7-20-16  A funeral and a date with the Schneides:

As our timing would have it, a long time friend of ours called while we were there to tell us her sister was in the hospital and not doing well.  She was only 64 years old---Ken's age---and she died.  Hard to believe our generation is kicking the bucket now!  We went to her wake last night and I went to the funeral this morning with another friend of ours.

Later we met back up with her and her husband (whom I'll call The Schneides) and we went out to dinner and a drink.  Back to Alton we went to the world renowned (or should be) Fast Eddie's Bon Air.  Where else can you get a really good tenderized steak kabob for only $2.99, or a burger for $1, fries for $1, shrimp for $.29 @, pork kabob for $1.99 and a few other things that I can't think of right now.  Notice the theme---finger foods!  No flatware provided.   Only requirement is you have to buy a drink---could be water, soda, or alcoholic.  I got an IPA and the Elwood (the steak kabob) and fries.  While I waited for those to be cooked, I ate the free popcorn.  Dinner and our visit was great.

Then we decided to go check out a new brewery in Alton---Old Bakery Brewery.   It is an interesting place. 

 We ordered 3 flights---to cover all their beers and took turn tasting them.  They went to Oregon with us a couple years ago and we had a blast trying all the local breweries around there.  This was a fun reminder of that time.  We all taste it, then the one who likes it the best gets what's left in the glass.  I get all the IPAs, Coni the stouts, Ken the light ones, and we make John drink what the rest of us don't want.

 We didn't plan to order any food, but we stayed so long we ended up getting a nachos to share.  It was very good.

 We ended up staying so long because it was trivia night and we wanted to see how smart we were.  Apparently we aren't very smart!  This was the prize for coming in last place.  1st place got $25 so sometimes it pays to be stupid.   We did find out that if you sign up with them, they send out the theme of the trivia night (which happened to be Canada tonight) and they even send the questions and some of the answers.  No wonder so many people were getting the weirdest things right!

It was a fun night--- although a bit humbling.