiful.  The course is right along the Snake River in the gorge that winds its way thru Twin Falls.

The first hole, looking towards the bridge that spans the gorge

Becky takes a swing while I admire the waterfall spilling into the gorge

I really enjoyed the afternoon playing and golfed well, one of my better scores for 18 holes.  We met with Becky and Lonnie for dinner in town after where I had my first rainbow trout.  I don’t remember ever having trout but I will definitely be ordering it again.  It was really good.

Sunday afternoon we packed everything away, raised the jacks and headed southeast to Twin Falls, Idaho.  We are heading towards the Rocky Mountains with a few detours along the way.

We arrived at the Snake River Elks lodge and when checking in Paul found our friend Becky who we met at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival.  I was planning on meeting Becky on Monday for a round of golf, so finding her here was a bonus.  I quickly grabbed my clubs and headed to the course to play 9 holes with her and a friend of hers, Pam.  It was a beautiful afternoon and I played ok.  The course is attached to the Elks Lodge but privately owned and very nice wide fareways and lots of very green grass, they must not have a water shortage here.  The smoke in the air is also much better as we get further from Washington.

All set up at the Snake River Elks Lodge

Paul got us set up in our site while I golfed.  We are the only ones here Sunday evening and it is a very nice setting; there are corn fields all around and of course the golf course.

Lots of green lawn here

This is my backyard

Overhead irrigation everywhere you look

A cool barn down the road

This is a great spot for a couple of days.

Passing through Boise Idaho for a few days the Western Idaho Fair is going on, and it is just down the road.  I feel another eating binge coming on.

Idaho where they love their potatoes

We started our afternoon with dessert and after cruising through the vendors building where I am happy to say I resisted the many choices of pots and pans, cheese graters, slice-it, dice-it and jewelry purchases.  We made it out of the building with my wallet still intack.  However,  food alley I was not so lucky.  We enjoyed lemonade, frozen lemonade (it was hot!), corn dog, lamb steak sandwich, a brick of curly fries and a gyro.  The Idaho Spud dessert, ice cream shaped like a potatoe, rolled in cocoa powder, split down the middle to fill it full of whipped cream, topped with crwas the best item they had!  I wanted to go back for a second one.