thebabyperks

With the weather cooling down dramatically over the past two weeks we've been able to spend a lot of time outside. We've been trying to break in the hiking shoes we bought at the end of last season and increase our mileage. One way we've been doing that is picking a trail within an hour of our home to explore. Of course, we check for local breweries, too. This week we chose Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

Excelsior Springs is home to The Elms, an allegedly haunted luxury hotel. I had the chance to stay in the hotel back in January during a retreat for work. They have a ghost tour that I did not participate in (not something I'm in to, but some of my coworkers did) and a great spa. I didn't have time on the retreat to explore the city so I was excited to go back.

On our way to walk the Watkins Mill Lake Loop, we had to try Dubious Claims Brewing Company. They have a full menu of food and a good range of brews. While there we split the Hawaiian pizza and I had the nitro milk stout and their blueberry wheat ale. David had two lagers because they were out of the cream ale. I am usually not a stout person, which is quite surprising because I love coffee, but this stout was smooth and easy to drink.

We finished our beers and decided to take some time to walk around their small downtown. There were some cute little shops that we browsed through-- I even grabbed some small Christmas gifts.

After we finished our shopping we took a short ten minute drive to the lake. There was plenty of parking and some boats and kayaks out on the water. This wasn't a challenging hike by any means considering it was paved, but it was beautiful. If we would've arrived earlier in the day we easily could have walked it two or more times before the sunset. We didn't want to push our luck, though, and stuck with doing the 3.8-mile loop one time. 

Throughout the hike there were places with a better view of the water. I used a few of those opportunities to snap some photos.