You will all
be pleased to note that I looked up some of the things I couldn’t remember.
We ate
dinner a couple of days ago at Kroll’s Diner in Bismark, North Dakota. Boybot
and I ordered one of their specialties, Fleischkuechle, which is seasoned hamburger wrapped in pastry and deep
fried. Boybot and Sweetling split a big bowl of Knoephla soup, which was a
creamy yellow cream of chicken soup with potatoes and dumplings.
There. I
feel better about myself.
We also got
of the hotel ON TIME this morning.
View from
the hotel and the gas station next to the hotel.
And this
ominous sign at the edge of the gas station parking lot.
We’re
spending most of the day driving north on Route 287. I’ve snapped a few pictures from the window of
the moving van.
But this,
this warranted pulling over and taking some real photos. The Jedi even turned
the van AROUND so we could come back and take pictures of this.
Our
speculation is that they animate at night and roam the ranges as an undead
horse herd. The sunlight renders them immobile. What you cant see in the photo
is that they would sway ever so slightly, bend and twist up there on the
hillside.
Our original
itinerary included getting into Helena
for lunch around 11:30/12:00. But I’m finding google map drive time estimates
to be significantly less than what it actually takes us to drive between point
a and point b. Some of that is that ther’s been a lot of construction where
traffic is down to one lance and the speed limit is 45 mph for long stretches,
instead of the 75 that google maps based its estimate on.
Another factor is that we’ve made unscheduled stops, like a Walmart stop today for one thing
(microfiber eyeglasses clothes to make an emergency repair to Eswin’s
headphones because the foam fabric around the ear pieces was disintegrating.)
this stop turned into FOUR separate trips into Walmart. One for “guys” (plastic
ninja figures in plastic bubbles from vending machines) and the eyeglass
clothes, one to use the restrooms, one because we realized they might have a
redbox, and the last one to get rubber bands to hold the cloth in place. In the
parking lot, there was another family in a van with Ohio license plates, and
they brought their dog with them! No one tell Jupiter.
(Also in the parking lot of the Walmart was a single seagull. The Jedi looked at him and said, "You're lost, buddy.")
We wound up
not hitting lunch till 1:20, nearly two hours behind schedule, despite our on
time start to the day.
Lunch was at
Steve’s Café, which was delicious.
The servings
were HUMOUNGOUS. Here’s Sweetling with her order of strawberry pancakes off the
special menu “for smaller appetites”.
Boybot and I
tried their huckleberry items. Boybot got a single huckleberry pancake that was
the size of a medium pizza. I got their huckleberry stuffed French toast.
We left the café
at 2:30ish and realized that there was no way we were making it to the Museum
of the Plains Indian in Browning before it closed at 4:30.
But that was
ok, because it gave us extra time to stop and check out this awesome rock shop
we found in the middle of nowhere.
Much time was spent there, and everyone
came away with a few really cool treasures. Boybot is especially proud that he walked away with a collection corresponding to the characters in Steven Universe...garnet, amethyst, rose quartz, peridot, jasper, and even a piece of lapus that the shopkeep threw in for free. She didn't have any small pieces on her shelves for sale, so she went into the back to look for more. She could only find a small chip that had broken off of something else, so she gave that to Boybot at no charge. (Interesting fact, the shop was founded by the woman who made a dinosaur next discovery at Egg Mountain. Finding these nests changed how scientists understood dinosaur behaviors to be.)
Our original
itinerary also had included a hike to the waterfalls on St. Mary’s Lake in
Glacier, but we knew in advanced that this area was closed due to forest fire
damage. So, that also gave us more time
to pull over and take pictures of roadside attractions, like this…
And this (remember what I said about the rock shop founder?)
And it gave
us more time for stops in latrine style rest stations like this…
Where the
Jedi cautioned, “Now before you go in there, you want to look around and make
sure….”
And I
interrupted, “Critter check before you drop your pants.”
And
Sweetling said, “I can’t believe that just had to be said.”
It also included a stretch of construction where we encountered this sign....
And then had to wait to be escorted through the stretch of PAVED highway by this truck...
The last stretch of this long trip was through the lands of the Blackfoot Nation.
I don’t know
what time it was when we pulled into Browning. Half past six, maybe? We headed
over to Nation’s Burgers. (Passing TWO expresso huts on opposing street
corners. One in a little log cabin styled hut and one in a tepee styled
structure.)
Nation’s
Burgers was delicious.
No sit down seating, drive through and walk up carry out
only. They did have a nice grass covered area with picnic tables, but it was
really windy, so we got our burgers and ate them in the van. I was adventurous
and tried the Southwestern Berry Burger. It was really good, put pretty spicy
and very messy.
We headed
back in for soft serve ice cream and a hot chocolate for me. Then we found a
parking lot to sit and watch the sunset over the rockies. Sadly, the clouds
killed the sunset, but there was still a really pretty sky.
The highway
out of town was, again, under construction. Under construction to the extent
that there was no blacktop and no concrete, they had stripped the road down to
just the gravel and packed earth. Mind you there was no warning about this. One
moment we were driving on blacktop, the next moment we had been dropped
(literally), on bare ground. The lack of road extended as far as we could see
in the fading light. We turned the van around and found an alternate route up
to St. Mary. School Star Road turned out to be smoothly paved the whole way and
had the added bonus of taking us past a little neighborhood where there was a
horse, all by itself, walking down the road like he was a stray dog.
Our room in
the St. Mary lodge was rustic. So rustic there was no wifi and no cell phone
bars either.
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