We had a chance to go down to High River this weekend to do some work on Frankentrailer, the tent trailer we bought back in July and which Audrey's brother Garrett had graciously retired for us. Before departing, we emailed Our friends Jim and Carol who finally moved into their house in Elbow River from Minnesota a couple of weeks ago.
I made it clear that we had made arrangements to sleep in Oma and Opa's fifth wheel, but they weren't having any of it. Despite their house still being full of moving boxes and not yet being 100% certain where everything was, they insisted on having us spend the night.
It's a nice neighbourhood, Elbow Ridge, and I am pretty confident that the last time I was in a house that nice, it was because K-Days was expecting to sell me a lottery ticket for it, but as with all such dwellings, it is the people within it that ultimately determine its homeliness.
We were not far in the door before Jim served me up a microbrew from Surly Breweries in the Twin Cities called Seviin Ale. A Belgian style beer with rye and wheat as well as barley in it, it may have been one of the smoothest 12.5% (!) ABV beers I've ever had. Unfortunately, I must be allergic to some ingredient or another as I found myself wheezing and coughing a fair bit, similar to what had happened once at Craft Beer Market in Edmonton.
Jim immediately offered the use of a spare inhaler he had, which did the trick. Meanwhile, Carol, who had recently arrived home from her job of being everyone's boss, was setting out olives and cheese and cutting flowers for a vase.
After a delicious dinner of steaks, baked potatoes and corn on the cob, Jim proferred another Surly beer called Pentagram. A sour stout, it went down much more agreeably than the sour beer I had in last year's Advent Calendar. Complex, fruity, and robust, with traces of coffee bitterness, it was an excellent way to settle the meal; liquid deserts are usually my preference anyways.
After chatting with a mutual friend from our time at GW together, we needed to pack it in as we required an early start. True to his promise, Jim had made setting up the guest room a priority, and a comfy bed with an adjoining bathroom awaited us downstairs. Before leaving though, he made sure to draw our attention to the frankly glorious assortment of vintage magazines had left down there for us, the covers of which I attach now for your enjoyment.
The next morning Audrey and I came upstairs to find Carol frying up potatoes and onions to accompany Dutch pannekoeken for breakfast, which were delicious. As we prepared to go, I told them truthfully: "if someone from out of town dropped in on me while I am still unpacking from a border-crossing move and who then had to be on the road again before 8 the next morning, I sure wouldn't be cooking them breakfast. In fact, I would probably tell them to poop in their hat. It just goes to show what awesome people you are."
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