It was a sad day when I heard that Hostess was closing it’s door, laying off thousands of employees across the country and filing for bankruptcy.  I hadn’t been following the company’s problems, so the whole issue kind of snuck up on me.  All of a sudden I found myself in fear of never getting a SnoBall or DingDong again!  So what do the Naylor’s do when pushed into a corner?  We combine our efforts, shoot for the last hurrah…which of course, ends up in a whole lot of excess!

That very night, Megan and I drove over to Foods-4-Less…we found one bag of chocolate Donettes.  So we went across the street to Walmart – surely we would find some over there…nothing!  We stopped at 2 gas stations on the way home, but no luck.  So Megan had the bright idea to send a shout-out to other Naylors across the country…okay, in Vegas and Salt Lake City…to give them a mission, should they choose to accept it, to be on the look-out for any and all Hostess goodies.  One thing I’ve learned – Naylor’s never back down from a challenge!

I decided to make an early trip over to Business Costco and look what greeted me when I went to my car!

I went down the street and had to stop…

…then I went to the main street and had to stop again!

When I got on the freeway there was a big chunk of rainbow in my side view mirror, however I didn’t stop on the freeway to get a picture of that.  Surely this was a good omen!  Anyway, all my stopping and picture-taking of rainbows delayed me a bit in getting to Business Costco…didn’t get there until about 7:08am.  Who would have thought that there were other Hostess lovers that had the bright idea of an early Saturday morning shopping spree at Business Costco?

I was amazed to find that on my way in there were already shoppers on their way out with baskets full of Hostess.  Don’t worry, I grabbed some powdered sugar Donettes, raspberry Zingers, HoHos and SuzyQ’s, but missed some of the family favorites.  But about a week later, this is the box I found delivered to my front door, straight from Vegas.

I was hoping for a couple of each thing, but when we do something, we do it big!  So here’s the haul that we have accumulated so far – the stuff from Utah will come later.  I think that we need to have a Good-bye Hostess Goody Party…do you think we have enough to share?

Welcome to Naylor’s MiniMart!  There must be about a million calories sitting right there on my table!  I think that I have enough to feed 50, maybe less if they’re hungry teenage boys!  But do you notice what is missing?

We were not completely successful in our hunt for Hostess – no Twinkies!  Michael was really hoping to get the chance to eat a Twinkie Hot Dog, but he’ll live.  SnoBalls and DingDong are my personal favorite, so I’ll get by without Twinkies.  I do believe that after this sampling, I will be fine without any store-bought pastries.  I can always try the copy-cat the recipes…or I can just make something from scratch!

So…farewell, Hostess.  You were a great memory from my youth, rarely bought in the past 15 – 20 years, but now I can say that I got my one last Hostess fix.  For tonight, a SnoBall and a DingDong will just have to do!

Actually, I’d better get busy planning my party…regardless of how long they say a Twinkie will last, these will only stay fresh for so long!