Viking Forseti; Last Day and We Visit Arcachon
This is the one trip I had really looked forward to, a beachy area famous for seafoods, and mussels, and oysters. Arcachon reminds me of all beach towns, a little casual, often a little kitch-y.
We got on a bus for a 2 1/2 hour ride from Pauillac to Arcachon. This is the train station in Arcachon. You can see it is a beautiful day.
I snapped some of the houses just to give an idea of the beach aesthetic in Arcachon.
The harbor of Arcachon, where we caught our boat to to out to the oyster fields.
Loved this mercantile art!
“Noeuds” is not a word I am familiar with, but I love that, in the context, you can figure out what a lot of new words are, in this case, I speculate, “Knots.”
Not unlike the Gulf Coast we live on.
Oysters waiting for us . . hmm. . . in the hot sun . . .
Boats and oyster boats
Introducing us to the art of oyster farming.
Always a recommendation for an appropriate “pairing”
A mosque built for foreign laborers, but somehow it never worked out and it may be a church now.
We ate at this very crowded restaurant. Viking had set it up and we were so glad there were tables reserved for us. The place was PACKED. Viking had set up a lovely lunch for us, fish, with some sort of exception for vegetarians. On our way in, we passed people with huge bowls full of mussels! Mussels! We need to go back and eat mussels!
Oyster beds all over Arcachon Bay
Back in Bordeaux, people are getting ready for the famous Midnight Marathon.
Our last night on the Viking Forseti, and we get a thrill. We get to watch the bridge raise it’s middle section to allow a cruise ship to go through. Honestly, I held my breath. It seemed to me like there was a lot that could go very wrong . . .
We had our last dinner with our friends the four ladies turning 70, and it was a delightful, noisy, laughter-filled dinner. A great way to end a great trip.
Viking Forseti: Bleye, then Paillac and a Magical Dinner at Chateau Kirwan
I’m kind of figuring it out. Some days are crystal clear in my mind – the walking tour in Bordeaux, our time at the market in Libourne, walking in Bourg, my solitary time in Bleye – these are all definite. It is the times associated with the wine chalets and production where my mind gets fuzzy. OK, I can hear you laughing, but here is the truth. I like wine, I like specific tastes and particular kinds of wine, a dry, fruity Sancerre, a rich dry St. Emilion. I found a couple wines on the trip that I really liked, and after all, wine is a theme on this trip, I think it is called something like Chateaux, Rivers and Wine.
We signed on to a wine trip, so I am not whining about wine, it is just that it is low on my priorities. There were people on this trip who were really into wine in a big way, and they had a wonderful time. We drove by some fabulous wine producers (Petrus comes to mind) and we had the opportunity to learn a whole lot.
I am thinking for me, much of the wine information was sort of . . . irrelevant. So these tours are not sharp in my mind. I don’t much like bus travel, I am a big fan of history and sacred spaces and how people really lived, all the people, rich and poor. I try to imagine what their lives must have been like. So the tours were not without worth, it is only that for me, while the guides were going on, as they should, about wine, I was usually wandering off elsewhere, peeking behind the scenes and sort of self-guiding.
Please forgive me if some of my explanations are non-existent, or fuzzy or maybe, God forbid, just wrong.
Below is Bleye, the little town below the citadel, when the Mascaret has taken all the waters back out to the sea and left the fishing boats high and stranded on the remaining silt. The sky may look a little blue, but it is really shades of grey, and we start out our walk with our umbrellas, expecting to get rained on.
There are official tours going, but we really like to putter around on our own, reading signs, figuring things out, taking our time.
I can’t resist a church.
Look at the grace of those wings! It is a find like this that makes my heart flutter. I am guessing that is the archangel Michael, with the defeated serpent at his feet, but I really don’t know . . .
Sometimes I look at a photo and think “why did I take this?” but I can tell you why on this one immediately – look at the details. Look at the trouble someone went to to place flower pots in the middle of each little French balcony on the uppermost floor. Look at the niches built for the plant containers on the main floor. Imagine the effort to plant those containers each year. If it is this lovely on the outside, I wonder what it is like on the inside, what are the light fixtures like, do they use wallpaper or moldings, how are the spaces arranged?
Every village has its memorials to those lost in the wars. We really love it when it includes the fallen from all the wars.
So it started raining and we abandoned our walk, I think it was only a 7,000 step morning :). Now things get fuzzy. Thank goodness for the Viking Daily, which tells me we sailed for Pauillac at noon. At 2:30 we boarded buses to go explore the vineyards of Pauillac-Medoc and Margaux Wine Country.
I’ve always loved the harvests. In some places in the Bordeaux, we saw horses being used with the harvest.
I think this might be at Chateau Margaux. It was raining. There were lots and lots of tourist groups, not just the Viking tours. We were hurried along, and I don’t remember going inside anywhere.
You can see the weather is a little grim.
Off in the distance, a place I might like. I am a sucker for towers with high pointed turrets.
I’m pretty sure this is Chateau Giscours. I am guessing that because later in this post is a photo of a sign saying that, and I often take those photos to anchor my future self who is writing the trip up. I take pity on her lack of clarity, and help her out with some of the fuzzier details. Or maybe we are still at Chateau Margaux – the next photo is a church, and I think it was where the buses parked at Chateau Margaux.
For sure, this is Chateau Giscours. The hoi polloi (us tour groups) did not actually go into this building, which is probably a formal residence, or at least a party venue; we went to the wine tasting specially-built building next door, with wonderful modern restrooms built just to accommodate the tourist class.
I gave you a hint of our bus to the left, parked in front of the wine tasting addition.
Inside, those keenly interested in wines bellied up to the table.
After a sip or two, I slipped back outside to wander, see if I could find something interesting.
We toured another place where wine is created, bottled and stored.
A chart full of wonderful words we might use to describe a wine we are drinking.
I don’t believe this building is old enough to have really needed places to tie up the horses, but it may be that some nearby chateaux host travelers who want to ride horses to their wine tastings.
Promptly at 6 we leave the winery to travel a short distance to the Chateau Kirwan. Evidently Chateau Kiran was visited by Thomas Jefferson, and is one of the old Chateaux classified in 1855. Wikipedia provided me with this chart to explain the classifications;
The dinner was very elegant. I thought maybe Viking had bought this venue to use for “special” end of trip dinners, but it appears that it is a place which may be used by many organizations wanting to give their clients a special evening.
The wait staff was all from the ship. I think maybe some – or all – of the food may have been prepared on the ship.
We had several courses. Of course, these wines were available at the entry for sale, with other Chateau Kirwan wines.
My favorite parts were the pate’ and the terrine.
I liked this because the candelabra was high enough not to intrude on conversations across the table. The venue, however, was very loud, lots of excitement bouncing off beautiful hard wood surfaces, so there was not a lot of cross table conversation possible. It was difficult enough conversing with your neighbor to the right and left. But conversation was not the point of this dinner, it was to give us all an idea of how elegant and special life can be eating French foods and drinking French wine 🙂
LOL, look at all those wine glasses! There was barely room for food!
The dinner did not drag on. It was served efficiently, and then we had a few minutes to chat or buy wine or hit the facilities before we boarded our bus. We saw one of the ladies from our dinner the night before and she said “oh! we wished we were at the same table as you!” so we arranged to eat together the next night, our last night on board the Forseti. The ship was nearby. We all had a big day ahead of us the next day, the last day of the tour.
Viking Forseti: The Libourne Market
It’s a really good thing AdventureMan collected all the Daily News, because already my notebook has become confused, with arrows pointing to when we *really* did this and scratch outs where I totally got things wrong.
First, I am going to insert photos from our time on the Dordogne, en route to Libourne:
Yep. That’s me, on the balcony, taking photos. Thank you, AdventureMan 🙂
It is a glorious afternoon, and the scenery on the way to Libourne is amazing. There is a mansion around every bend.
The Viking Forseti has a map you can follow on the television in your room. You can see the little Viking longship going into the bend of the river.
That is an impressive fortress – or church. even on low ground, with no low windows, it is defensible.
November, and we are having a day in the 70’s F.
We hike into Libourne in late afternoon to figure out our plan for the following morning. Once again, we are thoroughly enjoying the warm sun, and a beautifully walkable town.
View at dusk in Libourne, from our balcony.
We get up and have breakfast so we can head into town. We know the markets get started early, and I want to be able to take photos before the groups tours start arriving.
Through all these years, those who have continued to follow me, you know how I love local markets. You never know what treasures you might find. Some of the treasures, we can’t even buy because we can’t cook them and we can’t take them back to the USA. We just have to appreciate them in place.
I covet these windows, and the shutters that you can pull closed to cover them. I would love to have a house like this!
The detail of the stone and wooden beams in the building facades.
Love the old doorbell pull and the new intercom juxtaposed.
I admire the way the French can create a garden from the tiniest patch of earth.
The outdoor market is small on this cold November day, but there are also stalls under the protected areas all around the square, and in the Marche’ Couvert.
Behind the market stalls here is a lovely Tourist office with nice goods, and a cafe full of smoking men, waiting, I think, for their wives to do the marketing. The owner was kind and let me use the restroom – clean enough for a desperate woman. I never found the people to be unkind, as long I as I asked them politely, the answer was always “yes.”
One of the nicest memories of this market is a needle-arts vendor in the center of the plane who had a little butterfly stitching kit suitable for my 6 year-old granddaughter, in colors I knew she would adore, and a small pair of sharp sewing scissors, in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. More than anything, I want her to love France, the very idea of France.
The word I learned for pumpkin was “potion” but here in the Bordeaux there are many pumpkins, and the most common one I saw was “Potimarron.” I expect it’s a variety of pumpkin, and I love having a new word 🙂
Inside the covered market, all is immaculately clean, the foods are fresh and beautifully displayed.
Even at eight in the morning, oysters may be paired with beer and eaten with gusto.
My old friend, Mimoletta, which, I believe, is actually a kind of Belgian or Dutch cheddar, but oh, so good, especially aged.
The local and Basque special cheese:
A spectacular variety of goats’ cheeses!
Look at those beautiful scallop shells!
We were delighted to see what “Maigre” looks like in fresh form; this is the fish my husband ate at the restaurant in Cadillac.
Huitres! The magic word for oysters!
Palourdes are delicious little clams.
I really wanted to bring some of this home, but was not sure I could transport it safely.
I did bring home prunes from Agen, and I ration them out a little every day 🙂
This is the way we bought squash in Tunisia – in hunks. It wasn’t expensive. Once, at Halloween, I caused a scandal in the Marche’ Lafayette by buying a WHOLE pumpkin to take home and carve for my three year old little son. There are some things you just can’t explain cross culturally, and buying a whole pumpkin to carve and put a candle in to burn to scare away evil spirits you don’t believe in – some things are too complicated. Sometimes, you just don’t even try to explain.
This was heaven and hell for my husband and I. We would have loved shopping, taking home some of the beautiful produce and preparing it for our own meals. What a thrill it was just to see them in such abundance. Grilled chicken, below, was expensive compared to the USA, but the chicken really tasted like chicken.
Canale’ is a speciality in the Bordeaux area. We expected to love it, but it has a burnt under taste that put us off a little.
Walking back along the river to the boat, we could see the results of the Mascaret, the tides coming in and going out from the Atlantic. At low tide, the Forseti had to head out to the middle of the river, and boats all along the sides of the river were stranded.
It’s around here that the photographic record becomes really important. Even with the daily newspaper and my notebook, some parts of the day become fuzzy. What I remember was the thrill of seeing Chateau Petrus. Bruno, Chief of Police talks about the one bottle he was given, and what a treasure it was. One day, I would love just a little 3 oz glass of a Chateau Petrus.
Wineries and vineyards in the St. Emilion area.
The weather has changed. As we exit our bus, we grab our umbrellas. It looks like the rain could get really serious.
I loved the St. Emilion church. You could see that it was a working church, and a beloved church. It had a special feeling to it.
I am a total sucker for this kind of architecture.
Looking out over the rooftops of St. Emilion, trying to shelter my camera from raindrops.
All the Viking guides were really good, but the one we had really seemed to bad-mouth several of the wine vendors, and really seemed to push one particular vendor. Many people were buying the wines, most of whom were having it sent or were going directly bak after the tour.
We boarded the bus, chilled and soaked, even with our umbrellas, and were thankful for hot showers when we got back to the Forseti. We loved the market in Libourne, and I loved the church of St. Emilion.
Bordeaux/Dordogne Trip – We Owe it All to Martin Walker and Bruno, Chief of Police
Several years ago, I ordered a book recommended by Amazon. I do that from time to time, and I will tell you honestly, some of them are real stinkers.
This book, Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker, was delightful. So delightful I started looking for more of the series, some of which I was able to find used. So delightful, I shared the Bruno, Chief of Police with my husband, and he, too, was hooked.
If there is a genre I like, it is detective novels set in foreign locations, dealing with crimes that have to do with social issues current in the locale. The first I can remember is the Eliot Pattison series about Inspector Shan, a Chinese detective who falls on the wrong side of Chinese political correctness and ends up in a Tibetan jail, where he begins a series long association with Tibetan monks and the threat to Tibetan civilization that the Chinese pose. It is eye-opening reading.
The next series I discovered were the Barbara Nadel series set in Turkey with Inspector Cetin Ikhmen. Then the fabulous and prolific Donna Leon and Commisario Guido Brunette, set in Venice.
And actually, I don’t read all this books in sequence. I watch for books by these authors, and read them when they come out, not unlike my addiction to James Lee Burke and Dave Robicheaux, set in New Iberia, Louisiana and Montana.
That was a very long introduction to the idea that it makes travel in foreign lands much more user-friendly to have read books that put you on the ground, seeing what the people who live there might see. When we went to Venice, we went off the beaten track to eat at a restaurant that Commissario Brunetti recommends to a touring couple who witnessed a crime and made a report to him. It was a great adventure just finding this restaurant, Rossa Rosa (“Guido Brunetti Sent Us”) and it had delicious local food, no tourists. In Venice. Imagine. Now, too, when we read the newest Brunetti novel, or watch the German production of the Brunetti series, we feel a closer connection with Venice, a familiarity, because we have a “friend” on the inside. Or so we feel.
Bruno Correze, the Chief of Police in the fictional French village of St. Denise, along the Vezere river close to where it links with the Dordogne, loves his small town. In the very first volume, we meet his friends, we visit his home, we are with him when he prepares meals and entertains his friends (he uses a lot of duck fat) and we get to visit the markets and cafes with him. Every book, like the best of this genre, introduces us to at least one issue, social and/or criminal, past or present, which is manifesting itself as a problem in the Dordogne. The actual crime may or may not be the point of the novel, and the solutions are often very French.
We have devoured this series. We felt like we had been there. So we decided we needed to go there.
We visited the Dordogne – it seems like a short time ago – the last time, 35 years ago, when our son, now grown, was around 9. We made a special effort to make this a trip which was relevant to him, too. We visited Castelnaud, and spent hours with the trebuchets and mangonels, old weapons once the ne-plus-ultra of fighting off the enemy. We visited the old caves with early paintings, when they were still open to visitors.
We love France, we love traveling in France and we have never had a negative experience in France. While I once spoke French fluently – we lived in French speaking Tunisia – but language skills get rusty when they don’t get exercised. Oh, really, any excuse will do. Martin Walker’s books made us hungry, hungry for French foods and hungry just to be in France.
We booked a cruise out of Bordeaux, eight days of cruising on the Gironde, Dordogne and other rivers, visiting villages older than our entire nation, learning about major appellations, eating some fine food and drinking some very fine wine.
And then we picked up a rental car in Bordeaux and headed to the Dordogne. I’m going to tell you all about it, but first I want to share Martin Walker’s books with you. He, and Bruno, have a wonderful website where he tells you all his favorite places. As we read the Bruno books, we also take notes – which wine he chose to serve with the duck course, where he and his friends gathered for the wedding feast, etc. It was like having a friend who says “Oh, I am desolate I won’t be there, but here are all the places you need to go, restaurants you will like and oh, be sure to try this wine!” Hotel and restaurant recommendations are on the website under “Bruno’s Perigord”
Martin Walker’s Bruno, Chief of Police website
Here are the Bruno, Chief of Police books, in order, from a resource called How to Read Me, which puts the books in order. http://www.howtoread.me/bruno-chief-of-police-books-in-order/
1 Bruno, Chief of Police – Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that. Now, Bruno is paired with a young policewoman from Paris and the two suspect anti-immigrant militants. As they learn more about the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive.
2 The Dark Vineyard – When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers, the idyllic town finds itself the center of an intense drama. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.
3 Black Diamond – Something dangerous is afoot in St. Denis. In the space of a few weeks, the normally sleepy village sees attacks on Vietnamese vendors, arson at a local Asian restaurant, subpar truffles from China smuggled into outgoing shipments at a nearby market—all of it threatening the Dordogne’s truffle trade and all of it spelling trouble for Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police.
4 The Crowded Grave – It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi, and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team searching for Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it’s up to Bruno to solve the case.
5 The Devil’s Cave – It’s spring in St. Denis. The village choir is preparing for its Easter concert, the wildflowers are blooming, and among the lazy whorls of the river a dead woman is found floating in a boat. This means another case for Bruno, the town’s cherished chief of police.
6 Bruno and the Carol Singers (short story) – Bruno is occupied with his Christmastime duties. From organizing carolers to playing Father Christmas for the local schoolchildren, Bruno has his hands full . . . at least until some funds raised for charity go missing.
7 The Resistance Man – First, there’s the evidence that a veteran of the French Resistance is connected to a notorious train robbery; then, the burglary of a former British spymaster’s estate; and, finally, the murder of an antiques dealer whose lover is conveniently on the lam. As Bruno investigates, it becomes clear that they are connected.
8 The Children Return (also known as Children of War) – Bruno’s village of St. Denis has been called many things, but a hotbed of international intrigue has never been one of them . . . until now. When an undercover agent is found murdered just as a prodigal son is set to retun from a grim tour in the Middle East, the small town suddenly finds itself host to a determined global tribunal, threatening the usual cheer brought by St. Denis’s annual wine festival.
9 A Market Tale (short story) – As summer blooms, the newest talk of the town is the rapport between Kati, a Swiss tourist, and Marcel, a popular stall owner whom Kati meets over his choice strawberries. None are happier than police chief Bruno to see Marcel interested in love again, but as his friend’s romance deepens, Bruno senses trouble in the form of Marcel’s meddlesome sister Nadette.
10 The Patriarch (also known as The Dying Season) – Bruno Courrèges is thrilled when he receives an invitation to the lavish birthday celebration of his childhood hero, World War II flying ace Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix. But when the party ends in the death of one of Marco’s longtime friends, Gilbert, it turns into another day on the job for St. Denis’s chief of police.
11 Fatal Pursuit – It’s the start of summer, and Bruno’s found himself the last-minute replacement navigator in a car rally race. The event has attracted a spate of outsiders with deep pockets, big egos and, in the case of one young Englishman, an intriguing story about a lost Bugatti Type 57C. When a local scholar turns up dead, Bruno suspects unnatural causes.
12 The Templars’ Last Secret – When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near the idyllic French town of St. Denis, chief of police Bruno Courrèges suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands above: a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold. With the help of Amélie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance.
13 A Taste for Vengeance – When a British tourist fails to turn up for a luxurious cooking vacation in the idyllic village in the south of France that Bruno Courrèges calls home, the chief of police is quickly on the case. Monika Felder is nowhere to be found, and her husband, a retired British general, is unreachable.
14 The Chocolate War (short story) – Police chief Bruno enjoys wandering the stalls of the weekly market in the village of St. Denis as they are being loaded with wares. But when Bruno’s old friend Léopold from Senegal start selling African coffee and chocolate more cheaply than Bruno’s old friend Fauquet at his café across the square, a competition erupts between the vendors.
15 The Body in the Castle Well – When Claudia, a young American, turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle in Bruno’s jurisdiction, her death is assumed to be an accident related to opioid use. But her doctor persuades Bruno that things may not be so simple. Thus begins an investigation that leads Bruno to Monsieur de Bourdeille, the scholar with whom the girl had been studying, and then through that man’s past.
How to read me: Bruno, Chief of Police
http://www.howtoread.me/bruno-chief-of-police-books-in-order/
I owe a big thanks to Martin Walker for giving us so much inside information which enhanced our trip so much. I will try to remember to give him credit along the way as I take you along with us on our trip.
Kalispell Farmer’s Market, Glacier NP Apgar and Avalanche Creek
In our hotel, they give us an information sheet when we check in:
I had a tick once. It totally creeped me out. The news has it that ticks are now spreading Rocky Mountain fever. You can hike, but you have to be really covered up.
There is also, in the local paper, an ad for the Kalispell Farmer’s Market. I am such a sucker for a farmer’s market, and AdventureMan is a good sport, so off we go.
We spent quite a bit of time at this booth because having come through the Lake Flathead Orchard area, I have a yearning for cherries. I look for them everywhere. It is not the season, but I am wishing for some cherries. These people are growing cherries, and bottling cherry juice, which we bought. It was wonderful. We drank it like wine, and it reminded us of wine, and we also thought it would be good with champagne, like a Kir Royale, or a Samburu Sunset.
Glacier National Park is just minutes away; we are there by ten in the morning. I am posting this sign because we were constantly in and out of the park, a luxury we can afford thanks to our Senior Passes to all the National Parks which we bought when we turned 62 for $10 (or maybe $20, I can’t remember.). They are now $80, and if you love the national parks the way we do, and like the freedom of being able to travel freely in and out, these passes are worth every penny.
Today we head into Apgar, where many people stay, and especially we see a lot of campers. AdventureMan wants to go on that hike at Avalanche Creek up to Cedar Trails, and we are told he can rent bear spray in Apgar.
This is the Lake Hotel, in Apgar, not the Lake McDonald Lodge. This is more motel-like.
And wait until you see the view:
These are the recycle and bear-proof trash bins. Both are taken very seriously.
We take Camas Road, which goes off to the northwest from Apgar, and we go high into the hills, where I find just about the only mosquitos I’ve experienced on the entire trip. That is really something, because mosquitos are very fond of me, so it turns out that this is not he best drive for me.
I did get out to take a couple photos, one of which is below. This is a patch of blueberries, the kind of patch where my sister and I and our friends would pick blueberries. We would move from patch to patch, but . . . you can see how easy it would be to be surprised by a bear, who loves blueberries as much as we do.
We drive back along the river, to the McDonald Lake Lodge, and have a lovely lunch in the lounge. I have the Penn Cove Mussels, in a silky sauce laced with saffron, and my husband has that wonderful charcuterie board again. I totally love that they have Ginger Beer. This isn’t the kind I love the best, with ginger sludge and pieces in it, but it has bite.
We head back to Avalanche Creek, AdventureMan takes a hike, I stay in the car and start writing notes to remind myself of things I want to remember when I start writing up the trip for the blog.
AdventureMan always laughs when he reads my trips in Here, There and Everywhere. He says “I want to go with you! You have so much fun!” I remind him that he was with me. What we really enjoy is going back several years later and reading about our trips. There are details we’ve forgotten, things we are glad to remember.
(My favorite trip is December 2007, because we love Damascus so much, and the Damascus we love barely exists anymore.)
We gas up so we can get an early start in the morning, and I see this sign.
We eat at the Three Forks Grill in Columbia Falls. It has a great rating on Trip Advisor. Sometimes we just order the wrong thing. It was a nice place, we just can’t remember what we ate.
This was the perfect way to end our day, along with the cherry juice from Flathead Lake. AdventureMan had the blueberry pie, and I had the cherry cobbler, bought at the Kalispell Farmer’s Market and waiting for us in our little refrigerator. Heaven.
Wonderful way to end the day.
From Missoula to Kalispell to Coumbia Falls and Glacier National Park
Our day starts off with our divine leftovers from The Notorious Pig, and we hit the road early. 
Once we leave Wye, we are on the Flathead Reservation. Things are done a little differently. There are bilingual signs, and there are special protected places for the animals to cross the highways.
This sign is not bilingual, but easily understood. AdventureMan and I are taking a short hike and he points it out. He knows I am irrational about snakes.
When we get to Polson, the road splits. The iPhone is working once again, and tells us to go up the east side of Flathead; I had thought we were going up the west side, but sometimes the phone has a better idea. This time, I think how much we might have missed – the east side is very rural, with gorgeous views of the lake and with orchard after orchard – cherry orchards!
First, we came to this beautiful Camp, Blue Bay.
It is early in the season, and there are only one or two campers, but we can see the signs that someone has been very busy preparing for the campers to come.
The Lodge is not ready for the season, but we peek in the windows; the lodge is my idea of camping 🙂
We see signs like this everywhere. Montana is working very hard to protect their lakes and rivers against an invasive mussel. All boats have to be inspected before launching. So far, this campaign may inconvenience the boaters, but the lakes and rivers have not been infested.
Sometimes I fall in love with a name – like Kalispell. We had a lot of fun in Kalispell, this day and the next day when we came back for a Farmer’s Market.
This day, AdventureMan parked so I could run into City Hall in Kalispell. Two women were there, and no customers, so I asked first if there were any German restaurants, and there weren’t, and then I asked where they might eat lunch and why. That started a great discussion, and then they mentioned the Split Rock, just up the street. It sounded perfect for us.
This is an old mercantile, sort of the predecessor to a much larger department store. Below is the interior of what is now a Cafe and restaurant. Their coffee smells divine.
This is what this room used to look like if you were coming in the door, a long time ago.
The special today is a French Dip Sandwich – I have a weakness for French Dip Sandwich – and this one is made of prime rib. So that is what I order. AdventureMan orders the clam chowder and half a club sandwich.
This is the best French Dip sandwich I have ever eaten. I limit the bread I eat, I limit the red meat I eat, but – not today. Today against all my better angels, I eat the whole thing. The dip is juicy and spiced, and hot. It is heaven, every bite.
This is what we had for dessert:
From Kalispell, we explored Whitefish, very picturesque. This is the old railway depot:
We get to our hotel, and we have a beautiful room. Here’s the funny thing . . . I thought we were going to have a view of the mountains. What we had was a view of the roof. Mostly the underneath of the roof!
Our room is square over the lobby, and we look out on the antler chandelier. I thought maybe we should ask to be another floor up, but when I looked at the rooms from the outside, I could see that the third floor also had a view of the roof. Aargh.
Yellowstone to Missoula: A Day of Transition to Glacier National Park
I’ve had one odd problem on this trip, which is that my iPhone went wonky in Yellowstone National Park. I figured out that if I downloaded maps while I had wi-fi connections, sometimes they worked in the park. It was a pain in the neck, and I didn’t always remember. The phone always knew where we were, but the maps didn’t always show up clearly. I am guessing it is a coverage problem, no cell towers, or something, but once we left the park, the problem was over. The phone could show me where I was.
We got a slow start – like maybe we slept in until 7 a.m. and then we went to Gardiner for breakfast, this time trying a place we had seen and wanted to try, Tumbleweeds. 
Tumbleweeds is also a book store, where both AdventureMan and I found used books at 50 cents each to get us through the rest of our journey. In the last week, I had totally caught up with all my unread New Yorkers (woo hoooo!) and was ready for something light. I found Margaret Atwoods “A Cat’s Eye” (not light, has to do with bullying among girls, and emotional manipulation) and my husband found a Ludlum book he hadn’t read.
The food was just exactly the kind we like, not fancy, not pretentiously served, but made in house from locally sourced ingredients, as much as possible. Their coffee was delicious, to start. AdventureMan had a breakfast sandwich, and I had Montana oatmeal, and an english muffin. They make their own bread. They make all their own food. We were happy to be there.
If it weren’t for the mountains, the road to Livingston, where we got on I-90, would have been pretty boring.
No elk. No bison. No wolves. No bear. Shortly after we left Gardiner, we discovered also that the weather had changed dramatically, and not only were we shedding layers, but it was getting hot. I checked the forecast for Glacier – in the 80’s. In the 80’s ??? Yikes! I packed for freezing!
We drove as far as Butte before our breakfast wore off. We had no idea where to eat, so we drove to the downtown area and stopped a couple guys on the street and asked them where they eat lunch. They looked at each other, said there are a lot of options, then one of them looked at us and asked “Do you like a little nuance?”
No one has ever asked us that before.
We said “sure” and he recommended Metals, and showed us how to get there. Just as we were entering, the two guys entered, too, and said “we thought as long as we were recommending it, we might as well eat there, too.”
The first photo I took was the menu, because it cracked me up and agrees so totally with how I would like to live my life.
Metals is a sports bar. I guess it has been several things, but it began as Metals Bank, as Butte is a mining town.
You can even dine in the bank vault.
I had an Oriental Chicken Salad, delicious, and AdventureMan had the Chef Salad with Grilled Chicken Breast, which was also very good.
We continued on to Missoula, where we have stopped before when we used to drive from Pensacola to Seattle, and like a lot.
Our hotel was beautiful and quiet. We were welcomed warmly, and the receptionist was very helpful. This was the Grant Creek Best Western Plus, and it had great beds, was very quiet and was an easy access back to I-90.
I had found a Montana food blog and we knew exactly where we wanted to go. There is a fabulous BBQ restaurant in downtown Missoula called The Notorious Pig. My phone got us there without any problems.
We know what we like. This is it. We heard someone come in behind us and order, and asked about desserts. The guy at the counter said “We don’t do desserts. We just do smoked meats.” You could hear the pride in his voice. You could smell the meats; holy smokes.
I had first ordered burnt tips, only to be told they had already sold out. The smoked turkey was a great choice, so moist and so delicious and – so much. So much of both my husband’s BBQ pulled pork and my smoked turkey that we good boxes back to the hotel and although the hotel offers breakfast, we preferred to have warmed up BBQ. It was that good.
I will tell you this was one of the most memorable meals on our trip because of the quality of the meats. Also, I had never had Fire and Ice pickles before, so this was a first for me, and I was hooked. I’ve always loved pickles. These almost tasted like dills – maybe they even started out as dills, but then pickled again in a sweet, spicy brine. Oh wow. I’m going to have to figure out how to make these pickles.
We had a great nights sleep in Missoula.
Yellowstone: Mammoth Hot Springs
There are crowds of people visiting Mammoth Hot Springs during the day. There are special lots just for all the buses that come to see the magnificent terraces. Suddenly, the afternoon is hot, and we are shedding layers. Late in the afternoon, we decide to visit the Upper Terrace, a one way road, very short, but you can park and hike in several of the areas.
This is not snow, although it looks like it might be. It is calcium carbonate, leached from the soil by heat and water, and laid down, layer by layer on these fabulous terraces. We are told this is the same material that makes up travertine tile, but it looks nothing like travertine. It is also different colors in different places, depending on which minerals are also mixed in and how long the deposits have been in one place.
We visited Pamukkale, in Turkey, many years ago with AdventureMan’s sister and her family, and were astounded such a wonder could exist. We had no idea that it also existed in our own country.
There are also crowds at the Upper Terraces, so we head back to the hotel to check in.
This is the Mammoth Hot Springs General store, where they have all kinds of souvenirs, t-shirts, jewelry, art works, ice cream and grab and go sandwiches and snacks. This was the best stocked General Store we found in Yellowstone. (Canyon was the most shopped out.)
This is what a view of the terraces looks like from the hotel – it is Mammoth.
This is a map of the USA made out of US woods. The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is undergoing renovations, and rooms IN the hotel are not available, but they do have cabins. The facilities – the lobby, the Xanterra Gift Shop and the Map Room and Bar are open, and in a separate building, the Mammoth Hot Springs Dining Room and the Grill.
Guide to the woods used in the giant map of the USA.
Map room bar
Map room place to hang out and use internet. There is no internet in the cabins.
.This is a view from the lobby to the Xanterra Gift Shop. This is important to know if you are obligated to bring back gifts. The General store has souvenirs. The Xanterra shops are totally different, and have different – and often nicer – gifts to buy than the General stores. Don’t think that because you have shopped in one, you know what is in the other. They are different!
Now for the fun part. Well, fun for us. Not everyone would prefer a cabin to a hotel room, and they have their reasons, too. We love cabins, and we reserved far in advance, thanks to my friend’s warning, so that we could get a cabin with a bathroom. Do you want to go walking to a communal bathroom at night when there are huge wild animals walking about?
We also just like the privacy of having a little cabin. So don’t be shocked, it is tiny but it has enough space for people who are out most of the day.
It has a porch! We ate dinner out here on our second night of our stay.
Little washstand, and that is what works as a closet next to the washstand. We kept our suitcases in the car, parked right next to the cabin, and brought in what we needed for the next day in our backpacks.
It may be tiny, but you can shower and toilet without having to walk outside in your bathrobe, or wrapped in a towel or something.
AdventureMan loved these little chipmunks (?) squirrels (?) which were everywhere in the park. This one had a burrow with two entries right under our porch. He wasn’t shy about inviting himself to share our dinner, either.
Our first night in Mammoth Hot Springs, the end of a very long and eventful day, we decide to try dinner at the Mammoth Dining Room.
The Dining Room is entered from the right, the Grill Room (burgers, etc) is entered from the left.
The interior of the Dining Room; nice high ceiling, everything looking freshly painted.
We each had soup, Butternut Squash for me, French Onion for my husband. The soups were good. The Flatbread and the Hummus Plate were not what we expected. They felt assembled, not prepared. They didn’t feel fresh.
After such a nice lunch in Gardiner, this was a let down.
You are probably ready for this day to be over, but not us. We want to take a walk through the old Fort Yellowstone historical area before we close down for the night. We love that Mammoth Hot Springs is so walkable. Just have to watch out for the local residents:
But what happens if the Elk approaches you, at a rapid pace?
There are wonderful old military quarters, and stables, and an old PX, all with signs. As we were looking at the old PX, one of the residents (park employees live in the old military quarters) hollered out to us to watch out for the cranky old Mama, that she had a baby hidden somewhere nearby and could be a little hostile. We moved away, and were reading a sign when we heard yelling again, only this time “Run! Run! She’s coming!”
I got behind a nearby car so she couldn’t see me, but it wasn’t me she was interested in, it was my husband. He kept a sign between them, terrified, he tells me later, because an elk is big and muscular, and this was a big muscular mad mama elk. Someone else clapped hands at her and yelled, and she backed off long enough for us to move far far away. We didn’t know, but we must have moved too close to the hidden baby. Not her fault, our bad.
(In the newspaper two days later I read that an elk had attacked a park employee in that same residence area and the employee had to be hospitalized. The mama elk had to be relocated.)
This was a very appropriate finale for a day full of fun and adventures of all kinds.
Yellowstone; The North Entrance and Gardiner, MT
This is all the same day, still, the day we left Canyon Valley early in the morning and it is only about 10 a.m. and we’ve had all these adventures.
But AdventureMan and I also love to eat good food, and we are (ahem) fed up with the Yellowstone offerings. We know Gardiner is just across the border, in Montana, mere minutes away. I haven’t had my coffee this morning (not a good thing if you are traveling with me) and we can’t get into our cabin until later.
Gardiner is FUN. We spent time in Gardiner three times. This time, we discovered the Wonderland Cafe and Lodge, where I had coffee and AdventureMan had hot chocolate. The Wonderland Cafe has all the things we love; high ceilings, lots of light, wood, comfy furniture – it has a great feel.
The view from Gardiner is purely grand:
And here is the famed Roosevelt Gate at the North Entrance:
We decided to head back out to Lamar Valley, our happy place, but first, we needed to have a good lunch. We found Rosie’s Bistro, loved the look, and had a great meal.
You know we are careful eaters. We have fruits with us, and crackers and peanut butter. We drink a lot of water. If you are that kind of people – stop reading now.
At Rosie’s, we went off the rails.
We could smell wonderful smells.
AdventureMan ordered a BBQ Pork sandwich, and did not bother ordering a salad. The french fries were fantastic. I ordered the not-on-the-menu ribs, which were so tender I only needed a fork. I ate them all. I barely even pecked at my salad. We did not order dessert.
View from Rosies Bistro:
I took this picture because of the picture. I thought I had a cool photo of the bison in the steam, but this one, oh WOW.
Yellowstone Grand Canyon and Canyon Village
We first drove the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, getting out and taking photos, then hiking down to the brink of the falls on the North Rim side. We had to wait and go back later to hike the North Rim side because the parking lots were full, and cars were blocking the road, parking wherever they could create a space. It was chaotic, and it was unsafe.
These are the vistas that attracted and astonished the Park’s earliest visitors.
Honestly, too many people, I took the shots and got out so the next person could step up.
I think it is only fair to tell you that Canyon Village is the part of Yellowstone I like the very least. It is high on the tour bus schedule, because they have lots of services there to deal with high volumes of people. They have lots of space.
Some of those high volumes of people kind of don’t know park etiquette, like if you are on a narrow trail with a steep drop off, you don’t go barreling down on people, passing, and putting them at risk.
Some of the people on the trails were older than I am, making a valiant effort to get down and back up. There were children. There were a lot of people. The worst offenders seemed to be large groups of men traveling together, and oblivious to the needs and vulnerabilities of others, running over the weak and less capable.
Then again, world round, you put too many people in a small space and things happen. People run over other people, and people get hurt. Mostly, I just try to stay out of the way, and keep my eyes open, watching out for the heedless. AdventureMan and I are strategists – we find ways to avoid the crowds, as much as possible. Fortunately, our body time is an hour earlier than this time zone, and getting up early isn’t hard, and so totally worth it to avoid the frantic short-on-time visitors.
Our room was beautiful. Canyon Village is central to many different places. Canyon Village has stores, food places, a gas station, a post office, an outfitter, camping grounds, cabins. There are good and valid reasons to stay there, but we will never stay there again.
This was our Lodge; do you see all the snow? Parking was great, and although there was a large hiking group here, they were quiet and well mannered, no problem.
I loved having shutters on the windows instead of curtains. We had a patio, which I stepped out on from time to time, but it was too cold to sit outside.
We both liked that the bathroom had a sink area in addition to this vanity area having its own sink. The hairdryer was tiny, but strong.
All the lodges had little Teddy Bear soaps, which I loved. The Lodge was nice enough. No fridge, no microwave. Here’s the thing. The same people that run the lodges run the food places, so they want you to eat in their food places. I wouldn’t mind, if the food were good. It’s not.
Remember I told you we picked up foods for the road in Bozeman, at the Walmart, at the beginning of the trip? It was a God-send.
We had just hiked down 11 switchbacks to the brink of the lower falls and then – 11 switchbacks coming back up, and we were hungry, so we decided to go to the food area for dinner. It was still early, maybe 5:30, so we had time to figure out what we wanted, and get in line. The line wasn’t that long.
The not-that-long line took us 45 minutes. One woman ordered several meals, each on a separate tray; it took forever. Many foreign men ordered two or three meals, one to eat and two to take with, probably for the next day (?) I can only speculate, because I don’t really know. The line inched forward. A lot of people didn’t understand how the ordering system worked. Others didn’t speak English, and had problems making themselves understood. When we got to the front of the line, several things were already out, and many of the condiments that go with the meals were not yet in stock. It was a nightmare, worse than a college dormitory. Here is my order:
Intlx: I’d like the noodles, please, with peanut sauce
Counter person: These noodles are cold! More are coming
(wait) (wait) (wait) (More noodles show up)
Counter person: No more peanut sauce! All gone!
Intlx: I’ll have Teriyaki
Counter person squirts large amount on, then looks up in horror and says “Oh no! I just put hoisin sauce on!”
Intlx: (thinks “get me out of here”) Hoisin is fine. Green onions and chopped peanuts on top, please.
Counter person: Oh! We’ve run out of the chopped peanuts!
At least in a dormitory, once you have your food you can go sit down, but here, you have to go to the centralized cashier stand and – yep – stand in line. Once again, there are problems with currency, problems with communication, people letting others in line, it is a disaster, it is chaos.
After you pay, you try to find a table that has been cleaned off and that no one else is waiting for.
We were really lucky – we had gotten there early. Things only got worse as more and more people came in trying to get fed. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
For the rest of our stay, we never ate in Canyon Village again. We spent our days out and away, mostly in Lamar Valley. We discovered good food in Cooke City, just outside the northwest gate. We discovered that the Grab-and-Go sandwiches in the General Store were not bad: tuna, chicken and cranberry, turkey and apple, all kinds of meats for those who like ham and roast beef. We had our own favorite snacks already, apples, oranges, chocolate, and would refill our water bottles from our faucets in our room. The water was cold and delicious. From time to time, we would buy pie. We did fine. We just hate to see food service done so ineptly, with so little care for delighting the customer.
Our other thought was “and this is just the beginning of the season. What is it going to be like when the real crowds hit?”
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