Tin Can Travels

15-16th May: Days 37 & 38

Somewhere along the line Nick discovered that there is a lounge bar in Great Falls, MT that was a little different from the usual bars. A bar that he needed to visit.  A bar that combined drinking, eating, & lounging with some unusual entertainment.

The Sip and Dip Lounge Bar is attached to a large motel. The motel pool has viewing windows to the bar and is is open for guests to use in the daytime, but in the evening it is the fantastical realm of the resident mermaids (and mermen on a Tuesday)

So we planned a night’s stay in Great Falls around an evening in this fine watering hole. We booked into an RV park in town and drove the short 45 miles from Prewett Creek.  As it was a little early to start drinking at 1pm, we broke out the bikes and explored the riverside trail.  This was a bit more industrial chic than previous trails, but quite interesting as it wound downriver to one of the 3 small hydroelectric dams that helps power the town. (Hence its nickname ‘Electric City’)

Eventually the exciting time had arrived and an Uber took us to our hallowed destination.

It was a place that you never would have found, or wandered into, and was suitably kitch, decorated in the style of a retro Tiki Bar.

But. Unfortunately. The mermaid-on-duty had called in sick. For crying out loud.

We were more than a trifle disappointed. But as one of our co-customers pointed out. “No-one wants to watch a mermaid with diarrhoea”. Wise words, my friend, wise words.

We availed ourselves of some cocktails and burgers, and were less disappointed by the end of the evening.

Here is a stock photo of the place with mermaids installed.

11th-15th May: Days 33-37

Another item on our List is ‘learn to fly fish’. Montana is a trout fishing mecca and the Missouri River quite literally runs through it (For all you ladies of a certain age who had a Robert Redford and Brad Pitt crush like me, the 1992 movie ‘A River Runs Through It’ was set in Montana. Yes. Fly fishing can be cool and sexy. Allegedly.)

So anyway. We selected an out-of-the way RV park, right on the river, and  headed off. We stopped off at Helena, the state capital, for lunch and provisions for 4 nights and made our way to Prewett Creek. This is an amazing spot nestled amongst some deep sided rocky cliffs through which the river runs. The chosen method of fishing here is ‘floating’. The locals have small double ended boats big enough for 3 people. They launch about 8 miles up river, dash back with a second car to leave the trailer at the ramp, then spend a few hours floating back to it. The middle guy steers with oars and the other 2 fly fish. Looks like a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

The only other establishment at Prewett Creek is a small Fly Fishing shop run by a local legend called Phil Camera. An East Coast native, he is a world expert on trout fishing and fly making. We called in to see what we could organise. About an hour later we came out with a plan to get licences the next day, an agreement to rent some rods, a brain full of fishing tips and a new friend. We decided to stick to spin casting rather than learn to fly cast. Much easier and still quite a valid method of fly fishing apparently.

The next 2 days were freezing. Wearing all our clothes, with a thermos of coffee and chairs in hand we made our way down to the river. I fished. Nick got his teeth into John Steinbeck. (We only got one licence and rod in the end). We moved several times, even got on our bikes and went up-river a few miles.

My casting was splendiferous.

I put in the hours.

I did everything that the guru, Phil Camera, had told me.

But. Not. Even. A. Nibble.

Not. Even. A. One.

Never mind. The river was beautiful, it was peaceful. We saw an otter, lots of Canada geese and lots of boats floating past serenely. And do you know what? I didn’t see a single other person catch a fish either. So I won’t be too upset about my lack of success. (Although I can’t catch fish for toffee in NZ either…) Phil commiserated with us during our debrief. Apparently this is the time of the caddis fly hatch, which means the trout are well fed and not so hungry for flies. (Contrast this with warmer weather, and the popular activity of tube-floating down the river, in what Phil amusingly termed the ‘bikini-hatch‘)

Perhaps we will have better luck on another river, another time, but Prewett Creek was a little gem. And no trout were harmed in the making of this post.

8th-11th May: Days 30-33

Firstly, before you all start guffawing at the idea of a place named after your backside, it is pronounced ‘beaut’, as in ‘beautiful’. Still pretty funny though.

Secondly, it seems most people pass through rather than stay 3 nights. The lady at the RV park desk had to double check that she heard us right. (We are definitely on a ‘go-slow’ by now.)

Thirdly, it’s a pretty interesting spot, and another beautiful drive through the American Wilderness to get there from Yellowstone

Butte exists because they found copper ore on a hillside, and then proceeded to dig it out. They dug and dug and dug and created an enormous hole in the world. The Berkley Pit. Whilst they were mining they pumped the water out of the hole, but since the mine was abandoned it has filled with a rather beautiful, horrendously toxic, watery green soupy lake. Yum. So toxic that last year a flock of 10,000 Canada Geese landed on the lake and 4,000 died.  So it’s not a candidate for conversion into a recreation facility.

The town got rich on the proceeds of the mining and dubs itself ‘The Richest Hill On Earth’. There are lots of enormous fancy buildings in the old district of the town and it was obviously quite a dandy spot in the day.

We had a morning wandering around, and even managed to procure haircuts from a fancy salon.

The Continental divide also runs through this area. In 1985 a statue called ‘Our Lady Of The Rockies’ was completed. This is a 90 foot likeness of Mary, Mother of Jesus, built atop the mountainside on the divide overlooking the town. Impressive but a bit bizarre, given that it is quite catholic thing and they are at pains to emphasise it is not a catholic thing. No photo, sorry. Here is a fluttering flag instead. The photo doesn’t quite show how enormous it was.

About 30 miles from Butte are some caves called The Lewis and Clark Caverns. (These guys had nothing to do with their discovery but they are so important to the history of the Western USA that they have a whole heap of stuff named after them.) We drove over and did the guided tour, which was very, very good. It was a 2 hour tour through the cave system, with an amusing guide. Lots of impressive structures and rooms. Interesting enough that I didn’t freak out once. (I don’t particularly like being underground) Despite being underground, this cave system is at an altitude of 1 mile. Fact.

No photos of this either. Here is a cool old car instead.

 

Butte saw us achieve another item of The List, which was to eat in one of the Man vs Food establishments.  For those of you in the know about this TV show, this will need no explanation. For those who have never seen it, then this will mean nothing to you.

http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/man-v-food/episodes/butte

Butte’s speciality dish is the deep fried pork chop sandwich. “Delicious and nutritious!”, I hear you cry… The Freeway Tavern, a short walk from our campsite is home of The Wop Chop (named for its Italian owner). The Tavern looked like a fight pit from the outside, with no windows to look into the inside. A deep breath saw us push open the door and inside was a small, locals bar. No fighting at all. A pitcher of beer and 2 sandwiches was only $20, and it was delightful. The highlight of the evening was the barmaid insisting 2 of the locals put down their drinks and get behind the bar to fix the 2 sliding doors of the big chiller cabinet. This provided 20 minutes of entertainment to the entire place and their success was met with a rousing round of applause from all patrons.

The weather really warmed up when were in Butte. So much so that one evening we even broke out the BBQ and had dinner outside. Who’d have thought…A taste of life to come, we hope. It was a trifle windy, hence me using Big Dave as a windbreak.

 

The sunshine also made us realise that we are in need of hats, and after a bit of searching we are now the proud owners of slightly cowboy looking ones. When in Rome… (This should also guarantee a break in the weather).  Sunshine was also responsible for our minor low-point of the trip so far.  Up til now, we have not considered rolling out our awning, it being so darn cold n’all. But a sudden increase in temperature by 20 deg C and no wind made us curious as to how it worked. It easily deployed, then got inexplicably stuck out. No amount of jiggling and fiddling with it would change the situation. We searched the internet for hints, we enlisted the help of a few other more experienced RV’ers, but to no avail. The general opinion was that it was stuffed.  Luckily we managed to find a mobile RV mechanic who said he would come and look at it the following morning. He did (eventually), and happily all it took to fix it was some more aggressive jiggling. And a $40 call out fee. Cheap at half the price, methinks.

Butte’s final crowning glory was The Chicken Shack. A fried chicken takeaway known statewide. And it is located at the RV park. We pleasure-delayed this until the last night, partially earned the calories with a long walk, then had a dinner twice the size than we really needed.

Next stop, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 

 

2nd – 7th May: Days 24-29

I suppose that this is the first big ticket destination on our non-itinery. The National Parks are a big deal in the US, and they do the whole thing very well.  In fact Yellowstone was probably the world’s first national park and was established in 1872. Quite an amazing foresight really. We have purchased an annual pass for the National Parks (and monuments) for $80. It will have easily paid for itself by the end of this week.

We are staying in a town called West Yellowstone which sits at the western entrance to the park. It is a classy tourist trap, and every motel, hotel, campsite, bar, restaurant or shop has either ‘Grizzly’, ‘Buffalo’ or ‘Yellowstone’ in its name. Just about.

Our roost for these 6 nights is Grizzly RV Park. Obviously. The park has space for approx 220 RVs, plus some campsites. Happily it is only about 10% occupied and only opened the day that we arrived.

This whole area is at quite an altitude, between 6,000 and 6,500 ft, and it’s been a long snowy winter so there is still a reasonable amount of snow around. Yellowstone is only half open.  We are undeterred however, as the huge advantage of this is that it is still relatively quiet. I can’t imagine how busy it gets in summer. I read somewhere that in peak season there can be a 2 hour queue just to get in through one of the gates.

Our first day here we decided to not go into the park as the weather was mediocre and is forecast to be fantastic for the following 3-4 days.  We visited a Wolf and Bear Discovery Centre, which homes animals that are not able to be released back into the wild. Some of this was due to injury but for most of the bears it is because they were too habituated to humans, and were getting too up close and personal for comfort. Neither of us like seeing animals like these in captivity, but it was cool to see them so close without the fear-factor and they are doing a good job of education at this centre, which is all non-profit.

West Yellowstone also has an IMAX cinema and runs a rather dated, but very watchable movie on the park. So we did that too, by ourselves. Nothing like a private IMAX viewing experience. (Nick was thrilled to discover that at the end of the week the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie is showing.)

The next 2 days we did early starts, and were rolling into the park by 7.45 am. Picnics packed, camera batteries charged, binoculars to the ready. It was very cold initially (-4 deg C the first day), but with clear blue skies.  By the mid afternoon it was 25 deg C. We just drove around as far as we could, approximately 80 miles, then drove back again with lots of stops along the way. The scenery was fantastic. Loads of bison, a few deer, a couple of wolves (or possibly coyote), but unfortunately no bear sightings. The place is amazing, and I won’t even try to describe it.

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we had managed to book a room in the Old Faithful Inn. This is a huge log construction hotel built in the early 1900s. It has an amazing open atrium which is about 6 floors tall. (Our photos really don’t do it justice, but google has some good images if you are particularly interested.)

This evening was it’s first day of opening for the season and it was packed already. The Inn is named for the Old Faithful geyser which reliably fires off every 90 mins or so. The whole area is awash with geysers and hot springs and we had a great few hours hike along a loop trail to see most of them. One section of the trail was shut: we weren’t arguing… Even with bear spray, one can feel a little vunerable.

We had an amazing room with a rare view of the Old Faithful itself. After 3 weeks of living in our tin can it was a treat to have a huge room, a bath, and a double bed each. We had dinner, a drink on the mezzanine listening to a musician on the piano who then performed Prince’s Purple Rain on the cello (oddly fantastic), then went out to watch Old Faithful erupt by moonlight, pretty much by ourselves.  We also didn’t get up until we had seen it in the morning too.

 

The next day we mooched back to the Tin Can and had a lazy afternoon. In the evening we saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 on the IMAX. Very entertaining.

It was really nice to be in one spot for nearly a week, and we are ready to move north further into Montana tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

29th & 30th April: Days 21 & 22

A short 83 mile hoppity-skip took us from Ketchum to Arco along a section of the very scenic US-20. This runs in the Snake River plain, surrounded by mountains. The enormity of this country is becoming more and more apparent.

Brace yourselves for some Arco facts…

Arco’s main claim to fame is that is was the first community in the world to be lit by electricity generated solely by nuclear power back in 1955. (For about an hour). Experimental breeder reactor No. 1 is about 18 miles from the town, and was the world’s first nuclear power plant.

This is it from afar.

It was never a commercial venture, but burnt until 1964 as a test bed for the new energy source. The plant is now a museum, and you can maraud all over it on a self guided tour. Tragically it is not open for another month, which was very disappointing for my travel companion.  The ‘season’ sure starts late in this neck of the woods.

Arco plays host to the conning tower of the submarine the USS Hawksbill, aka the Submarine of the Desert or ‘Devils Boat’. A trifle bizarre.

Whilst we were taking the obligatory tourist photos, a chap remarked how impressive it was. For a milli-second he believed me when I said that what was even more impressive was the effort put into digging the hole to bury the rest of it. Must rein in that sarcastic British humour.

The hillside above the town is known as Numbers Hill. Since 1920, every graduating high school class has painted the number of the year on the rocks high above the town. Part vandalism, part artistic heritage.

Arco is also the closest town to a US National Monument called Craters Of The Moon, which is our main reason for stopping here. This is a huge area shaped by volcanic activity over the past 14 million years. The most recent eruption being 2500 years ago.  We spent the day there, driving the loop road and stopping at various points to do walks and a few climbs. A very lunar landscape surrounded by amazing nothingness.

We had the inaugural truck-bed picnic, with at least 4ft to spare.

August 21 is the date of the full solar eclipse, and Arco is on the path of totality. This would be an amazing place to watch it, but alas we will be far from here.

So there. So much of interest in such a small place we’d never heard of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25th-29th April: Days 17-21

Another 170 or so miles of very pleasant highway driving takes us up the gently ascending valley, towards Sun Valley. Here we pass through Hailey (home to Shorty’s Diner, originally built and owned by Bruce Willis), and come to rest just outside Ketchum. This small, but swanky town is the service town for the much better known Sun Valley, the home of the USA’s first purpose-built ski resort and the world’s first chair lift. The facts just keep a’coming, folks.

There is only one RV park in this neck of the woods, and we managed to squeeze ourselves in..

…yes. Just us. It seems we are a tad ahead of the summer season tourist hoards.  It is a little colder up here, and although we are fairly well equipped for it, we perhaps weren’t quite mentally prepared.  Our plan had been to escape an NZ winter yet we find ourselves still surrounded by pockets of snow and temperatures in the low 40’s, even in mid spring. One morning we woke to a temperature of 38 degF/ 1 degC INSIDE the Tin Can for crying out loud.

                

Ketchum is an aesthetically pleasing place, happily devoid of any fast-food or shopping chains (except a stylish Starbucks) and sits surrounded by beautiful ski mountains. We have caught it at the trough of low season. Skiing finished last weekend, and its still too cold for too much biking hiking or fishing. So it is currently also quiet. No fighting for a parking space for our ridiculously large vehicle…happily.

Our first day here we filled with loafing, laundry, mooching around town and a trip to the movies. We watched a matinee of ‘Going In Style’ which was most notable for its over-commentary of the action, like verbalised stage directions of a play. This seemed quirky to say the least, but it is a Zach Braff movie, so we accepted it as an artistic statement. Apart from one other lady we were the only ones watching.  On our departure we discussed this with a cinema employee and it transpires that the projectionist had run the version of the movie for the visually impaired.   Dodging a significant downpour of hail we found a very noteworthy microbrewery and restaurant, Warfield, that served very tasty un- American fayre and a passable pint of English bitter.

The day also saw the purchase of a ukulele for me. Nick is so pleased, as you can imagine. I suspect I will be banished to The Beast for practice.

There are now three of us in the Tin Can…Us and Bob. We have discovered Bob FM. A quite spectacular local radio station with NO talking and minimal adverts. Just a near constant play of all our favourite tunes. It’s like it is reading our music minds…

The next day was beautifully sunny and bitterly cold. Despite this we put on all our clothes, and looking a bit Michellin-esque, we set of on the bikes.  An amazing bike trail along the old railway runs all the way up and down the valley. It has blacktop to shame the whole of NZ.

We set off back to Hailey, an imperceptibly downhill 8 mile straight line. It was also, in retrospect, downwind. We arrived with chilled extremities having expended about 20 calories. Shorty’s Diner defrosted us with a coffee and then, as it wasn’t quite lunchtime, we wandered around a little nature reserve down by the river.  Lunch barely earned we headed back to the diner. Little did we know that we were going to need the sustenance…

Going home was not so easy. A brisk headwind and the gradual, relentless incline was a bit miserable. The mile markers ticked by ever so slowly and we arrived back at our still private RV park quite pooped. Strangely not so cold now.

Our next day here was going to involve us driving to Stanley which is a small town about 60 miles further up the valley. Lots of nice hikes and views if the weather is nice but the forecast was for snow so we decided against it. Shame really as it was one of the reasons we came up this way. Instead we got back on the bikes, cycled the other way from yesterday back into Ketchum and followed the trail round up to Elkhorn and Sun Valley Villages. Took the double hit of headwind and incline in better spirits this time, as we knew coming home was going to be a doddle. With lunch well and truely earned today we found ourselves in the Ketchum institution that is Leftys. Apparently you can’t visit town without trying their Monkey Fries. More like thick hot crinkle cut crisps (‘chippies’ for the NZers) covered in a spicy paprika dust. Not sure what monkeys have to do with it, but they were worth the visit. Coming home was indeed a doddle.

Ketchum’s other claim to fame is that for a time it was home, and is the final resting place of Ernest Hemingway. Here he wrote ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ and a year later shot himself in the town in 1961. A visit to his grave and memorial seemed obligatory tourist activities.

 

 

 

 

 

22nd-25th April: Days 14-17

A veritable Chinook blew against us all the way up I-84, over miles of a majesty-of-nothingness to our first planned destination: Boise, Idado.

‘Why Boise?’ Why not, we say.

Some Boise facts:

1. Those in the know call it ‘Boi-sea’, not ‘Boi-zee’.
2. It is the most geographically isolated urban area in the Lower 48, and is the state capital of Idaho.
3. It has a population of approx 200,000 and is one of America’s most ‘liveable cities’.

Here we have achieved two of the items on our ‘Tin Can Travels To Do List’: Attend a local sports event and go to Sonic.

Within 2 hours of pulling up at the Riverside RV Park, we found ourselves in an Uber (First time for this too.) headed into the city centre for an ice hockey game. The Idaho Steelheads vs Colorado Eagles. We got some pretty good seats, 3rd row back behind one of the goals. Those seats in which you would be killed by a flying puck if it weren’t for the perspex.

The steelhead is a large local trout and when the home team scores its first goal of a game a whole fish is thrown onto the ice, is scooped up by some chap, and paraded around the perimeter to whoops and cheers. Idaho lost in the end, but it was still very entertaining, for us anyway. Lots of high tensions on the ice, body contact, broken sticks and overly zealous fans kicking the boards. Our seats were also in the waitress-service-zone for food and drinks.  Very civilised.

Another highlight of the evening was meeting Nancy and Connor, who were sat next to us. They filled us in on lots of tit-bits of knowledge, both local and hockey related, and we amused them with our accents. After the game we went for drinks with them on the unexpectedly vibrant Boise ‘strip’, and they were kind enough to give us a lift home, via Sonic for a burger.

For those uneducated in the ways of US ‘drive-up’ fast foot establishments, at Sonic you drive up to a menu in the carpark, and press The Big Red Button to place your order. Then a server trots (or apparently sometimes roller-skates) across the carpark and serves your food to you through your car window. This was also on The List for us, and so excited were we that we broke protocol and actually got out of the car to have our photo taken with The Red Button.

Boise has a great riverside walking/cycle track along the river, connecting where we are staying to the centre of town, about 5 miles away. So we unleashed the bikes again, and meandered into town the next day, Sunday. There were just a few detours as the river has burst its banks in places due to the massive amounts of meltwater from a very snowy winter. We arrived downtown to be pleasantly surprised by the lack of high-rises, lots of independent eateries and a chilled out pedestrian and bike friendly vibe.

Boise also has a very beautiful Capitol building, which is open to the public. Amazingly you can just wander in and explore all the Senate and House chambers. Not an official or security guard in sight. The interior is immaculate, and done entirely in white marble. Quite beautiful.

We had only planned to spend 2 nights here, but we woke to rain, and could not be bothered to get up, let alone pack up. So we didn’t, and extended our stay over the phone with our even getting out of bed. Quite decadent behaviour. The road can wait until tomorrow.