Day 17: The Library, Drinks

Yesterday was weird.

At lunchtime, boyfriend asked me if I wanted to go anywhere to eat, and I told him I didn't really want to spend anymore money right now, so that I can make sure I have enough money for when I'm in Phoenix next week. He told me he would pay for my lunch, so I agreed.

We ended up going to The Library, which is pretty much a staple in this town. In February, they shut the doors to their old location while they started construction on a new building in downtown Laramie. The new building opened in September, though until recently, they didn't have any of their own beers available (they're also a brewery!).

For lunch, neither of us were in the mood for alcohol, though I ordered an Inferno (a BLT with jalapeno bacon and guacamole) and a side house salad with blue cheese dressing. Boyfriend ordered the same sandwich, though without tomatoes and guacamole. The inferno is probably one of my favorite things to order at The Library, though they also have pretty decent pizza, macaroni and cheese bites, wings, and when they have it - beer.

Side note: never order the hot wings at The Library if you don't eat a lot of spicy food. While they're not unbearably spicy for some people, they are spicier than most wing sauces at most chain restaurants. (I'm also not a fan of the flavor - I think the jalapeno flavor comes out too strongly in the hot wings.)

The Library has an 81% rating on Urbanspoon. The overall reviews on the site aren't terrible - most of the "negative" reviews just say the service is sub-par and the beer is just "okay". We've had issues with service in the past,  but nothing awful since they've reopened.

The one thing I will say about their new location is that it doesn't seem to have as much character as their old location. Their new location has a lot of televisions hanging around the dining area and bookshelves to go with their name - but it's obviously a new building, a much larger one at that, that seems to lack the same "charm" as their old location (pictured below).

I ended up ordering too much food and took half of my sandwich home, which I ate for dinner.

Around 8:00, a friend invited me out (and since I had previously supplied beer for past social functions, she pretty much bought all of my beer). We started at Front Street Tavern, where we drank two pitchers of....well, I can't even remember. The first was a strong, dark stout...and the second was something from Odell. But honestly, I hadn't eaten much that day, definitely not as much as I should have eaten, and I failed to remember the names of both drinks.

However, we did stop in at The Library, because my friend informed me that their new beers are now available! Yay! I had a blueberry pomegranate ale, and honestly...I can't remember how it tasted. It sounds tasty. I want to believe it was tasty. But I really don't remember. I drank way more than I expected last night. Whoops.

Day 11 Continued: Bagels with Leftover Stuffed Mushroom Spread, Chips, Raspberry Brown Ale

I had some leftover spread from the stuffed mushrooms from yesterday, so I saved it and spread it on a bagel. It makes sort of an odd spread, but considering most of it is cream cheese, it wasn't bad.

I also indulged and bought my favorite chips - Baked Barbecue Lays.

And right now, I'm drinking a Raspberry Brown Ale from New Belgium.

Day 9: Sandwiches, Burgers, Cheese Fries.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday, mostly because I forgot. Whoops. But we literally ate out for every meal....also bad. But anyways...it started when my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to go to lunch. He only had half an hour, so we just went to Subway. I got a turkey sandwich on Italian herbs and cheese bread with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, banana peppers, and spicy mustard (should have just done oil and vinegar, whoops). Here's a realistic picture of a sandwich I found on the internet, one that's not all fluffed up and plastic.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of a photo I saw on Reddit yesterday:

We did end up getting burgers later, at the Five Guys in Cheyenne. It was just before we went over there to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is not playing in town. Though, to be honest, I was more than happy to not pay $8 to see a movie on a screen I could potentially install in my apartment.

Interestingly, a Google search of images for "Five Guys Burgers" does not yield any fake advertisement burgers.

My burger had ketchup, mustard, grilled onions, lettuce, and tomato. Normally, I would just order everything, but I've found that doing so results in a very messy burger, and I'd prefer to keep my hands clean. (Actually, a friend who came along for the ride did order a burger with everything, and his did end up falling apart.)

Boyfriend and I shared an order of Cajun Fries.

When the movie ended, it was about 9:00. There was some buzz going on around the media about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights, so we stopped in at Old Chicago for a few beers before heading out there. Boyfriend was hungry (yes, two hours after we'd eaten a full meal), so he ended up ordering some cheese fries.

They looked something like the above photo, except there were some green onions a lot more sour cream. Boyfriend looks at it and makes a comment along the lines of, "Why is there so much sour cream?" and ends up scraping as much as possible off his fries with a fork. I also caught him picking some green onions off his fries. And no, it's nothing I haven't seen before.

While we were there, I ended up drinking two beers: an Odell's Cutthroat Porter and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

And in case you're wondering, we were not able to see the northern lights. Apparently, the geomagnetic storm came in weaker than expected, and it looks like nobody in our part of the country was able to see them.