Crisscrossing Montana and Idaho

Wallace,Idaho

We headed next to the little town of Wallace, Idaho. Why? Glad you asked. For it's Wallace that is one of the only towns that didn't get destroyed by the catastrophic wildfires with hurricane force winds blowing through in 1910. It, too, is a living museum to the mining era of this area. Almost every building in town, including the homes, is on the National Registry also. No theaters left here (there were three at one time), but the town is very prominently displayed in the movie "Dante's Peak" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118928/ and also has a smaller role in the infamous film "Heaven's Gate" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080855/ . We did a four mile hike up to the area where a group of firefighters took refuge in an old mine while the firestorm in 1910 blew through the area. While several of them died, most made it back to Wallace due to the heroics of a fellow named Ed Pulaski. It's a fascinating story, and we're not sure why someone hasn't written a screenplay for a film about it. The Coeur D'Alene bike trail winds through the mountains from there all the way to Wallace, and there are several well known ski resorts nearby. Smarty drove us down I-90 to Coeur D'Alene

Coeur D'Alene

, a beautiful resort lake area surrounded by mountains. The town is bustling with restaurants, shops, hotels, and tons of tourists! It was busy. We decided, after having lunch with the tourist crowds, we would come back over to stay during a shoulder season sometime when it's not so crowded. Down the highway about 20 miles to the West is the much larger Spokane. We toured around the old and active downtown area and then deadheaded it for a resupply of food stocks at one of our ever reliable targets on the road, Trader Joe's. We were running low so this hit of TJ's was especially timely.
Next stop is Helena, Montana, which sits in a valley in the North Central part of the state. It's a pretty short jog from the Wallace area to here, and entering through the mountain passes in the west, we start descending into town. We drive past the State Capital building and the interesting looking, mostly old, but well preserved, downtown. In preparing for our trip in and since we're both (always) in the mood to look at the theaters in these towns (mostly because they're still there and the locals frequent them), we noticed that one of our all time favorite actresses from any era, Myrna Loy, 


Inside The Myrna Loy Center

is from Helena, and that there's a movie theater named for her. Two local movie enthusiasts started a film society and named it with reverence to her. Later, with the help of a grant, they bought a great old building to house the Myrna Loy Film Center  http://www.myrnaloycenter.com/aboutmlc.htm . It's quite unique, and the town's lucky to have it. Food in Helena? The most interesting find is The Parrot http://www.parrotchocolate.com/. Around since 1922, this is THE place in Helena for home made candy, ice cream, sodas, and some yummy fun food. Almost everything here is made in-house, as it was over 90 years ago. As the Myrna Loy is to movies, this place is to the old fashioned fountain. I ordered a cherry phosphate with vanilla ice cream and a foot long Sabrett hot dog while M A went with the homemade chili and a chocolate mocha shake. Yum! We got the tourist pass from a very sweet young employee named Jade (below). Think she could tell we were more than normally interested in the place, so she took us to the kitchens and let us sample the just made candy! Wow, what a fun treat. Made lunch there all the more special. Their chocolate reminded me a little of that we used to get from our St. Louis chocolatier as kids, Mavrakos. Very special.

From Helena, we begin our track back East and south, towards the West Yellowstone area again. Our trajectory has changed, and we are heading to....Iowa. Why? Stay tuned....

Western and Northern Montana

Fairmont Hot Springs

It wasn't easy to leave Moose Creek, but on July 20th 2012, it was time to head north and explore as much of the Western part of the enormous State of Montana as we could. Our first stop that day was at Fairmont Hot Springs  http://www.fairmontmontana.com/Fairmont%20Hot%20Springs , not too far from Butte. This lovely resort, built around the very hot mineral water flowing up into their pools, is sitting really in the middle of nowhere. 
Located about 20 minutes west of Butte, a former boom town that grew out of the very rich mineral deposits in the area, and a 15 minute drive to Anaconda, another copper mining boom town, Fairmont boasts a golf course, tennis, lots of other sports, and of course, the huge mineral pools, one indoor and another outdoor. We spent the better part of the day Saturday lounging around the outdoor pool and soaking in those therapeutic waters...very relaxing! On Sunday night we drove into Anaconda for one of the lures in the area to us, The Washoe Theater http://goldwest.visitmt.com/listings/10873.htm. From the outside, this historic movie theater looks like just another small town cinema that has  managed to survive the ill fate of so many others we see as we trek across the country. Once inside though, it's easy to see why it is listed as one of the best examples of Nuevo Deco style from the 1930's by The Smithsonian and is also listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. It was designed by the same architect who did other iconic movie palaces during the Golden Age of Film, most notably The Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. It opened in 1936 (although it was finished in 1931 and the opening was delayed because of The Depression) and has been in continuous operation ever since! About two thirds through the movie, the house lights went up and the intermission sign flashed up on the screen. I hadn't seen that since I was a kid at the movies!

Washoe Theater

It seemed like we might have been the only tourists in the sizable crowd for a Sunday night because we were the only ones who were a little surprised by all this. The concession stand filled up again, and we could only think about the genius marketing going on here. They only charge $4 admission on Sunday, which is the reason for the crowd, and they make a lot of it back with their reinvention of "intermission." Why has some other movie chain not figured this out?
 As we left the theater, we stood outside to admire it again. A couple approached us, and the man told us he'd grown up in Anaconda and has been going to the theater since he was a small kid. He seemed very proud...and well he should be. What a great evening!
We drove into Butte too, a couple of times. These towns are really interesting living museums from when the mining companies built them to support their operations...company towns. There are closed mine shafts scattered all over what was called "the richest hill in the world." There are union halls all around town, as well as neighborhood taverns. One of them in downtown is famous and was the set for a film we both like called "Don't Come Knocking" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377800/ . The M &M Cigar Store http://www.mmcigarstore.com/  has been around for 122 years...and looks like it! The food's so-so, but the atmosphere was worth the price.

Just about a hundred miles north and west is Missoula. We spent a week here and enjoyed this college town of about 100,000. Did we have another ancient theater experience? Yes, indeed we did! The Wilma http://thewilma.com/history.php was built in 1921 and is still operating. The theater itself is in the ground floor of an eight story art deco building, whose interior looks like the set of a 1930's movie.Missoula is built right on the banks of the Clark Fork River and is a very livable town. Almost all streets have bike paths and they are heavily used...like being in Europe. We wonder what this place is like in the deep part of winter though. We are here for the summer, where 90 is really hot for them, and most mornings you wake up to 55 or so. It's one of those places that has one of everything. One Costco, Best Buy, Target, all those, but also several good bakeries, the best for us is Le Petit Outre http://www.lepetitoutre.com/index.php/fuseaction/history.main.htm . Cafe Dolce (see pic below of their great looking space), a fantastic to look at open air eatery, gelatoria, bakery, and coffee bar in a mostly residential neighborhood, gave us mixed feelings. For our first visit we had a really nice lunch, a roast beef sandwich with a good horseradish dressing, and a good mixed salad. Next visit we came for coffee and ordered two pour overs. Price? $9.00!! Granted, they were a full 2 cup serving each...but still! Where are we? New York City? A bit pricey...but good Intelligencia Coffee. The last visit for dinner was a bomb. M A ordered a sausage and kale fusilli dish which she reported as "OK"...not her most enthusiastic response ever (looked good on paper..not so well executed). I ordered a simple plate of Penne Marinara and needed to have dinner again when we got home. Compared with Mary Ann's normal sized serving, mine was roughly half the size. The service was ok at first and then we had to wait long stretches to finally get settled up. Big city prices? Give big city service and food..then we're happy. We won't probably go back next time, even though the atmosphere is really good. Downtown is filled with diners and cafes, all sorts and sizes.
We took a drive up north from town to Flathead Lake. Not as well known as some of the other large bodies of water in this country, but every bit as beautiful. It's right on the way from Missoula to Glacier National Park. What we didn't know is that it is one of the most prolific Cherry growing regions in the area. The entire lake is covered with Cherry orchards. Flathead
cherries are a bit tart and also sweet. They also grow Raniers and other varieties. Needles to say, we have given up apples and other fruits for the time being. When in Rome!! Our day trip took us as far north as Kalispell and through the little tourist town of Bigfork http://www.bigfork.org/. We turned back around in Kalispell  (eating cherries!) and headed down the other side of the lake towards home after logging about 200 miles that day. Before we left Missoula though, we had to try one of the biggest attractions..The Big Dipper! This place is listed on every food blog about the town and for good reason. It's all about the handmade, high fat, few ingredient, ice cream. People are lined up all hours of the day and evening to taste this unusually creamy, good stuff. We went twice. We had to hold off going back again..it's that good!

From Missoula, we head west to Wallace, Idaho for some more historic sightseeing, Coeur D'Alene, and Spokane, then on back to Montana..Helena, Montana, in the next posting...

Moose Creek Ranch..Victor,Idaho

Beautiful Moose Creek Ranch

It's June 9th, 2012, and we pulled out of Island Park for the slide down the backside of The Tetons towards the Jackson (Hole), Wyoming area. We drove past The Harriman State Park and beautiful Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, and then rolled further south until we came to the village of Driggs, Idaho. The first thing we noticed in Driggs was the number of cool looking restaurants and shops on the main drag. For a place with an official population of around 1700 it didn't make sense at first glance. As we continued on about ten minutes down the road, we came into Victor, another small village of about 1900 people, again with a bunch of neat looking eating places, shops, and even a little movie theater. Just past town, and a turn to the left, we followed a gravel road about a mile off the highway and came to what was going to end up our new home for over a month, The Moose Creek Ranch http://www.moosecreekranch.com/ . This sprawling property, tucked into it's own valley, where the Moose Creek runs right through...and we mean RUNS, feels about as far off the map as one might care to be, yet is only a few miles into town. There is a large lodge house surrounded by small buildings with individual apartment-like rooms which include kitchens. There are several larger houses, too, for family gatherings, big tents for "camping" right on the creek (they all have bedding with fine linens and wood fireplaces), a dressed up barn for weddings and events, lots of horses and a stable, and three ideal parking spots for RV's. Up the road is the Moose Creek Trail head, an area wide destination for hiking and horse back riding. We could not pick up any TV, so when we did want to see something we used our Roku Players (not very often) to keep up with the outside world. This place is really a little slice of heaven, one of those few places we've been so far that we were reluctant to leave. 

From the left Mary Ann,Marty,Craig,& Linda @
The Knotty Pine in Victor

In fact, our new RV buddies, Craig and Linda and their dogperson, ZUNI (we are Uncle Marty and Aunt Mary Ann to this amazingly smart animal), who we got to know during our extended summer stay last year in Santa Fe, had been hearing such positive reviews from us about this place, they decided to head on over ( a short 1500+ mile drive from their home in Michigan!!!). They spent a week with us and were not disappointed either. 

Together, we visited The Grand Targhee Ski Resort http://www.grandtarghee.com/, drove over the pass the 18 miles to Jackson Hole, hit as many eateries and breweries as possible, and just relaxed at the lodge. There are so many good eating places, we didn't have time to cover them ourselves in over a month! One reason was our constant return trips to The Brakeman http://www.brakemangrill.com/ for their amazing burgers (see picture below for a look at three of owner, Joe's, works of hamburger art!). Mary Ann (who hardly ever eats any fried food at all) couldn't keep her hands off the fries either. They were as close to perfect as fries get, but after all, where would you expect to get great potatoes....but in Idaho. Any food critic who doesn't include this place in their top 10 burger list in the U.S. is ignorant of it or has no taste buds!

In fact, while hanging out at Wildlife Brewing for a pizza and a beer http://wildlifebrewing.com/, another couple we met from the Houston area, David and Karen, asked about food in Victor. We sent them to The Brakeman, and they wrote about it in their blog http://wecouldlivehere.blog.com/ . Other mentionable places we hit in the area are Pendl's Bakery https://www.pendlspastries.com/index.php, Forage http://www.forageandlounge.com/forage.lounge/home.html, and Teton Thai http://tetonthai.com/driggs_home.html ...all in Driggs. We also bought grass fed Idaho beef directly from the source at TWR Ranch there. In Victor, besides The Brakeman, there's The Knotty Pine for BBQ http://knottypinesupperclub.com/Knotty_Pine_Supper_Club/Music.html, Scratch for a great home brined corned beef Reuben, and don't miss the old fashioned soda fountain in The Emporium for a real cherry phosphate with vanilla ice cream. A combination bike shop/coffee bar called Fitzgeralds/ The Nine Bar http://shop.fitzgeraldsbicycles.com/about/the-nine-bar-pg138.htm was our go-to place for the best pour over coffee from a porcelain dripper (healthy!) and amazing organic home baked pop tarts and other goodies. While staying at Moose Creek Ranch, we got to know our hosts and the owners, John and Susan, pretty well. We shared a meal out at Forage and had them over for a movie and just enjoyed a few evenings together under the cool Idaho sky. A few times, after sunset, we all had to go put on extra layers of clothing to stay warm! In July. Nice...They are great people, and we'll try staying in touch with them. We think we'll return here sometime for more cool summer stays. We did drive in to Jackson Hole several times for shopping and to hang out in The Square. There are lots of restaurants and we did try a few, but by comparison, and to our surprise, we kept wanting to try places over the pass in our area of Victor and Driggs. They seemed much less touristy to us than most of the Jackson Hole places. In fact, we got confirmation on this from other locals we spoke to, the longer we stayed in the area. The main reason for the drive over the pass was to visit Grand Teton National Park. This and The Grand Canyon are at the top of our personal national park favorites so far. There is panoramic beauty everywhere here. Not only are the three main iconic peaks fabulous, but the lakes and other hiking venues we visited in the three times there are world class. There is so much to write about in Northeast Idaho and Western Wyoming, the hikes, the food, the natural beauty, the people we met, we could almost go on forever, After almost five weeks in the valley at Moose Creek, we knew it was finally time to move on, so after a farewell evening under the stars with Susan and John, we planned our next move. This time, we'd head for the high mountains of Montana...