Chocolate, Anyone?

Today we ventured to Creede (see pic to the left). Jeremy and I had been there for a quick trip to the theatre once, but hadn't had time to really look around. This time the unit (and our guests) went to Creede for the annual Chocolate Festival. We bought a ticket ($10) to walk around town to 14 different stores, restaurants, and taverns to sample the homemade chocolate goodie they had created. The only two rules were 1) it must be homemade, and 2) it must have chocolate. We tasted things like fudge made with velveeta cheese (pretty good - Jeremy says it is the best of both worlds), raspberry fudge, Mexican spice hot chocolate (very thick consistency and a horrible taste - Jeremy says it is would you would get if you sneezed up pumpkin pie), cherry mash (like cough syrup with a bit of chocolate on top), peanut clusters (different than you would expect because the peanuts were raw and not salty), fat mints (cookie with chocolate chips and peppermint bits in them), Bailey's hot cocoa (they only asked if Jeremy and I were 21 years old - we are the oldest in our group... I guess we were flattered?), chocolate chip chocolate cookies (these were my favorite, plus they were served with ice cold milk), craisan and pecan clusters, and a pure, smooth creamy fudge (a blue ribbon winner in a 4-H competition at one time). There were a few more that I am forgetting, but you get the idea. It was a lot of fun - and a lot of chocolate! We also saw Santa Claus; he looked pretty wore out... and it's not even Christmas! :) We saw the current fire station built into the rocks; it looks like a pretty cool place to house fire trucks. We saw a bar named The Wild Beaver (this pics for you Sandy... and other Bluffton grads) I think that's it. It was a good day.