Opening day and a Red’s win! Who could ask for anything more? Busy day today. I promise more tomorrow.

We will soon be losing Kim’s company car as a result of our upcoming move. And as much as I’d like to think that we could get by with only one vehicle, I don’t think that will work in the less public transit friendly city of Cincinnati. We started our big search a couple of weeks ago, and have recently spent some time test driving a handful of vehicles.  The big things that we are looking for are storage capacity at least as good as the Chevrolet Equinox that we will be replacing, all wheel drive, and the best gas mileage possible.

As it stands now we have it pretty much narrowed down to three choices:

• Hyundai Santa Fe GLS AWD
• Mitsubishi Outlander SE AWC
• Subaru Outback 2.5i

Each of these vehicles start around $25,000 but we have been given quotes up to $2,500 less. In addition they all get over 20 MPG City and 25 MPG Highway, as well as larger cargo capacity than the Equinox. One big difference is that both Hyundai and Mitsubishi offer a 5 year / 60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, while Subaru’s is only 3 year / 36,000 mile. We have also recently thought about adding the Kia Sorrento into the mix, though we have yet to test drive it.  Does anyone have any thoughts on these brands? Or are there some other vehicles that we should be looking at that we have skipped over (keeping in mind what is important to us)?

Saturday evening my wife and I found ourselves out in the burbs of Denver suddenly hungry for a bite to eat. After a couple of chain restaurnt suggestions from myself, she quickly suggested that we try Pizza Republica, a restaurant that she had visited during a lunch break at work. Despite the crowded parking garage for the new and growing Village Shops at The Landmark, we were able to find a close parking spot on the street near the restaurant. We were immediately seated upon entering and I quickly felt a little under-dressed in my baseball hat and t-shirt. I wasn’t expecting such well dressed clientele for a pizza shop.

Fresh Burrata

Our server took his time getting to us, which was okay as we looked through the rather extensive wine list. My only real complaint so far was that the cheapest glass of wine started at $7, which seemed a little high to me. Of course when we asked for a suggestion on a dry red wine, we were given $11 glasses of wine. After I had my second glass later in the meal it occurred to me that we could have shared a bottle for just a bit more. Oh well, lesson learned and the wine was very good. Our server also suggested the fresh burrata for an appetizer. Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese, made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream, giving it an unusual, soft texture. This delicious cheese was served with fire roasted garlic & peppadews, fresh basil, and Crostini bread.

Half Pizza / Half Calzone

While enjoying our appetizer, we noticed quite a few pizzas coming out of the kitchen that looked like part of it was folded on top of itself. Our server later explained that it was a new dish that they were going to add to their menu soon. It was half pizza and half calzone. I don’t remember all the toppings, but the pizza is the meaty half with pepperoni, salami, etc. And the calzone is the veggie half with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, garlic, black olives (which we removed), etc. I thought that the pizza was pretty good, with a thin and tasty Neapolitan crust and even more fresh mozzarella. While the calzone was the real winner here as it was filled with even more of their delicious cheeses. Clearly my favorite part of the meal was all of their fresh cheese that is imported especially for them. Plus the food seems to be more fairly priced than the wine selections. And they have a two course lunch menu which is very affordable and would be my choice if I were to go back.

This past Saturday I enjoyed what could be one of my last days on the slopes for this season. With April around the bend, resort closing dates getting near, and lots of other things going on, I may not be able to make it back out. Even if that were the case, I still feel like I got my money’s worth this year with eight really good days on the slopes.

Saturday was definitely another good one, easily in the top half of my visits. I headed up to Vail early Saturday morning with the usual suspects, my friends Ken and Rob. We made it all the way to the lift lines before they even opened at 8:30. With so much time on our hands, we took our time getting back to Blue Sky Basin and enjoyed a few runs in Game Creek Bowl, Sun Down Bowl, and China Bowl. The early morning snow was great with a reported six new inches of powder.

When we did eventually make it out to Blue Sky Basin we enjoyed multiple runs in Pete’s Bowl before the crowds built up at all. At that point we enjoyed more runs in Siberia Bowl and Sun Up Bowl, before moving all the way back to the Game Creek Bowl where we started the day. All in all I rode over 25,000 vertical feet, which was easily the most I have done all season. By the end my legs were completely beat! I think that is the sign of a good day.

This week in sports was filled with a lot of closure.  My hockey team lost our second playoff game on Wednesday night and thus our chances at a championship are over.  I still have a separate tournament coming up the first weekend of April that should be a good time.

Last night was also the end of this bowling season.  My average was 130 going into the night, but it will likely go down even more.  Last night was not my best night, and actually maybe my worst of the short season.  My scores for the three games were 102, 120, and 119.  I think I am going to retire from this frustrating sport.

I have now reached a decade of legal alcohol consumption.  Yep, today is my 31st birthday.  To celebrate Kim gave me a variety of IPA’s this morning along with a set of snifter glasses that I’ve been wanting. My mom sent a bunch of books to me for our upcoming move back to Cincinnati including Day Trips from Cincinnati and 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Cincinnati. She also sent some new running clothes. It has been a good day so far.

I’ve been meaning to review this restaurant for over a year now. Tocabe is an American Indian Eatery specializing in fry bread tacos. The taco starts with a puffy fried dough which is then topped with your choice of beans (black, chili, or pinto) along with a choice of meat (ground beef, grilled chicken, ground bison, shredded bison, or vegetarian) as well as lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, red onions, sour cream, chipotle sauce, and a choice of salsa. There are a lot of choices, and an endless number of combinations, but I always get the chili beans, chicken, with all the toppings including a spicy salsa. This isn’t a taco that you can pick up and eat, at least not very easily, a fork and knife are required to enjoy.

American Indian Fry Bread Taco

Each of the four times I have visited Tocabe, I have fallen in love with the food and always tell myself that I should return more often. I guess that I would stop by more frequently if it wasn’t so far away from our house. There was a rumor flying around that they were going to open a second location last September, but nothing ever came of it. On our most recent visit, a Saturday evening, there were always customers ordering from the counter and there were very few tables unoccupied. I’d be surprised if more locations didn’t start popping up once the economy really starts to pick back up.

We took Trey to the zoo on Sunday afternoon. Visits to the zoo were a common thing when I was growing up, and I’d like the same to be true for our son. On this visit he slept most of the time, though he did wake up to see the gorillas. The gorillas were always my favorite part of the zoo as well. He decided he wanted to eat at that time, so I fed him a bottle as we watched for more gorillas in their outdoor enclosure. He also seemed to enjoy the bears and the arctic wolves too. It was an easy-going day full of sunshine and leisurely strolls.

Crispy Buffalo SmashChicken

Saturday was filled with casual (but quite tasty) meals. For lunch my wife and I tried SmashBurger for the first time. Neither one of us are red meat eaters, so the place always sounded a little intimidating to us. However when we actually took the time to glance at the menu on the outside of the restaurant, we realized that it was actually right up our alley. In addition to the smashburgers they also have both grilled and crispy smashchicken sandwiches! I opted for the crispy buffalo smashchicken sandwich with Franks Buffalo Sauce, crumbled blue cheese, lettuce, tomato and may on an egg bun. My wife ordered the grilled spicy baja smashchicken with pepper jack cheese, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, onion, chipotle mayo and fresh jalapeños on a chipotle bun. We also had a side of smashfries and sweet potato smashfries.

Grilled Spicy Baja SmashChicken

I thought that the buffalo smashchicken sandwich was excellent, but I must admit that I am a sucker for buffalo chicken sandwiches. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary on this sandwich, though it wasn’t completely covered in Franks, which allowed the blue cheese to stand out a little more. I preferred this over my wife’s spicy baja, but that one was also very good. The sweet potato smashfries were perfect, while the smashfries required a little extra salt for our tastes. I was pleasantly surprised by SmashBurger and will definitely return. When I return I will probably try the BBQ ranch smashchicken or perhaps even build my own.

SmashFries

My hockey team was off this week after our disappointing loss last week. We will play again next week and if we lose again we are out of the playoffs.

Bowling last night wasn’t my best. I started off with a respectable score of 123. However this is a bit below my 132 average. I was definitely worse in the second game and finished barely over 100 with a 102. I even had one frame with back to back gutter balls. It seems that somehow my right leg got in the way of my ball on the first one, causing my arm to swing right and therefore the ball as well. The second gutter could be blamed on a number of things. I was still laughing at the thought of my first gutter, I was trying to overcompensate for the leg and threw way to the left, or perhaps it was just a terrible frame. I had my highest score of the night during the third game, but still 128 was below my average. I was hoping to get closer to a 135 average, but that may be impossible since next week is the last one.

My picks in the NCAA tournament fared pretty well yesterday. I predicted twelve of the sixteen games correctly, though I did lose two sweet sixteen teams, Louisville (I should have trusted my gut and went against them) and Michigan State. The Michigan State pick was a bit of a stretch, but we all know that Florida is the worst two seed in the tournament. My bracket is currently in the 74% percentile of all Yahoo! users, so I’m still doing pretty well.