A Town So Nice, You Say It Twice…

The last couple days of vacay we’ve spent in Walla Walla, the “Napa Valley” of Washington.  It has indeed proved to produce many tasty wines, but we’ve had to somewhat limit what we can carry back unless we decide to strap the tent and other camping gear to the roof of the car!  Our favorites so far are Tamarack and Reininger (and no, that is not a suck up for PB folks – they had 12 wines to taste, and they were all good; though, unfortunately Chuck was not at the winery during our visit so we could suck up and get a discount).

Walla Walla has proved to be interesting in other ways, as well.  We had the best Thai food ever last night at Bangkok 103 Cafe, a recommendation from our friend Dave who’s aunt and uncle own the place.  It looks unassuming from the outside, but is well worth a stop if you are passing through the area.  We recommend the panang curry and asparagus stir fry.  We also happened upon a microbrewery, Walla Walla Brewers, in the airport area while searching for wineries.  This earned points with Brian so Erin was able to buy a couple extra bottles of wine.   WW also has the state’s largest prison.  “The Walls”, as it is known, is home to many violent criminals, including Gary Ridgeway.  We think they should start a winery of their own - could be a good way to get some of those guys back on their feet, and be a great marketing tool!

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No Fish in Redfish Lake

The fishing may be meager, but the Redfish Lake Resort is first-rate.  We’re only spending a day here, but I can see ourselves coming back, and it would be a great location for a destination family reunion or a getaway with friends for a week.  There are several campgrounds nearby, but we chose to partake in some creature comforts tonight and stay in a “rustic cabin”, not to be confused with a camping cabin.  It is very nice authentic log cabin built in the 1930’s, with a full bath, heat and wood fireplace. 

We splurged today and spent the afternoon on a pontoon boat, cruising Redfish Lake.  We dared to do a little swimming, as well, but this water is at least as cold as Chelan!  Now, we are spending late afternoon on the lodge’s patio loungers with a G&T, soaking up the view.  Definitely a nice way to end to the day… Maybe next time we’ll be able to stay longer and do some of the great hikes in the area.  But, we’ll be off tomorrow to see the rest of Idaho and probably stop somewhere near Hell’s Canyon.

View the photos of Redfish Lake

Sun Valley

We explored Sun Valley, Idaho for a few hours on Sunday night.  We set up camp at a nearby campground (at which there were a total of 2 other campers) and set out to explore the town.  Little did we know that Sun Valley in the off-season is pretty lame.  Virtually everything was closed, including almost every restaurant in town.  We ended up finding a sushi joint that made a mean trout roll (everything in Idaho has trout in it).

In the morning, we got up and went for breakfast at a place recommended to us by several friends (and Rachael Ray), The Kneadery.  Breakfast was awesome (Erin had the trout bendict…  I wasn’t kidding).  Not much else to do in Sun Valley this time of year but golf,  and we didn’t have room for our clubs on this trip, so …  Off to Redfish Lake!

Craters of the Moon

On our way from Jackson, Wyoming to Sun Valley, Idaho, we stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument.  It’s basically a whole bunch of lava rock and lava tubes in the middle of Idaho flatlands.  Pretty cool vistas, although the flies were infuriating.  Hawaii was cooler.

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Animal Round-up #2

By popular demand, an update on animals we’ve seen so far:

@ Tetons:

• Buffalo – only a few
• Moose – 1 mama, 1 baby
• Bears – 1 mama, 1 baby

@ Yellowstone:

• Buffalo – too many to count
• Elk – many females, and only a couple bucks
• Wolves – 2 (one gray, one black)
• Coyote – 1
• Pronghorn antelope – 3
• White tail deer – 3
• bear scat (potentially grizzly) – 1

@ Glacier:

• Hoary Marmots – 2
• Mountain Goats – a dozen or so

@ Banff:

• Ground Squirrels – Many
• Ravens (not crows as previously thought) - Too Many (especially since they are the size of small dogs)
• Mule Deer – 2
• Pika – 1 (very cool since often heard, but not seen)
• Black Bear – 1 (very shy)
• Coyote – 2
• Whitetail Deer – 1

There are still a couple animals we wished we would have seen, but have proven elusive:

• Big horn sheep
• Grizzlies
• Elves 

Grand Tetons National Park

Today, Erin and I spent our last day in Grand Tetons National Park.  This has been one of the more scenic and picturesque parts of the trip.  There’s just something about the Teton mountain range that makes it majestic.  Driving from Yellowstone, they rose out of the earth seemingly from nowhere, and disappear just as quickly if you drive south a bit.  The stark contrast between Wyoming flatlands and snow-covered mountain peaks makes for some great photos.

We went on couple of hikes in the last few days, including an 8-miler around Jenny Lake.  We slogged to the top of an unknown rock face that seems to be a popular climbing destination.  We even checked-out the remnants of the Gros Ventre Slide!

A highlight (at least for Erin), was visiting the new L.S. Rockefeller Preserve in the south end of the park.  It is a beautiful addition, and we enjoyed touring the LEED-platinum certified building (yes, Erin will be bringing reading material back for PB folks).  All-in-all, we’ve had a great time here in the Tetons.  It seems to have a bit slower pace than Yellowstone, and helped ease us into the last week of our vacation.  Next stop, Craters of the Moon and Sun Valley in Idaho.  The weather is looking great, and hopefully we’ll be renting a party barge to cruise the day on Redfish Lake on Monday!

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It’s Geyser-Central at Yellowstone NP

And after three days, we’re geyersed-out!  Yellowstone is a geologists dream, and we certainly saw our share of steam vents, hot springs, mud pots, and spewing geysers.  The park is a sensory experience of smells and sounds – sulfurous steam, gurgling water, and wolves howling at night.  What the park lacked in views, however, it made up for it in with the quantity of wildlife – we saw a gray wolf, a black wolf, a coyote, pronghorn, and herds and herds of elk (it’s mating season!) and buffalo.  But you know it’s time to leave when you just can’t bring yourself to pull over to the side of the road to take a photo of yet another buffalo.

We’ll let the photos and video of YNP speak for themselves, so enjoy…

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Bozeman and Lewis & Clark Caverns

Though we didn’t spend much time in Bozeman, it seems like a very cool town, a lot like Seattle in a lot of ways – recreation, beauty, and yes, real estate prices. 

On the road from Missoula to Bozeman, we made a stop at Lewis & Clark Caverns and the Headwaters of the Missouri River (obligatory stop since the river runs by both of our homes in Missouri).  There wasn’t much too see other than a river at the latter, so we’ll focus on the caverns.  We took a guided tour of the cavern system, which started with a somewhat steep hike to the “top” of the cavern.  While we were inside, we walked almost constantly downhill and down hundreds of stairs that had been carved into the limestone in the early 1900’s using only hand tools.

Unfortunately, The caverns were once much less controlled than they are today, resulting in a multitude of broken/missing features, but the size of some of the rooms was amazing.  Our tour guide was realtively new to the job, and thus uninspiring.  She was, however, quick to appease a Montana father who insisted that his children not hear about mineral deposition time intervals in the millions of years.  After all, God created the world in 7 days.  At times, we would have preferred a more scientific dialogue, but we were definitely in the minority in that respect.  We’re just glad that whole the group was able to refrain from lighting up their cigarettes until we surfaced.

View the photos of the Missouri Headwaters

View the photos of Lewis & Clark Caverns

The Bar-Hopping Conundrum

Did you know that it is illegal to be served more than 48 oz of beer between the hours of 10 am and 8 pm in Montana?    We discovered this odd law this weekend while visiting several tap rooms in the Missoula area.  But one begs to ask the question – couldn’t you exhaust your three pints at one establishment and simply leave to patronize another?  It’s not like they give you a punch card.

Anyway, after suffering Canada’s lack of good beer, we’ve had the joy of sampling many a microbrew in Montana.  In Glacier, we not only had a pint of Flat Head Lake Brewing Peg Leg porter and White Cap pale ale, we also found a place to fill the growler – with the IPA from Great Northern Brewing in Whitefish.  And, that got us through until Missoula on Friday…  

While in big sky country, we visited the tap room of Big Sky Brewing, where we refilled the growler with Trout Slayer ale (cool name, huh?) and picked up a sixer of the limited-release Slow Elk Porter (pciture a cow with elk horns tied to his head).  We also visted Bitterroot Brewing in Hamilton for lunch today, where we tried a couple pints of their pale ale and IPA.  After spending the afternoon walking around downtown Missoula, we sampled another couple pints at Kettlehouse Brewery.  Dinner found us at the Iron Horse Pub (a good recommendation from friends), where we shared a pitcher of Dancing Trout Ale from Bayern Brewery (and true to the name, it was not as good as Trout Slayer).  

Favorites so far – the Flat Head Lake brews and Trout Slayer.  We’ll see what Bozeman brings…

Glacier National Park

Today, we explored Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana.  We stayed last night at a camping cabin in Glacier Campground, which is just outside the west entrance to the park.  We woke up at the crack of 10am, made some breakfast and set off to drive the Going to the Sun Road.  The road itself is a very cool drive.  It starts off snaking along Lake McDonald, and ends up winding through the mountains, clinging to precarious ledges carved out of the rock in the 1930’s.  The views were breathtaking all along the drive, and we stopped multiple times to do small hikes to waterfalls and to take roadside photos of wildlife.  We saw a herd of mountain goats, as well as a few hoary marmots, and tons of ground squirrels (of which we’re not fans anymore).  The biggest hike of the day started at Logan Pass, and took us 1.5 miles uphill to Hidden Lake.

Parts of the road were under some much-needed construction, so it was slow-going at times.  It was a great drive, but left us both exhausted.

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