Drive to Wyoming from Glacier Park Village

As noted in the previous post, this train trip had more than vacation and scenery in its agenda, we also had several northeaster states that we wanted to visit. To this point of my story, we got North Dakota and Montana covered. I had planned our first day in Montana to be a Glacier park experience, but since we had a rental car we decided to drive to Wyoming and get it knocked off the bucket list. In addition to that, the closest point in Wyoming turned out to be part of Yellowstone National Park and Mammoth Hot Springs was within five miles of the border. A plan was set and we had a plan for the six hour drive from East Glacier Village to Mammoth Hot Springs in Wyoming.

We got up early, easy to do since the time difference had us up long before breakfast was being served in the hotel. The best part of our early morning start was being able to watch the sunrise light up the mountains on our western side as we drove south.

We also saw some animals. Most were pretty normal, like these cows grazing in front of a scenic backdrop.

Some were a little different.

We were lucky to escape.

We stopped for breakfast in Helena, Montana.

Highly recommended.

I enjoyed seeing all the different types of landscape throughout the entire trip. 

As we drove along highway 287, near Three Forks, Montana, we came across this scene.

On quick viewing, they seemed real, but are actually larger than life steel sculptures of horses.

The display is called the Bleu Horses. They are painted blue and white to have depth and they manes and tails made of polyester rope for movement. 

More interesting rocks.

This particular formation is called Devils Slide. It was created when alternate layers of limestone, sandstone, and quartzites were tilted almost vertical and then eroded at different rates.

I caught this group of elk while we were waiting to enter Yellowstone. This is a pretty long range photo. I was looking out the window waiting for something to move out on the grassland. That big female on the right caught my attention and helped me get the male on the left.

I believe it is a male Pronghorn deer.

Due to weather issues and such, we didn't see many animals on this trip, but at least I got this guy.

Next will be Mammoth Hot Springs and return to Glacier.

Northwest Grand Adventure 2018 Hinton to The Rockies

FabHub and I have been lucky to travel a lot of the world during our lives. Whether it has been traveling with family when we were young, with the military while we were enlisted, or with each other on our personal Grand Adventures, we have been a lot of places and seen a lot of things.

Here in North America we have covered Canada, Mexico, and a lot the U.S., but neither of us had been to the Northwest or Northeast states. Several years ago we started working on a plan to fix that. First on the list was the Northwest and to make it easy on us we wanted to do it by train!

The original train plan took us through Chicago to Glacier Park and straight into Seattle. That would have left Oregon and Wyoming out of our trip and as states we had never visited. Fixing that problem involved adding Oregon to the trip by modifying the train trip to include Portland as a long lay over for lunch. Story in a future post.

Then we had to get Wyoming into the trip. That was solved since I had chosen to rent a car to get around the east side of the park. The closest point in Wyoming was part of Yellowstone National Park and Mammoth Hot Springs was the most convenient place to visit. Story in a future post.

When we started talking about this trip it was planned for a 25th anniversary. Then life changed and we had to scale back on our adventures a bit. Finally, late last year I got everything organized and during our 27th year together we headed down the track.

We started our trip by getting on Amtrak's Cardinal route in Hinton, WV headed for Chicago. (FYI, this picture is an old one of the train headed the opposite direction toward Washington, DC.) I opted for Business Class on this part of the trip because it offered wider seats, free coffee and water, and access to the lounge in Chicago. In hindsight, it was not really worth the extra money. The wider seats were nice, but the leg room was slightly less than in standard coach. The coffee was good though.

Our first stop was in Chicago where we changed to the Empire Builder. While in Chicago we went to the lounge and checked out their amenities, which were to include drinks and snacks, a place to relax away from the crowds. It was crowded and the snacks were gone, but they had drinks.

We had a few hours in Chicago, so we went for a walk out on the streets around the Union Station. Everything was clean and people were friendly. We even met a Concord University student who had been riding in coach on our train and was on his way to a Wisconsin Dells vacation.

We decided to eat lunch at a local place rather than in the station and after a bit of Internet research I found Lou Mitchell's. Not much more of an iconic location to go for lunch.

The food was delicious! We even bought some bakery items to go with our morning coffee.

Once back in the station we returned to the lounge and waited for the call to our train. This leg of our trip left at about 230 pm and would arrive at East Glacier Station in Montana at about 630 pm the next day. I reserved standard coach this time. The seats are side by side closer together, but as noted above, slightly further apart in leg room than the business class seats.

Our ride through Wisconsin and Minnesota was mostly in the dark, so we slept through the majority of it, but when we got into North Dakota the train ran straight north for a while and allowed me to get a beautiful sunrise photo.

Further on in the trip across North Dakota we saw a lot of prairie, some rivers, and long distance views.

Getting on into Montana was much of the same and then we started seeing some "bumps" in the scenery.

Then as we got closer, and after doing some research, this one turns out to be the Sweet Grass Hills. They are visible for miles around because their elevation (about 6500 ft) rises about 2000 feet above the surrounding prairie. They are near, but not part of the Rocky Mountains and were created to their current form by being pushed up from below, solidified, and erosion.

Getting even closer gave me a view of Gold Butte behind a field of Canola. 

And then we got closer to the Rockies. These are all late afternoon sunset pictures.

Arriving at Glacier station was exciting. We have been looking forward to this for years now.
This metal sculpture of a Blackfeet Warrior is near the rail depot and on main street.

A bad picture of East Glacier Village, but there it is. We picked up the rental car from a desk in the building on the left. It was a general store, deli, car rental, gift shop.

 The Glacier Park Lodge was within walking distance of the depot. It was built in 1913 by a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway.

Inside the lodge is three stories and was built using 40 foot Douglas Fir logs. Our room was on the third floor in this picture upper left corner. The room was so uninspiring that for some reason I did not even take a picture. Honestly, we were not in the long enough to worry about it. We arrived late the first night. Left early, came back late, socialized downstairs, and then went to sleep. Then checked out early, but we did come back later in the day to socialize while waiting for the train.

I will try to describe it though.

If you can imagine a room about 10 x 10 with a queen size, a small desk and a chair taking up most of the room.  Well, other than the 12 inch square support beam in the middle of the room. Oh, and the four foot square bathroom in the corner. It really was enough.

Hey! I just realized, the whole bathroom was EXACTLY like Mom's spare bathroom, only a bit smaller and no window. Put it this way, I bent over to pick up a piece of paper, I hit my butt on the shower wall, my hip on the sink, and my head on the door frame all at the same time.

The only issue I did take with the room is that it was supposed to be a view of the mountains or park. We were last to check in from the train, so this is what we got.

That is the kitchen roof. If I stood on the right I could see the mountains and a playground. There were rooms with "obstructed" views. This was supposed to be one step above those.

Lesson learned. Even if you make reservations 7 months ahead, don't expect that the property cares. If you want a view, and think you paid for one, and your check in will be late in the day, call ahead early in the day to confirm your reservation and ask to be assigned a best available room. I know they will tell you they can't do that, but at least you tried.

Next post will be out trip to Wyoming and Yellowstone.

Fort Springs to Glen Ray Rd at Alderson

We had another Wednesday adventure.
Water was at 2.84 and the speed was about 484.

We prefer above 3 feet.

It doesn't seem like a lot, but those 3 or more inches make dealing with rocks easier.

Most of the rapids were not a problem. I was a lot stressed about rolling again, mostly because it seems like such a fail when that happens. The water was moving slow enough today that it wasn't going to run me way down the river like it did last week, but it was low enough that working through an area would result in hitting more rocks with legs and such. Luckily, I only rolled one time and that was the very bottom of a rapid. Everyone was sitting there watching.

Right after that was our lunch stop at Stuart's. Good food, high price. It is what it is.

A couple of tubers joined us after lunch. It slowed us down a little, but made for more fun.

The one thing I was afraid of was under the old bridge in Alderson. We went through one time when the water was so low we had to walk through the cobble.

Fortunately, 2.84 was enough through there. Past that there are some cobble areas. We should stay in the middle at this level. I went right and bounced a bit.

Finally made it to our pull out. All was a good day.

High water on the Greenbrier

We kayaked Talcott to Willowwood on June 13, 2018. Water was 3 feet last night and 765 cfs. It jumped to over 4.5 feet today and 3200 cfs. We did not check that before heading out. It turns out there was a lot of rain upstream overnight. If we had known we would have done something different.

Four feet is too high to hit the first rapids. We did not think it through. Just went on bad information assumptions. Five kayaks, dumped four of them, I road the entire "Lindsey Slide" in the water to the end, a lot of rapids, a lot of water. It was about a mile and a half, which may be more than the actual slide, but the water was moving so fast we couldn't stop. Billy stuck with me while I held onto my kayak. Then I let it go and we tried to get to shore, but all that happened is I ended up dumping him by hanging on. We caught up with my kayak a little later and then the rest of the crew found us sitting on a bank waiting for them.

Information: that part of the slide is good on the right for less than 3 feet and slower water. The guys did it before. It might be better on the left side with higher water. We didn't even look due to our assumption that the right side was always good.

Rules for future trips, which are obvious, but somehow we let our excitement about the first run of the season get the best of us.

1. Check the water levels before leaving the house. Weather check up stream might be smart too.

2. If you end up in the water, especially with so much speed and rapids to deal with, Try to hang on to the kayak. I used it as protection from the rocks. Held on to both sides of the cockpit and did everything I could to keep my body, hands, knees, and feet inside as I went over the rapids. Basically, ride it anyway you can.

3. Find an eddy, get in it and rest. If you still have the kayak, empty it out, and keep going. If you don't have it, hope your friends are still coming down the river.

4. Wear your life jacket. Make sure it fits. Tighten the straps. My waist strap seemed tight, but the whole life jacket was slid up and was only caught by my shoulders. That helped keep water out of my face, but I had to be careful.

5. Water is fun and dangerous. Be careful out there.

THE Cauliflower Pizza Recipe

Here it is! I know I have promised to share it for a while now, but we have been busy this summer!

Now that things have slowed down a bit I have a minute to put this blog together.

This is our favorite pizza crust. Not just because the others use processed flours as a crust, this crust is really very good. Being low carb and healthier is just a nice benefit and you can pick up slices!

The ingredients that I use for one dinner plate/personal sized pizza:

Approximately 5 ounces of cauliflower.

1 egg

1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese

Italian seasoning and extra garlic powder

I use a pizza stone to bake the crust at 425 degrees, for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown. I think the stone helps make sure any additional moisture is removed. 

If using a pizza stone, make sure you preheat the oven so that the stone is definitely hot.

Then I add the toppings of choice and put under the broiler until the toppings are heated, typically, more browned cheese.

The entire process begins here:

I say approximately 5 oz. because I typically use frozen cauliflower rice products. They are sold in 10 or 12 oz. packages. I microwave them as the instructions say (usually 5 minutes) and then scoop out half of the "rice" for one pizza.

If I am using whole cauliflower, I rice a head in the processor and then will weight out the amount I want to use for each pizza. Then I microwave it for 5 minutes and use it just like the frozen kind. I use the remainder of the riced head as "fried rice" in a day or two.

What to do with that hot cauliflower.

The most important part of this recipe, is to get the excess water out of the cauliflower before mixing it in with the other ingredients. Other recipes I have seen say to put the cauliflower in a tea towel and twist it in order to wring out the excess water.

Two problems with that plan: 

1) Most dish towels are not the right thing to use.

I have the right towel for this, thin, light weight cotton.

I used the twisting process one time. I tore a hole in my towel.

2) The water coming out of that towel is hot! 

Unless you let the cauliflower cool, but that takes patience.

My solution:

A potato ricer!

Living on a farm of people who grow a lot of potatoes and in a home that used to actually eat them, I own a potato ricer. In case you didn't know, and still eat potatoes, a potato ricer is used to get the lumps out and make really creamy potatoes.

Now I use it to make pizza crust.

I line the ricer with cheese cloth and then spoon the cauliflower rice into the basket. Fold the excess cheese cloth over to cover the cauliflower and then squeeze the bejeebeez out of it using the handle press. No torn towels and no burned hands.

See that solid looking disc in the bowl below? That is what comes out of the cheese cloth. Excess moisture is no longer a problem.

Then I add it to the other ingredients that I mixed up beforehand to make sure the cheeses are coated with egg. 

I get everything all mixed up and then dump it out onto some parchment paper.

I flatten it out some to shape it and get the thickness pretty even. I have tried just pressing it out all the way at this point, but it doesn't work very well since it was sort of hard to keep the thickness even. So, instead, I use another piece of parchment paper on top of the mixture and am able to get it spread out thin and about the size of a dinner plate. If any adjustments to thickness need to be made it is easy to move the mix under the paper.

After it is spread out, pull off the top piece of parchment paper and trim off any extra parchment paper from around the edges of the crust. In an earlier baking adventure, I didn't trim the extra paper. The edges rolled up and during the final broiling process... caught on fire when it touched the element. So, now I trim the excess paper.

After the crust is baked I add sauce, pepperoni, banana peppers, and mozzarella. 

Put it under the broiler and... PIZZA!

If it is Monday, it must be pizza night!

Summer Project 2017 part 2 The Goat House

 Continuing the Summer of Painting Project

As shown in the last posting, I had an audience when I was painting the goat hay barn.

The next project was the goat house in this picture.

I tried to do something odd with this project and I pretty much succeeded. 

I wanted to make the building three-tones of pink. 

I did, sort of, but I won't try that again.

Even more odd, I started with the left over green paint from the hay barn.

I added the pink to it.

I also got out the paint sprayer.

I haven't done that again either. 

Painting did go much quicker.

Paint also went on much thicker.

Clean up took as long as the painting process.

Like I said, not doing that again, especially on a small building.

So, the pink added to the green is the lower dark band on the building.

Then I added another bucket of another shade of pink.

That is the middle lighter band in the above picture.

Then I added another bucket of another shade of pink.

That is the hot pink that took over the top layer and most of the door side.

I really didn't know how to use the sprayer and ended up brushing a lot of this just to get the paint spread around like it should have been. Then I would see a big drip in the wrong section and end up brushing a lot to get the color evened out. 

The door end and overhang are pretty high up too. I should have painted the rafters, but had made such a mess of everything with the sprayer I gave up on it. 

In the end. It looks sort of crazy, but it is painted, mostly.

Our niece (to be) saw the buildings and said they were Cosmo and Wanda.

I didn't know what that meant, but now I do.

She was right. HA!

There is one thing about it though.

Those buildings may be painted some crazy colors, 

but this is what I can see of them from my front porch.

They are over there, if you look really close. 

The nephews have a much better view than we do.

HA!