Category: food

Headed part way home today. The traffic was pretty bad. I guess because of the eclipse tomorrow. It takes over an hour to cross the border and after that we average about 40 mikes an hour. It will probably be much worse tomorrow we will just be patient. We have a lot of podcasts to listen to.

Finally reaching Chehalis, WA we check-in around 3PM and take a rest and look through our mail and catch up on news. We find a place, Jeremy’s Farm to Table Restaurant, with fairly good ratings so we decide to give it a try. It is terrible. It starts out with a basket of bread you have to buy for $6! I figure it will be pretty special but it arrives and appears to be several slices of commercially cut bread. They serve a slicing knife with it. I have no idea what for.

We both order the Arctic char which comes with seasonal vegetables and the Chef’s “surprise” starch. The vegetables are cold, not even room temperature. The surprise starch is a surprise indeed. It is mashed potatoes with brown gravy. The potatoes and some kind of packet mystery gravy are not reasonable accompaniments to fish. The skin on my fish is flabby and I swallow a bone. What a terrible dinner!

 

First, a very happy birthday to my sister, Peggy, who is a year older today!

On our last sightseeing day of our vacation we visit the Vancouver Art Gallery and revisit Maenam, our favorite Thai restaurant. Pretty nice way to wrap things up! I am not a big fan of the Impressionists although I do confess to a schoolgirl’s crush on Seurat’s Pointellism when I saw his paintings at the National Gallery on my eighth grade trip. Now I prefer the somewhat cartoonish 14th and 15th century saints carrying their attributes. But here in Vancouver there is a Monet exhibition and I am interested in seeing it.

I find that I like his earlier works that they have here. Such as Snow Effect: Sunset, 1875 and Train in the Snow, 1875. Some of the later pieces are less appealing.

To me his later paintings exhibited here from around 1918 seem wild and unfinished but maybe it is because the colors are so garish next to the earlier gauzy paintings. Monet was always trying to catch the effect of fleeting light so maybe this is what it looked like to him in the height of summer when his eyesight was failing. Or maybe he was trying to push the envelope of art a little further.

Some of the water lily paintings and earlier garden pictures are on display as well. We attend a short movie of an art critic discussing Monet’s works at different points in his life. It is very interesting.

So I come away with a better appreciation of Monet’s development and obsession with light.

We return to the hotel to get organized for our start home tomorrow and to spruce up for our dinner at Maenam which is at 6 PM tonight.

Our dinner is great, better than Thursday’s. We get a free glass of champagne to have with our amuse bouche because John tells them we are celebrating our anniversary which is only a sort of half truth. The guys sitting next to us give us their unfinished bottle of wine for our “celebration” and what with the wine that comes with the meal we are well supplied!

This is a wonderful ending to a really super summer road trip!

We spend a lovely afternoon at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. We were last here in 2008. Although things do not change too much in the plant world, this place is always beautiful to see.

We head off to the rose garden. Even though it is late in the season, there are still quite a few roses. I even like the spent blooms, dropping their petals listlessly.

Departing the rose garden, there are beautiful plant landscapes everywhere.

There are all sorts of gardens here from all over the world. I am having trouble with my back and cannot see as much as I would have liked. Here are a few more special ones.

John walks over to the vegetable gardens while I sit a while on a bench and commune with nature.  The tomatoes here are way behind Sarah’s. She reports that we are overrun with tomatoes at home. I guess the almost thousand mile difference in location makes a big difference in the lives of these plants.

The restaurant, Shaughnessy, here at the gardens is open for lunch until 3 PM so we decide to have a late lunch and let it count for both lunch and dinner. We split an appetizer and an entree.

We have had a lovely day and it makes us happy!

We have a lazy morning and head out to the gondolas around 11:30 in the morning. It is a pretty 20 minute walk to the gondolas.

When we get to the gondola area it is packed full with mountain bikers of all ages and tents selling all sorts of bike paraphernalia. There are many signs which say, walk your bike!, but not many are paying attention. We run the gauntlet to the gondola.

There’s a bit of a wait for the gondola as some gondola cars are for bikers only. They and their bikes have to get up the mountain too!

The views out the windows are incredible. I take a lot of pictures. It takes quite a while to get to the top of the mountain. Then we will take another gondola from Whistler Mountain to Blackcomb Mountain.

We get out and walk around for a bit. It is quite barren up here.

Now we get into the intimidating peak to peak gondola.

Our plan is to take a look around, take some pictures, and have some lunch at the restaurant here at the top of the mountain.

The restaurant includes a cafeteria style restaurant and one with table service. We choose Christine’s at Blackcomb Mountain and we are glad we did. We decide to share one appetizer and one entree. Both are great!

Then it’s back across and then down the Whistler Mountain again. After are walk back to the hotel we need some rest time. We decide against dinner and just have some snacks and wine and call it a night.

It is still smoky in Kamloops in the morning. We ask at the desk and they say that the roads are open to Whistler. As we hit the highway there is a disturbing sign saying that the entrance to 99 from 97 is closed. That is the way we are going. Then there are no more signs so we take our chances and continue on. As it turns out we are allowed to proceed but only with a pilot car through the recently burned area.

I do not take any pictures until we are clear of the smoke. Everything is really hazy. Finally we get beyond the smoke area and we head to have some lunch in one of few towns that are on our route, Lillooet. Since we had such an abysmal experience trying local food yesterday we decide to go with generic fast food at A & W. One thing I can say about Canadians they are nice, polite, and helpful. (Maybe three things!) We tell the woman behind the counter what we want and she figures out how we can get it. Having an old time-y root beer is the frosting on the cake.

The scenery on our rather long drive today is spectacular. There’s mountains, more turquoise lakes and rivers, and fast running creeks. We stop every once in a while to take pictures.

Finally after almost six hours we are getting closer to Whistler. The mountains are taller now and some are still snow covered.

After stopping for some iced coffee with about 30 minutes to go we reach Whistler. It is really busy! It seems that some big downhill mountain bike racing event is going on. We check into the Four Seasons Resort and are pleased with our room. It has room for sitting, blogging, and sleeping!

After a while of relaxing we opt not to eat at the fancy fine dining restaurant and opt for the bar where they have a smaller (and cheaper) menu. We order a charcouterie and cheese board and it is really good. Most of the sausages are made with duck or elk. One is flavored with juniper berries. It’s enough for dinner.

Tomorrow we will take the gondola up the mountain and then the peak to peak gondola to go near the top of Blackcomb Mountan. I am hoping I will not be freaked out by the heights.

After spending an inordinate amount of time finding gas and somewhere for breakfast, we were finally on the road around 10:30 AM. This was supposed to be an early departure day since we wanted to go past Banff and see Lake Louise and Moraine Lake today. However, we’ve decided to push them off until tomorrow so that we can view them with fewer people early in the morning.

We have been on the prairie since Idaho and I am excited that today will feature terrain. It is a hazy morning so we do not see the Canadian Rocky Mountains until we get quite close and, wow, are they impressive – craggy limestone piercing the sky. I take some pictures from the car as we approach.

We are staying at the Moose Hotel. We check in early and they upgrade us to a suite, sweet! They have a moose statue out front.

We walk to the local IGA and get some snacks that will take the place of lunch and some bagels and cream cheese for breakfast tomorrow and settle in to watch the Federer/Zverev match. Somewhere during the match Federer must have hurt his back or something because in the second set he is hardly trying. He loses. Boo.

It’s raining so we decide to stay in and relax. We are getting up early tomorrow so we need our energy. Later we go downstairs and eat at the hotel restaurant, Pacini, and have an okay meal. John has lasagna and I have penne primavera. They have this weird grill arrangement where you toast your own bread. Afterwards we come back to the room and I am now fighting with the internet to try to get my pictures uploaded but at this point it doesn’t look good.

Early Monday AM. – most people must still be asleep because I am able to upload the pictures.

 

 

We have based ourselves just northwest of Calgary which gives us flexibility in our sightseeing. Today we range about 130 kilometers to the northeast to learn about dinosaurs, mining, and the old Canadian West.

Yesterday I bought an app which gives us a tour of the area. We drive, we enjoy. We do not have to do anything. Our tour guide is synced with our GPS and just comes on with info when we need it. Seems to me my Trip-Tickle was supposed to work like this.

Here is what we are guided to –

When we get to Drumheller we are directed to the Visitor’s Centre where we also see the world’s biggest dinosaur.

 

From there we head out on the hoodoo trail. The places we go to either have s connection to mining or geology. Our first stop is at a suspension footbridge over the Red Deer River. This was used by miners who lived across the river from the mines.

Just like a Bryce Canyon NP there are hoodoos except that the colors tend to be the muted browns and cream of the surrounding countryside. We take a walk among the hoodoos.

Then we drive along to the Atlas Coal Mine which is now a state historic site. It has a wooden tipple (coal sorter) and for $10 each we could go have a closer look but we decided we’ve seen enough coal mines during previous trips (which is why we know what a tipple is).

 

On the way back toward Drumheller we stop at the almost Ghost Town, Wayne. The only things in the town supposedly inhabited are the Rosedeer Hotel land the Last Chance Saloon. We walk through the saloon and the lobby of the hotel but find no ghosts so we continue on our way in search of lunch back in town.

We understand that Tim Horton’s is the iconic lunch place in Canada. We’ve seen them everywhere. Much like poutine we have managed to avoid it so far but, seriously, it cannot be as bad as poutine (sounds). We thought it would be sort of like Denny’s but it is not. It is more like McDonald’s without hamburgers and fries. You order at a counter and pick up your food. I have a BLT on a untoasted French roll. John had a cold cut sandwich. The sandwiches are accompanied by soggy potato wedges. We won’t be going back.

 

After lunch it is our plan to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. It seems half of Canada has the same plan so we decide to do the second half of our audio tour and come back later. This is the Dinosaur Loop but there was nothing about dinosaurs in the tour. First we went to Horsethief Canyon where, guess what, horse thieves used to hide their stolen horses, rebrand them, and then try to sell them. It is an overlook. We take some pictures.\

Then we take a ferry (which the narrator keeps calling a fairy, annoyingly) that holds thirteen cars across the Red Deer River. The ferry is pulled across by a cable. It is named the Bleriot Ferry. The guy who it is named after is the brother of the more famous Bleriot who was the first person to fly solo across the English Channel. John remarked that he was wondering if they were related. I was more, “Bleriot, who?”

Our last stop is at the Orkney Viewpoint which is quite scenic and overlooks the canyon with the prairie stretching out beyond it.

We take another shot at the Tyrell Museum but there are no parking spaces. We give up and head back to the hotel where we watch some tennis and eat some dinner. Tomorrow we head to Banff. I am looking forward to terrain!

 

No post yesterday because we did nothing post worthy. We drove to Calgary and then watched tennis for the rest of the day. We needed a little vacation from our vacation. But here we are in Calgary and it is time to get going!

Two nights ago we were talking with our server in Lethbridge and she was originally from Calgary.  She loves Calgary so much that she has an outline of the skyline of Calgary tattooed on the inside of her arm. That’s is true love.

Today we go to Calgary’s Heritage Park HIstorical Village where we can experience yesterday today.

One of the first things we see is another moose! Jonathan has a picture of an actual moose that he met on a trail. But now we have two faux moose and John pictures.

There are a lot of turn of the 20th century buildings here. Also a train and a paddle steamer. We plan on looking at some of the buildings, taking a train ride, and a boat ride, and watching a woodworking demonstration. First up the boat ride.

A little while later after viewing the many train engines and cars that they have in their museum we board the train for two circuits around the park.

After walking around for more than three hours in the heat we decide to call it a day. We cannot wait to get back and take showers. For dinner we decide to just go down to the restaurant here and watch the tennis matches while we have dinner.

Busy day today that ended up with a trip to the local ballpark. Everything in Great Falls revolves around the Falls and the Lewis and Clark Expedition so today we went for a look at the greatest of the five Falls which were almost the stumbling block of the expedition. Unfortunately the dams on the Missouri have really changed their appearance. Good for many reasons but sad nonetheless.

Some work is being done at the top of the Ryan dam at Great Falls and the entire flow is coming out of one pipe.

Getting to this point to see the Ryan dam is an adventure. It is about nine miles from Great Falls down a little road through fields of shorn wheat. We wind down the canyon of the river and park. We are the only people here. The best sight for the dam is across a foot bridge to an island.  I am game until part way across the bridge starts to sway. John assures me that all is well and we continue across- not my favorite thing to do.

Next stop, the Giant Springs State Park where we will see the fish hatchery, the world’s shortest river and the giant springs.

The fish hatchery is breeding trout. We see an exhibition all about breeding and transporting the fish and some 6 week old rainbow trout.

Outside there is a viewing pond with adult trout. You can feed them for a nickel which the fish really like. They hang around wherever there are people looking for a free lunch.

Finally we look at the smallest river. It is about 800 yards long and has all the attributes of a river, a source, a current, a mouth etc. The source of the river are the springs which begin in the Belt Mountains about 50 miles away  and travel underground until it finds some cracks in the limestone and burbles up next to the Missouri River at the rate of 150,000,000 gallons a day and then flows into the Missouri.

Finally we return to the Clark and Lewis Interpretive Center and work our way through the exhibits of their entire journey. Really interesting!

After a lunch which involved a lot of standing in line for a salad in an aluminum foil container at Cafe Rio, we spend the rest of the afternoon doing laundry before heading out to the baseball game between the Great Falls Voyagers and the Ogden Raptors.

The baseball game is between two teams in the Rookie, short season category. The Voyagers are a White Sox farm team and the Raptors, the Dodgers. At first it seems sparsely attended.

The game has lots of errors, especially wild pitches. We leave after the 6th inning with the Voyagers ahead 15 to 7. Eventually they won 15 to 10. It was not a pitcher’s duel but quite fun and good beer!