Day 3 (2014) - Livin' On The Edge

The point of today was to cross off a couple of states from the Have Not Visited list - Wyoming and Montana.  Before we left on the trip, I had looked at a map and noticed that we were going to be on the western side of South Dakota, not far from both Wyoming and Montana.  Who knew when we would be back in this area again, so it seemed like a good time to visit both states, even briefly.  I tried to find something to do or someplace to eat in both states, and came up with a plan.  In Wyoming we would visit Devil's Tower National Monument, the country's very first official national park, and in Montana we would grab lunch at the Stoneville Saloon.  The whole trip, including the return to Rapid City should have taken about 4 hours of driving.

Since we passed on driving through Custer State Park the night before, we decided to take a little more of a scenic route to Devil's Tower, and drive through the Black Hills National Forest.  After utterly confusing our GPS lady for about 20 minutes, we entered the Black Hills National Forest, and we were mildly surprised to see many homes along the road.  We kind of assumed that a national forest would be mostly, if not totally, filled with trees and mountains.  It seems a little odd that they would have had to cut down trees in a national forest to build homes, but that's evidently just what happened.

To be honest, the ride through the forest, while scenic, wasn't really all that impressive.  At one point we had the option to catch up with a highway or make the trip continue on the scenic route, and despite our disappointment with the forest so far, we opted for the scenic route.  Good choice.  This part of the trip made the previous hour to hour and a half worth it.  There were mountains and babbling brooks - Debbie LOVED the brooks, and we got out to take a few pictures (and some of us marked our territory in the forest).

What a nice brook

Nature calls

This whole scenic route thing added quite some time to our trip, so by the time we got to Devil's Tower it was about 12:30 (we had left Rapid City around 9:30, with a short gas fill up).  Devil's Tower is a natural rock formation, the origins of which are somewhat in dispute, but if you ask our resident Earth Science expert (self-titled), he will tell you that it was due to an igneous intrusion, or something like that.  The site was quite impressive, but we really didn't have much to do there.  We weren't going to go for a hike, and we certainly weren't going to try and climb the rock (unlike some people we spotted on the rock), so after purchasing more clutter, and again marking our territory, albeit in a more conventional way, we were off.  I think we spent only slightly more time at Devil's Tower than Chevy Chase did at the Grand Canyon.  But hey, we were in Wyoming.

I'm thinking Close Encounters of the Third Kind

You have now spent as much time looking at
Devil's Tower as we did

Now we headed to Montana and lunch at the Stoneville Saloon.  I had found this place by locating the one (and only) actual town near the Wyoming-South Dakota border, Alzada, population 29, and the there was really only one choice for lunch.  The reviews of the place made it sound like a real western saloon, with sawdust on the floor and all the ambiance of what you would expect in a saloon, but where the food was surprisingly good.  The problem we had getting there was there was only one road from the Devil's Tower area, and there was a sign that said "Road Work Ahead - Consider An Alternate Route."  Unless we were going to somehow convert The Cube into a helicopter we had no choice.  So ahead we went.

Well, the road work sign significantly understated the work being done, because at some points the road turned to gravel, and then at one point we came to a stop where a worker had a hand-held stop sign.  We waited about 10-15 minutes for a "pilot car" to come to our location, and the once the pilot car turned around we started to follow it.  It was at this point that we understood the scope of the work. Basically, the road disappeared and we would have been better off in an ATV than in The Cube. Where there was once road (I only know that because the GPS said the speed limit where we were was supposed to be 65) there was nothing but dirt.  Eventually we got through the area and were back on real roads headed to Montana.

Alzada is really close to the Montana border, so shortly after we entered the state we took a quick left and the Stoneville Saloon came into sight.  It looked just like it did in pictures, and we parked and walked in.

Looks like any movie saloon you have ever seen

The first sign of trouble was the owner/cook behind the counter (who was adorned with a series of leopard spot looking tattoos along her arms and tattooed rings around her eyes) talking to a local cowboy while puffing on a cigarette.   

Since we were afraid to take a "live" photo of her,
here is the owner from a Google Image search.   This was
clearly from her younger, glamorous days.

There was no real "welcome to my restaurant" or even a simple greeting to acknowledge our presence - we were the only ones there besides the cowboy, who left shortly after we arrived - so we grabbed a booth by the door (easier to make an escape in case Josie Wales showed up and a gunfight erupted), and Miss Congeniality came over with our menus and asked if we wanted drinks.  We fell further on her bad side when we all opted for water. The look of disgust at that point should have had us headed for the door, but we were all really hungry. She returned with 5 waters, in red plastic cups, and asked if we were ready to order.

Fine dining

Most of us ordered hamburgers with tater tots (this part of the country is very big on tater tots). But then Debbie really made the lady mad when she ordered a cup of chili.  The owner's reply was "Just a CUP? You want something ELSE with that?  Maybe grilled cheese?"  In an effort to survive, Debbie decided to add sweet potato tater tots to her order (glad Debbie didn't order a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which for some reason was priced at $19.95 on the menu, versus about $3.95 for a burger).  Not sure that really placated our cheerful host.

Tater tots may have saved our lives

After about 10 minutes of cooking, Miss Happy Pants came back with our meals, again without a word uttered.  The food was actually pretty good, but we pretty much ate in silence, so as not to say or do anything that might further anger our gracious host.  I walked around and took some pictures, went to the uniquely decorated bathroom, picked up a shot glass for Brian's collection (likely a used one for all we know), and asked for the check.

Can't believe they copied our decorating!

Now what am I supposed to do with my chew??

Place your orders soon before they sell out

When she brought the check I informed her that we wanted to purchase the shot glass, and she nearly ripped the check back in disgust and added the $4 to the bill.  Still, I am glad I mentioned the shot glass because who knows what would have happened had we inadvertently walked out with the shot glass without paying for it. She returned with the updated check and I paid the bill and we hightailed it out of there and took some quick photos out front.

Stay classy, Alzada

Our rednecks

We got back into the car, and then Debbie uttered the line that her kids may never forget (or let her forget). I believe it went something like this "I like living on the edge, but that place creeped me out."  Well, the kids, especially the boys, erupted in laughter at the idea that Debbie "lives on the edge."  As Brian pointed out, maybe 78 times over the next 30 minutes, if the world was a big square, Debbie would live very close to the epicenter, with the edges barely in view. What Debbie meant, I believe, was that she likes to experience new places and things, which in fairness she does, as our trips have proven (the initial reaction to the pod up the St. Louis Arch notwithstanding).  All of this made for a very humorous ride back to South Dakota.

Our flight was at 6:30, and the GPS said we would get to the airport at 4:30.  The airport in Rapid City makes the airport in Portland look like JFK, so we knew we didn't need to be there 2 hours in advance. So, what to do?  Of course - MORE PIE!  We adjusted the GPS destination and headed to the Colonial House Restaurant where we were quickly seated and all ordered pie, Debbie this time also.  The kids all repeated their pies from the first night, while Debbie went for the chocolate cream pie and I chose the pie that had 4 different berries, which they called the Oregon Berry Pie.  Here are the description of the berries in the Oregon Berry Pie - blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and Marion berries.  I had obviously heard of the first three berries, but had no idea why a crack smoking, convicted felon, ex-Mayor of Washington, DC would have a berry named after him.  Regardless, the pies came and were all delicious and were gone in about 5 minutes.

If Marion Barry had stuck with pies containing
Marion berries he might still be the mayor of DC

We then left the restaurant and headed to the airport. We arrived at the airport a little after 5:00, and I dropped the rest of the family off while I went to return the rental car.  Normally, this is a long exercise, which is why I drop them off first to check in.  This time, I basically drove to the other side of the building, parked the car, dropped off the keys and met them inside the lobby.  We checked our one bag that needed to be checked and headed upstairs to go through security.  However, since there were all of 3 flights leaving Rapid City that night, and ours was first about an hour away, security was closed.  We hung out in the bar/restaurant area until they opened and went through.  The bad news was that I had forgotten that I put the large sunscreen bottle in Amanda's backpack, which I use during the days, so that bag got flagged and we had to toss the sunscreen.

We headed to the gate and waited for our plane to arrive.  It came in on time and we boarded the 13 row plane (same type of plane we took from Salt Lake City to Rapid City), gate checked the rest of our bags and took off for Minneapolis.  The flight was uneventful and only took an hour or so, but once we landed it took forever for us to get to the car rental.  First we had to walk a long way to the central area, then we had to take a tram to the baggage claim area, then once we picked up our bag we had another schlep to get to the rental car area.  We picked up our car from Hertz (a normal looking Dodge Caravan) and headed to the hotel.  This time I had booked an Embassy Suites, so it was like moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a 5-bedroom house.  The room seemed huge, and now everyone would be able to sleep in peace (although the double bed for Debbie and me is a little tight, but we will survive).

Everyone was hungry, so we started looking for places to eat.  When we parked the car at the hotel we noticed a restaurant next door, and when we asked about it at the front desk he said it was an American food/BBQ type place, so we opted for convenience and walked next door after dropping off our luggage.  Turns out the place was called Cowboy Jack's Saloon.  While it was the second saloon we ate at on this day, Brian's comment pretty much summarized the differences between the two saloons - "It's nice to eat at a restaurant where you aren't afraid of getting killed."

Quite an improvement from saloon #1

The food menu was extensive, and everyone found something they liked, and we enjoyed our meal in comfort with a very nice and friendly waitress, again a big difference from the lunch saloon.  The "living on the edge" jokes continued to the point where they started to get old (at least to Debbie and me, not the boys) and we also enjoyed the TVs and live music at the restaurant.  By this time it was very late, so after dinner we headed back to the hotel next door to grab some rest.

Tomorrow we will check out the Mall of America and see how the rest of the day goes to see what else we will do.