Heading To the Mothership

It's the middle of April in Yuma, and most all of the Snowbirds have headed North. Like the geese, the Canadians and Yankees from places like Nebraska, Michigan, and Ohio, are settling in to their summer routines already. We, on the other hand, are hanging back, knowing from experience that Spring weather can be fickle, and we don't really want to get surprised by something unexpected, left over from Old Man Winter. The town of Yuma is shrinking down like a balloon losing air, so I finally decided that the right course for us would be to just head up I-17 to Flagstaff and hang a left over to The Grand Canyon, one of Mary Ann's favorite places, for her birthday! It's not too far north for bad weather, but just far north enough to get out of the heat that's already revving up it's summer engine in South Arizona. So like late leaving geese, we're on our way. We spent just three nights at The Canyon, long enough for some beautiful sunsets and long walks along the rim. It made M A's day a memorable one.

M A relaxin' on The Rim

 The next stop along our intended route for a punch list visit at Winnebago World Headquarters in Forest City, Iowa, where H2 came off the line a few months earlier, is Gallup, New Mexico. We stopped off there for a quick visit to Perry Null Trading and our friend there, Barry, for a birthday gift. Nothing strikes Mary Ann's fancy more than a piece of fine American Indian jewelry. She walked out this time with a new bracelet and matching earrings (which she'd be happy to show you since she usually has them on!). The route, now along I-40 East takes us to very familiar territory, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Our stop in Albuquerque is where that fickle spring weather caught up with us. For the few days we were there, the winds peaked to gusts well over 50 miles an hour. We blew up to Santa Fe for about a ten day visit, just long enough for Mary Ann to work on her Yoga practice with her instructors, Tias and Surya Little, and for me to keep up my practice of searching for the best Danishes and Cinnamon Rolls in the country, which in Santa Fe are, in my opinion, at The Chocolate Maven. We did manage to pull me away from those long enough to hit a few of our favorite eating places there like Counter Culture, Joe's Diner, The Tune Up, and one new one for the list in this great Foodie town, Jambo Café. It's a really eclectic place that features African/Caribbean dishes with wonderful spices and very bright flavors. One of their drink offerings is a whole Coconut with the top sliced off, served only with a straw for the milk and a spoon for scraping the sweet coconut meat. 

Chocolate Maven's Danish

.
 Our trajectory next is to head right along the old Santa Fe Trail, to Dodge City, Kansas. As we got closer to Dodge City it became clear that some things don't change much with time. In the old days, it was the cattle drives along this ancient route that brought millions of head from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas into Dodge City for transport East by train. Now, the eighteen wheel drivers are the Cowboys, bringing the cattle along the same road to the feed lots and holding areas in the same places as a hundred and fifty years ago. Dodge City is still a major connecting point for the beef, pork, chicken, and other meat industries, and you see it the closer you get to town. You'd think, as we did, that such an iconic place...Dodge City, why the name itself wreaks of the Old West, would have it's past on display proudly. We figure that somewhere along the line, the city government lost it's way, and there is very little evidence of the old Dodge City we expected to find there. We had to dig around to see what was left of the original part of town and even then discovered that they had actually moved the iconic Boot Hill cemetery to another location! Not much here for the tourist or history buff in you.
 After that disappointing stop, we headed to Wichita, where we caught up with cousins Wayne and Marilyn. They showed us around a town we had very little info on, and we were really very surprised. First, the place has some really good eating places. We weren't around long enough to sample a lot, but Tanya's Soup Kitchen stands out in the memory. Wichita also has a good array of grocery stores, where we were able to reload the rolling stock we like to have on hand. We hit Fresh Market and Natural Grocers, to name a few. Ok, back to that pesky weather situation mentioned earlier. Now we had to hang back for a while longer than expected in Wichita due to heavy SNOW falling in Northern Iowa (we're into the beginning of May!).
 Once the storm finally cleared, we started the last leg of a fifteen hundred mile trek, now through Kansas City and Northwest Missouri and in to Northern Iowa. H2, Smarty, and we reached Forest City the evening before our May 6th appointment. We pulled into the Mothership at the Winnebago headquarters, headed for an empty parking space, hooked up, and waited for the next morning when we walked into the customer service department. What happened next is still astonishing to us. When you take your motorhome back to the manufacturer for service, you hope that the experience will be a positive one. After all, it is a major expenditure and in this case..our home. From the moment we

walked in the doors, the customer service exceeded our expectations! Just think, if you could actually take a new car back to the manufacturer for service...instead of a dealer. This is what we were doing. A really unique idea for most consumer items to begin with (no auto manufacturer allows such a thing, for example). We spent about ten days all together with the service people (at one point, even left and drove up to nearby Minneapolis to visit friends Sol, Sue, and family), and they did everything they could to totally complete our punch list of items and make us feel that all was perfect with our coach...Amazing! What a great experience, and now we were ready to head to Michigan in our upgraded, 100% good to go H2...Winnebago Really Rocks.

The 3:10 to Yuma

When we finally headed east from I-15 in san Diego to I-8, out of the Southern California in mid March 2013, we set our clocks in H2 to arrive in Yuma, Arizona, at about 3:10. We were off by an hour or two, but after all..we weren't coming by train anyway! The drive along I-8 is an up the mountain, down the mountain affair that winds right along the U.S. Mexico border. The most interesting part is that almost the whole way, you see fields of produce like lettuces, asparagus, artichokes, and citrus fruits. I thought Yuma was a sandy border town, and it is once you get away from the agri areas that are visible from both sides of the highway, about as far as you can see! Once you get into town, there are refrigeration warehouses everywhere along the roads, with convoys of 18 wheelers waiting to pick up their loads at all hours of the day and night. It's a major industrial farming hub. We never realized the California produce machine extended this far into Arizona. Yuma is also a major snowbird area and is one of the most RV centric places we've been to. In winter the town swells to two or three times it's usual size. There are dozens of huge motorhome parks all over town which cater to the snowbird crowd, a large percentage from the Western half of Canada. Food wise, Yuma's a blank on our rating scale. The few times we actually tried to get something local were pretty much a disaster. One Saturday night we ventured in to a local pub that we noticed always had a big crowd. We stayed after looking inside at the crowd, even though our instincts told us to run. Lots of overweight, pasty looking folks who usually frequent places like this. Anyway...we stayed! I ordered a Kobe Beef  burger. Yep, that's what it said right on the menu, and they wanted about ten bucks for it, so I fell for the marketing. When it arrived, it looked ok, until I bit into it...FE! It tasted like a cow patty burger! Mary Ann was smarter and stuck to a plain salad. She must have been hoping I'd say "Let's beat it out of here," but when I didn't, she hit her auto pilot and opted for something safe. The salad was a bunch of iceberg lettuce with a few wilted tomatoes and some bottled dressing...FE again. Well, we were hungry again the next day...and stayed close to our own kitchen! Even the local Mexican places were pretty dismal, at least by our standards. Their "Salsa" would best be described as tomato flavored water..yechh again.

What passes for Salsa..Tomato Water!

 When we did finally venture eating out again, it was the local In N Out or Chipotle. If it hadn't been for a decent Frys Grocery and our imported stash from Whole Foods and TJ's, we would have needed to move out faster. As it was, we stayed in Yuma about a month until it began to get hot in April. We visited the old army fort, which was there for settlers moving west toward California in the mid 1800's. The Colorado is at it's narrowest there, so it was an easier place to cross to head west. There is also still a key Navy Air station in Yuma, and it is one active military base! Los Algodones

When not visiting the dentist in Los Algodones

is the little Mexican town on the other side of the border. It's famous because there are hundreds of dentists and pharmacies within a few square blocks in this little town. People come from all over the country, mostly for dental work at very discounted prices. No one we spoke with who had been there complained of shoddy medical care. In fact, most everyone said they'd been coming for years and they all had a "favorite dentist" to recommend.  The best part of staying there were the amazing citrus fruits we ate almost every day. They claim that about 98 percent of our winter lettuces and a great percentage of citrus also come from this area to all parts of the country. We're still in the habit of slicing oranges or grapefruits every day, even though we've been gone from there for months. For you Date lovers, this is also the major source of almost all of the Medjool and other varieties available. A really fascinating place in this amazing country of ours!

             M A among the Artichokes

Phoenix/Scottsdale

The month spent in Scottsdale was interesting, to say the least. Mary Ann's glad she got time to spend time with her two best friends from high school, Rika and Ty. They were her cheerleading and best running buddies.


M A,and friends Rika and Ty

We had a great visit with my cousins, Wayne and Marilyn, while they were in town for The Fiesta Bowl from their home in Wichita, and we got to visit some other friends as well and an occasional dinner or movie with Don and Greta. As it turned out, we spent the better part of our visit to Scottsdale exploring the area on our own. So here are our thoughts.


Hiking right in town! (Phoenix)

Being mostly attracted to eateries that steer away from the norm, we found that we had to travel mostly away from the more touristy areas to get what we wanted. Almost all of the Phoenix area can be considered touristy...After all, it is a major winter destination. But it seems like the places we liked best weren't right in the middle of the ritzy/chi chi parts of town. That's ok by us! We found La Grande Orange Grocery and ended up going back several times, mostly for breakfast. It takes up the better part of an entire strip center. Based in Santa Monica, California, this Arizona outpost of the chain also includes the pizza place next door, a party space across the street, and the bakery inside the grocery part, which really isn't a grocery at all. It's more a take out/sit down, inside/outside bustling eatery that has to be visited in-person to be understood fully. The coffee and bakery goods are really above average. The negative is that lots of the salads and sushi are premade and looked to be sitting around a bit too long. The place has lots of character (that word again!). The next winner we found is Rusconi's American Kitchen. This place perfectly exemplifies what we mean by "weren't in the middle of the ritzy/chi chi parts of town." If choosing restaurants by outside appearance only or address is important to you, Rusconi's could be skipped. If you are adventurous enough to step inside, the interior is beautiful...and most important, so is the food. This chef run place produces dishes on par with any we've tried anywhere, and was the best meal we had in Phoenix, period. Table 56, Becketts Table, and Ncounter in Tempe were all pretty notable too. We did a little hiking, some shopping, and had a good time checking out some areas of Phoenix we hadn't seen before. We stayed at the Fort McDowell RV Park in East Scottsdale until January 2, 2013, and headed to Palm Springs for two weeks off the road, using some of our timeshare time and attending the Palm Springs International Film Festival for almost two weeks of new foreign movies....heaven for us (in fact, the photo used on our header is Mary Ann and H2 in front of one of our timeshares, The Palm Springs Tennis Club)! We saw movies from Germany, Ireland, France, Holland, Norway, and Sweden, and managed to get in a few games of tennis in between screenings too! We always try to connect with cousins Marilyn and Steve, who split their time between PS and their boat at Newport Beach. We had a good catch up visit at our Shadow Ridge timeshare clubhouse, again in between screenings. As far as food goes in Palm Springs, we've been so many times now we seldom eat out, but we did hit a couple of favorites. We always manage a meal at Tylers in downtown PS. 5 star burgers! (You'll probably see somebody famous there.)

Tylers Burger..mmmm!

 

Spencers, the restaurant connected to our timeshare, The Tennis Club, is always reliable for a wonderful high end meal, and we had a great lunch there. After two weeks in Palm Springs we moved down to Escondido, California, for a third bonus week at the Welk Resort,

...with aLawrence aWelka

which Mary Ann found at the last minute. While there, we mostly recuperated from the pace at the film festival by soaking in the hot tubs, sweating in the saunas, and walking the beautiful grounds. In case you're wondering, yes it's the same Welk as in Lawrence Welk !..."and a one, and a two!" He was a savvy investor and owned lots of good real estate..this being one of those locations, a real 4 star property. From Escondido, it was time to get back home to H2 (we were really ready to be in our rolling house!), and we headed to a town in California that many natives have never even heard of, Aguanga. It sits high in the mountains, northeast

Jojoba Hills pool

of San Diego, and we spent a month at an
Escapees park called Jojoba Hills. They have a nice clubhouse with a big pool, hot tubs, tennis courts, and shuffleboard courts. The closest town is about a 15 mile drive to Temecula. There's a Trader Joes, Sprouts, and a good Ralphs (Kroger) for food supplies, and it's big enough to have about one of any type store you need, so it was fun to be a bit off the grid in a nice location, but close enough to civilization. Anyone who tells you about perfect California weather though, must not be referring to Aguanga. We had some bitter cold nights, heavy rain, and strong winds during our month, most of February...punctuated by an occasional nice day. Aguanga is located at the high point of a triangle between L.A. and San Diego, so we took the opportunity to drive into L.A. a couple of times. We spent the night one time in Beverly Hills and ate at a couple of favorites there too, The Farm on Beverly Drive and Kate Mantilini on Wilshire.

Kate Mantilini..Beverly Hills

At the end of February, we headed east, toward a place we'd heard of, were curious about, and, as it turned out, had lots of misconceptions of. Stay tuned for our impressions of the western town of Yuma!

Rollin' On the Shakedown Cruise...Deming,NM & Scottsdale,AZ

After staying in Dallas for over a month and finally getting to see some of our close friends, Ivan and Bunny, Chuck and Jan, and others, we even spent Thanksgiving with Mary Ann's Aunt Willie Mae at cousin Dee Dee's house and met up with lots of other long lost relatives.


They line up at Hard Eight..no wonder!

 Since we were parked out in the "boonies," we really didn't get much time to catch up on the eating out food scene in Big D. I guess the news would be....BURGERS! There are new burger places opening as fast as you can blink. We managed to try a few of them, Hopdoddys (lots of similarities to Shake Shak in Miami and NY..except for one small thing, flavor!), Liberty Burger, Beck's Prime, and they were mostly all ok, but for the most part underwhelming. It seems the harder they try, the less interesting they get..to us anyway. We did get over to Hard Eight in Coppell. We'd heard about this Llano Texas style BBQ place but were skeptical from the start. We were wrong! This place does Hill Country smoker style BBQ as well as any down there we've been to..and do they line up for it!! If you're a true barbeque fan, this is not to be missed. Brother Eddie would go wild for it! We are still amazed at the myriad of food stores in Dallas. It rivals anything, anywhere we've been so far. We do really still miss having the incredible selection...there's Central Market, giant sized Whole Foods, Sprouts, Natural Grocers, Eatzi's (here's a scoop that almost never gets mentioned in Dallas foodie blogs...their grill has an "A" list burger!), and now TJ's (Trader Joes). Even some of the local Krogers are gourmet oriented stores due to the heavy competition. It's as if the grocery store gods all got together and chose DFW as their center of the universe! We kept our dueling convection cooktops going, and whipped up lots of serious dishes with all those great available foods. HEADLINE: "H2's New Galley Exceeds Expectations!"


 

 There is a whole list of new restaurants we missed, and other than a quick bite at old favorites, R&D and La Duni in Highland Park, we'll have to wait for our next trip to check out more of them. We wanted to start working in the new galley in H2, so we did do lots of grocerying.
 We took H2 to our dealer a couple of times to work out some "baby bugs," and finally on November 30th, 2012, we pulled out of the urban trailer park like place we'd been having to call home ( there are no really nice rv parks right in Dallas or many large cities, for that matter ), and headed out I-20 for West Texas.

M A captaining H2 on his inaugural run 

The shakedown rollout was finally underway! Now, H2 is truly a rolling home on wheels. He not only sports the luxury amenities mentioned earlier, but has capabilities which allow us to stay off the grid for extended periods. We wanted to test this new capability on our first night out, so we cruised to just before where I-20 and I-10 converge and landed in Mary Ann's birthplace, Pecos, Texas. We found a more isolated spot in the local WAL-MART lot, asked the manager if it was ok to stay, and set up house. We turned on our powerful generator, cooked a nice dinner, watched a French movie on our new big screen tv( HEADLINE: H2's New Home Theater Lounge Exceeds Expectations"), took showers, and settled in for a good nights sleep....in the parking lot......at the WAL-MART! What a great country!
 The next morning, we rolled out towards Deming, New Mexico. This time, we actually stopped at one of our Escapees Parks ( the folks based in Livingston, Texas, who are our full timer support for our snail mail, etc.) and hooked our shorelines up to the grid. Deming has a really neat combo movie theater/bowling alley called Starmax, and it was Saturday night after all, so after the movie we went and rolled a few games, all the while quoting quotes from one of our favorite movies, The Big Lebowski.
You see, it's a movie that has a lot of bowling....well if I have to explain, you probably won't get it anyway ( I'd suggest you watch it, if you haven't seen it*). By the way, Mary Ann's a natural bowler! The girl can roll! I, on the other hand, only know how to rock. A fun Saturday night in Deming....when in Rome. On December 2nd, H2, smoothly as silk, continued across New Mexico and into Arizona, until we reached our destination, The Eagle View RV Resort, at the eastern edge of Scottsdale. While we were setting up H2, our friends, Don and Greta, who live in Scottsdale, drove over to surprise us. We'd spend the next month there until just after New Years 2013.


H2 relaxing after his long run to Scottsdale

 HEADLINE: "Three full days of hard driving, and H2's Ride Exceeds Expectations!" We'd hoped that it would be a significant tradeoff for our venture into the rv life. After more than three years (two full-timing), trading Harvey, a 32 foot C class coach sailboat, for the much larger and way more complicated H2, a big A class land yacht. The tradeoff, at least in this beginning, is a really good one.

"The Dude Abides!"

*DISCLAIMER...The Big Lebowski is NOT a family movie! But...The Dude really does Abide.

Finally! Smarty's new BIG Brother!

Monty's (Healthy!!) Diner,Madison

 It's March, 2013. It's been months since the last post, and there's BIG news...Smarty's new, BIG brother, H2! We were at Moose Creek Lodge in Victor, Idaho last summer, when we decided that it was time for a larger "house." We'd been kicking the idea around with our RV'n buddies, Craig and Linda, and after lots of discussions and weighing in on the pros and cons with them, while we were all sitting together at Moose Creek, we pushed the button. The new coach, a 2013 Itasca Suncruiser 37f,  would give us two bathrooms, a much larger galley (with a dishwasher and washer/dryer), a true home theater set up in the lounge area, and lots of other amenities that would make full-time traveling and working on the road more comfortable. In fact, the idea was so compelling that Craig and Linda left us for home in Michigan and ended up placing their order for a Suncruiser soon after us!!



Biking The Mississippi!

 It was going to take about four months to build, so we changed course, headed out of Idaho for Western Montana, Eastern Washington State, then back across Wyoming, and South Dakota. We made it to Forest City, Iowa, where Winnebagos are built, and stayed there until we had absorbed enough info to adjust our ordered rig one last time before it went on the assembly line. Then, we headed across Southern Minnesota and had a chance to visit with long time friend, Sol and his wife, Sue, from Minneapolis. We trekked into Southern Wisconsin and stayed in the Madison area long enough to find a bunch of total foodie places to eat, then turned South through Illinois, following the Mississippi, and ending up in Hannibal, Missouri. It was really educational and fun to hang out in Mark Twain Land for a few days, as we kept a steady course right into my home town, St. Louis. The place has really changed alot over the years...for the better! Downtown St. Louis is buzzing with activity. There are tons of cool restaurants, the two new sports fields, people hanging out in clubs at night, and the food! Italian delicacies on The Hill, Mavrakos Chocolates, fresh pretzles, healthy gourmand delights at Winslows Home on Delmar...too many others to mention. We rode our bikes along a path that heads from the iconic Gateway Arch, north along the river..for miles! We also got a chance to visit with our good friends, Denny and Karen. What a great revisit. Who says, "You can never go home again?"

 

Winlows Home, St.Louis

 

 Next, since we were just killing some time waiting for H2 to arrive at our dealer in Dallas, we kept our southerly track and headed for Tulsa, where Mary Ann got to see her cousin, Jennifer and her husband Doron for a nice visit. Then it was right back to Dallas. We ended up waiting for well over a month, but finally the big day arrived, and we took Harvey up to our dealer, said goodbye and thanked him for almost three years of near perfect sailing! What a great RV! Hope he finds a good home with folks who appreciate him as much as we have. Moving from one rig to another is about as mind boggling as moving into a brick and mortar house. It took almost two full days, but we were finally ready to head out. Next stop..our maiden cruise toward Scottsdale, Arizona in H2!

The new galley

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...