Kool & The Gang said it best!

 So this is the end of the year. I'll not inject my personal thoughts about our countries situation and instead think positively.

New Years Eve. The holidays are winding down and well, the party just keeps on rolling. Now it's one birthday after another for a few weeks.

Let's go!

My bother in law Dave's birthday is on New Year Eve so we usually do a party for him. Dave wanted steak. So steak is what most of us had.

We tried to get reservations for a few places around the QC ,but most were full up. So Dave decided to head back north to Wapsi Oaks. Wapsi Oaks is a Nine hole golf course just west of Calamus Ia. About a good twenty minute drive for us.

https://www.wapsioaks.com/

Had to start out with a drink or ten.

Wapsi Oaks's clubhouse.

I had done my usual front loading so I might as well tour the bathroom, right? Right.

Pretty clean although we were there fairly early. 

Alright let's get this party started! Might as well have an Ole Fashioned while Dave is buying.

I must confess. I'm 56 years old. There ain't no partyin all night long for me anymore. I digress.

I'm getting hungry. Let's peruse the menu shall we? Wapsi's New Years menu was fairly small,but that's ok. We came for the steak.

Got to do the salad bar for starters. The usual fixings,but everything was fresh,crisp and tasty.

Obviously today's blog post is not pizza. Steak was what we all came for. We did a blog post about Wapsi Oaks almost two years ago. For a place relatively in the middle of nowhere they do up some righteous steaks and I'm not lying.

My two brothers in law had an 8 oz filet. The wife,nephew and I had the 14 oz New York strip. Everyone's steak came out just as we wanted them too. 

If you want a great steak with a little road trip Wapsi Oaks is well worth the drive.

Better include the steak pic!

Happy Birthday Dave! This post is for you. I couldn't ask for a better brother in law.

Oh yeah I almost forgot the cake pic.

Here's to the end of 2020. Life goes on and more birthdays to come. 

Thank's to all of you that check out our humble little corner of the internet. We hope you enjoy our road trips and visits to the many fine scarfing establishments our area has.

Scott ,Sheri and Mollie

We did indeed pay the Ferryman today

 And I will explain in a bit.

Be that as it may. Not much in this world upsets yours truly. As you all faithful readers have noticed I have melded music with my reviews and I will stay true to that. 

But word of Eddie Van Halen passing away has been a gut punch. I loved his playing and all of their albums be they DLR era or even the Sammy times. Buy all Van Halen music. Indeed we can't get that stuff no more.

Okay. So we have finally got off our duffs and pizza blogged the last few weeks. This is our favorite time of year to road trip and see the sights.

So today is like prime time for us to dive north and see trees,buy beer,ride boats,drive curves,eat pizza. Don't worry faithful readers it will all come together I promise.

Today is kinda early October. We drove north to buy some beer.We always stop at Kielers. Located in Dickeyville Wisconsin.

http://kielersgroceryandliquorstore.com/

And when we leave. We head farther north towards Cassville Wisconsin. Beautiful roads and scenery leading to a really good time.

We have made a tradition of trying to ride the Cassville Ferry from Wisconsin over to the Iowa side. We do not get to do this every year and this is the first time for us in about 4 years. Certainly not because we don't want to. Just because we work and so forth.

https://cassville.org/ferry/

Why we paid the ferryman.

A few pics. This is so much fun.

My ladies in red. The car and my loves. That Camaro loves curves. Not my car,but lord I drive it.

So. A day that makes life worth living. And well? Isn't life worth doing things,going somewhere,eating pizza,drinking some rum,breaking the speed limit,acting the fool?

Now. Shall we eat some pizza? Indeed. I have hinted and teased and wanted to try this place out for ever. Coming from north of Dubuque it was time to try out a pizza joint long on our radar.

We finally stopped at Shot Tower Inn.

https://www.shottowerinn.net/

While walking inside. They had some pictures on the wall.

Those of us of a certain age in The Quad Cities mid 70's will remember Shakey's Pizza.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakey%27s_Pizza

Okay. Did you enjoy are trip pics? We had so much fun today.

Shot Tower Pizza! 

The menu.

I had to visit the bathroom.

After all of this living today. We finally got to the pizza. Shot Tower Pizza has long been on mu pizza blog radar. Today we had it.

As usual. The kid ordered chicken strips of some sort. We ordered a sausage,pepperoni and onion pizza.

I messed up. A few in door pics.

Let's not forget the pizza.

We ordered a medium thin crust sausage,pepperoni and onion pizza. The kid got chicken strips as usual.

First impressions was this was a Shakey's Pizza from days gone by. And a Happy Joes type crust. 

Sher and I both started thinking about growing up in the Quad Cities mid 70's. Shakey's and early Happy Joes come to mind.

We loved Shot Tower Pizza. And if this is as close as we can get to old school Shakey's Pizza?  I am all aboard. Good pizza and good times.

Scotty.

Commander Cody got nothin on us!

 

Commander Cody you say? Why indeed I do. I'll tell you why in a bit. First it was road tripping time today.

What better than some Gearjammin?

So it has been one of our longer lulls in this here little ole blog. Covid. Vacations. Life,et al. Today the drought ended with some driving.

An early fall day with beautiful weather. My favorite time of the year. What better way to take a drive and eat some zza!

We got in the Camaro and drove north as is our usual compass point.

Ended up in Bellvue IA today. I love this overlook of the Mississippi River. The view never gets old.

While we don't drive a Lincoln. The Camaro likes to be driven. And HWY 52 south out of Bellvue has some brand new fresh asphalt. That road is some really nice curves for almost 20 miles.

We hadn't ventured forth for pizza in it seems one million years to me. So let's get on with it.

Today's pizza joint visit was to Clinton Iowa. 

http://backshoppizza.com/

I must confess. The waitress took the menu away before I had a chance to get any more pics. 

Back Shop Pizza is all kinds of crazy in a good way. Car culture motif. Party rooms. A big back room arcade. 

And well Joliet Jake and Elwood were there too.

Back Shop has a certain industrial vibe to it and I can imagine how loud it could get full of kids and all those arcade games going. Pretty cool never the less.

So having been in the car for a bit. I needed the breakroom . We were there around 3 pm. So the bathroom had been through the noon rush and honestly needed some cleaning.

A quick Camaro song for my wife. She loves that car.

Okay. How was the zaa you ask? First off. We have been doing this blog for going on five years now. The kid is now fifteen and still gravitates toward chicken of some sort most of the time.

Today was our first taste of Chicken George style chicken. As near as I can tell. Chicken George is chicken tenderloin strips with an almost funnel cake type batter. The kid would have ate 5 pounds if we had kept on ordering them. They were that good. I had a couple small pieces. Sinful comes to mind.

Last,but yada yada. The pizza. We ordered a large sausage and pepperoni regular crust.

So how was it? I give the sausage a 9. The sauce was nice and sweet. Plenty of cheese. Now to the nits.

The toppings were pretty skimpy and had I known would have doubled the sausage. And the sausage is the star of this pizza. The crust was a little too chewy for me. I prefer a thin crust. The wife loved the crust. And love makes the world go round eh?

We will certainly probably visit again just for the Chicken George. And there is a whole area wide Chicken George phenom in the greater Clinton Ia, Sterling n Rock Falls Illinois metro. That would be a great Pizza blog post in and of itself. We will def try and do that at some point too.

Anyways. It felt good just to get out. Enjoy this fall weather. Take a drive . And eat pizza.

And a little Willie to end this post.

Scotty