It's So Money

 Winnipeg, MB

That's the Mint behind us!

The Royal Canadian Mint

Today we toured The Royal Canadian Mint.  Usually when people put the word Royal in front of a phrase it means extra like Royal Pain In The Butt but not Canada.  The Royal Canadian Mint stamps coins with royalty on them for Canada and they have also helped over 80 countries mint coins including the good old USA.  It's a cool building and the tour was great, you should go.  I wasn't allowed to take photos of the actual minting going on so enjoy these photos I was allowed to take.

They have flags out front for all of the nations that they have pressed coins for.  There are 3 more going up soon.

It's a Loon!

The mint also made the Paralympic games medals.

This one is gold.

They sell all kinds of commemorative coins including coins for hockey and curling.

The Royal Scale

An old Royal Press and some footage in the background of the area I wasn't supposed to take photos of.

This is like a penny press machine except you put in 3 bucks and get a token pressed.  It was loud.

Donna found a Mounty Moose.

Wayne!

The original dies for the dollar coin (on the right) went missing on their way to the mint so they had to redesign the dollar coin and went with a Loon.  That's where the Loony came from.  The other one had a canoe so it could have been a canoey if things went differently.

A commemorative Twoney with a black ring to mourn the death of The Queen.

Each new monarch gets at least one coin and the direction of the face switches except one.  Edward VIII was king for a very short time before he left the throne to marry an American divorcee.  He wasn't king long enough to have a coin minted so the profiles didn't swap.

Groceries and a Yarn Store

After the mint we went to pick up groceries and visit a yarn store.  

Donna creeping on some row markers

We went to this great veggie and fruit stand.  We will be back.

We even forged some chanterelles.  

A puck of cheese

The Saskatoon pastries were great.

We also had to sample our maple syrup when we got home.  It was delicious.

That was it for today.  If you missed Food at The Forks, check it out.

Minnesota Yarn Store

 Minneapolis, MN

Another no selfie day so here is an insulting mug.

Cool Yarn Store

Today we ran some chores.  Our first stop was StevenBe Yarn Stop. The yarn shop is in an old firehouse.  It was one of the cooler yarn stores we have been to and the staff was VERY helpful.  Donna found what she was looking for and more while I found things to photograph.

They had yarn to knit a beany or toque and you could buy a matching puff ball for the top or sides if you are a rebel.  

StevenBe looks like he has it all figured out.

They had locks so that you could spin your own yarn

Or use on your felted dragon artwork

This fiber based art won the blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair.

After the yarn store we did a little drive to Target.  We picked up a few more highway segments and got some essential household items.  When we got back I headed over to Up Down Arcade to play some pinball.  We still had tokens left over from our 2 for 1 Saturday so I played those and bought some more because on Thursdays tokens are 10 cents each.  It's a great place to practice pinball.

Later that evening we enjoyed our Potato Sausage and a thunderstorm.

We stood on the patio and I tried to capture some lighting strikes.  This is the best I could do.

We are starting to fill in our highway map.

And we have a few of the surrounding counties.

That's it for today.  If you missed Tiki in Minnesota Don't You Know, check it out.  We visited a Tiki Bar in Minnesota.

One Year On The Road Celebration!

 St Louis, MO

Kreis' was less photogenic than most old red leather steakhouses so we took a selfie in front of the bar.

Celebrating at Kreis' Steakhouse

Today we celebrated 1 year on the road by going to a local steakhouse for Prime Rib.  In previous posts where we tried local BBQ we came to the conclusion that if we are going to buy "expensive" meat we prefer Prime Rib so we put that theory to the test at Kreis' Steakhouse. We were right!  We prefer Prime Rib over BBQ.  It was a very enjoyable dinner.  We have a few Prime Rib places to compare the experience to.  Our favorite is still House of Prime Rib in San Francisco.  You can't beat the spinning salad and the Yorkshire Pudding.

Just an old steakhouse on a US highway in the suburbs of St. Louis.

For our appetizer we got the the finest thing stuffed with the 2nd finest thing, Shrimp stuffed with Crab.  They were delicious.

Normally when we get Prime Rib we like to have the bone attached so we can snack on it at home.  The King Cut here includes a bone and this is what we used to get at House of Prime Rib so that is what we got here.  It turns out that the King Cut is comically large.  Sadly you can't really tell from this photo but it's about 2 inches thick.  It's much larger than we thought it would be based on our experience, the price, and the fact that they had an even larger cut.  

The Fred Flintstone sized Prime Rib persists in our refrigerator in almost the same form that you see it here.

Actual footage of our meal being prepared.

This shot of happy Donna kind of shows off how large this beast is.  It also came with sides!

We did a better job finishing this cheesecake.  It too was delicious.

It was a great meal and a great celebration.  If you are in the area and want a true King Cut of Prime Rib check out Kreis', you won't be disappointed.

I took a few more photos while running errands today so here they are.  They aren't as celebratory as giant photos of meat so I put them at the end.

We drove to the suburbs to buy some yarn today.  Turns out all of the yarn stores in St. Louis have closed and there are only a few scattered around the Greater St. Louis Area.

I went to the liquor store because we needed Sake for an upcoming recipe.  We are Illinois adjacent so of course there is a tiny 6 pack of Malort for sale.  More on this spirit when we get to Chicago!

Since I was at the store I decided to pick up some local Gin.  It's very good.

That was our adventure for today.  Tomorrow visit another St. Louis institution, The Budweiser Brewery!  If you missed our visit to the Gateway Arch yesterday you can read about it here We Visited the Worlds Smallest US National Park!