Thursday, September 29, 2016

Change of Scenery



Aug. 16-19

We left Merrillville, Indiana, a little before 11. I took a couple of wrong turns; we stopped for lunch; we waded through some road construction backups.

A trip that would have taken three hours, if we pushed it, took a little more than four. Not bad, because we aren’t in a hurry. 

We crossed into the Eastern Time Zone somewhere in Indiana, so the clock said four when we checked in at the hotel.

We stopped just off the Ohio Turnpike in a town called Holiday City. I think they called it that because the city took a holiday and everybody is somewhere else.

A look at the Google Maps satellite image shows a few houses, but there are far more rooms for transients like us than for people who live here.

It has the look of one of those places that came into existence because there is an exit from a major highway. A child of our Interstate Highway System.

We stayed at Holiday Inn. There are two or three other hotels, a convenience store, a couple of gas stations, a restaurant called Wynn’s, which bills itself as a go-to restaurant and bar for locals as well as a stop for travelers. A few things—convenience store, storage depot, pizza shop—are all named for somebody called Hutch. 

I like to brag that I make a great meat sauce, but would you really want to buy a pizza from somebody named Hutch? Well, maybe happy pizza in Cambodia, but a guy named Herb seems to have that market sewn up.

From what I can can tell, the town has a few other businesses, 20/20 Custom Molded Plastics, Chase Brass and Copper Co., and Adesa, which organizes automobile auctions.

And that’s about it, all by itself on the plains of Ohio.

I gather that it’s part of Jefferson Township, which doesn’t help much in finding the place. According to Wikipedia there are 26 Jefferson Townships in Ohio. Just remember it’s Exit 13 off the Ohio Turnpike.

Wednesday, the 17th, we were in western Pennsylvania, at another Holiday Inn. This one has a happy hour when drinks are a quarter. On Wednesday, they set out a buffet of hamburgers, so we had dinner there.

I had a couple of Goose Island IPAs for a quarter each. It was great fun.



The real surprise, though, came on Thursday. We drove across the Pennsylvania Wilds, the large reforested area full of game lands and state parks, to a place called Comfort Suites in Bloomsburg, Pa. I wasn’t familiar with Comfort Suites and hoped it would be better than Super 8.

It was.

I did, in fact, have a suite, which looked very much like the one at Holiday Inn—almost identical layout. 



Bloomsburg itself is a charming college town, home to Bloomsburg University. It has brew pubs, a historic district, and looks reasonably prosperous.

It has a soldiers and sailors monument for the Civil War, as many old Pennsylvania towns do. There is also a large fountain, perhaps made of bronze, with what appears to be a pelican on top.



We arrived early, so we made a short tour of the town while the hotel got our room ready for us. 

I had done a search and learned about Turkey Hill Brewing Co., a brew pub in the Turkey Hill Inn.

We found it and decided to go back there for dinner.

The menu is short, but offers more than the West End Ale Haus on Main Street.

Joanna had a modified pad Thai, minus the chiles. I had a seafood stew made with shrimp, clams, crab, and andouille.

I tried several small glasses of the house brews. My favorites among them were Revelation pale ale, which was close to an IPA, and A Midsummer Night’s saison. 

The saison is made with some honey. I was skeptical, but found it surprisingly tasty. 

It was a quick trip to Joanna’s house from Bloomsburg. We could have made it in little more than two hours, but decided to take a little detour at Delaware Water Gap, Pa., to visit an overlook for a different view of the Gap itself. 



The trees have grown here and much has changed since I was a boy. Many of the rock cliffs are covered in foliage.

We used to see the profile of an Indian chief in the rocks. He’s probably still there, but under the cover of the trees.

We stopped at a welcome center so we could be properly welcomed back to New Jersey. We also picked up updated road maps. The one I had in the car was four or six years old.

My record for using outdated maps was set in 2009. I went through Maryland and Pennsylvania guided by vintage Esso maps.

The mileage on the car was a little more than 1,000 when we left on July 1. It has more than 8,600 miles on the odometer now.
It’s funny. I stepped out of the car to help Joanna take her luggage into the house. It felt as if we had been away only for a long weekend.

I’ve booked myself into La Quinta in Fairfield, N.J., for two straight weeks. I have a few days in September to kill before I leave for London on the 10th. 

I haven’t decided what to do with that time. I could drive to Atlanta, or go to the New York hostel for a few days. 

I expect that after two weeks in the same place, I’ll be ready for a change. But who knows?

Be well, all, and enjoy the scenery. It changes.

Harry







Limburger With Mayo



August 13-15

We’re on our way home, stopping for one night each in several places along the way.

I had to stop at a hospital in Sioux Falls for a routine blood test, and while we were sitting in the waiting room, Joanna picked up a brochure about flax seed. 

It said Charlemagne recognized the nutruitional value of flax seed and encouraged his subjects to plant it. Wow. We’re way out here in cowboy country and up pops a reference to Charlemagne. I almost feel like I’m in Amsterdam again. 

Saturday the 13th took us from Sioux Falls to Rochester, Minn. It’s a fair size town for this region and is full of motels. It looks, indeed, like a tourist center.

But the real draw is medicine. The main industry in Rochester is the Mayo Clinic. One of the people at the motel told Joanna that the clinic can draw as many as a million people to the town every year.

We had dinner at Twigs Tavern and Grille. I had butternut ravioli in a cream sauce and a glass of pinot grigio. Joanna had spaghetti with pork and marinara sauce. It came covered with melted mozzarella. 

It was too much cheese for her taste, so she gave me most of it, along with some of the pasta and pork.

My ravioli was actually sweet. But it was also very good. Certainly I was in need of a change. 

That goes for the wine too, I guess. I enjoyed it. I rarely ask for white wine unless it’s from the Rhone Valley or something to go with turkey,  but it was just right with this strange pasta dish.

We went for a walk, past a serious junk shop selling antiques, at least one of which it deemed a “museum piece.”  From which museum it didn’t say.

There were stores selling overpriced clothing, and one full of Halloween stuff, including a framed picture of a skeleton labeled “Eat, Drink, and Be Scary.”

After a few blocks we came back to a corner where I could get in touch with my roots again.

This was a brew pub called Grand Rounds, on the corner of South Broadway and Third Street Southwest. 

There are four Third Streets in Rochester. Four firsts, seconds, and so forth, one for each of four points of the compass—northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest. 

Ground Rounds had a trio of its own brews, including a lager and a wheat. It also had something the bartender called a sour. 

I was impressed until I tried it, not even a true ale, but a wheat and lager combo of some kind. They add a little lemon to it to give it the sour edge. 

Real sours use wild yeast. They are ancient brews. Drinking a good one is exciting—like standing on a spot where Charlemagne had somebody’s head cut off or something.

I had an IPA made by another brewery and that was all right. The hops tasted like pine needles, as they often do, and there was some fragrance.

8/14

Sunday we moved on to Monroe, Wis. 

We recrossed the Mississippi River on Interstate 90. The highway is still under construction and it has changed in five weeks. So we didn’t get to the welcome center on the Minnesota bank.



The corresponding center in Wisconsin may have been bulldozed away. At least, all I saw as we passed the site was bulldozer and lots of exposed dirt.

There are lots of serious hills around there, by the way. More than I expected in Wisconsin.

Not having a rest stop to enjoy, we turned off the interstate at La Crosse for gas and a rest. But serendipity intervened. A sign pointed us toward the Guadalupe Shrine, and we had to follow it.

We found the shrine on the outskirts of La Crosse. It consists of several buildings. One, where you start, is the Pilgrim Center. You climb a winding paved path and next come to a votive chapel. The church that is the shrine itself is farther up the hill. We lit some candles and said some prayers. 



Monuments along the trail from the pilgrim center to the church include a statue representing Kateri Tekakwitha, or Lily of the Mohawks, the first native American saint. There is also a bas relief of the Holy Family that includes portraits of the donors with the bishop, a tradition that goes back at least to the Renaissance in Florence and Rome.



Although I had eaten reasonably hearty breakfast, I was so hungry that we had lunch at the cafe attached to the shrine. 

There was herb-crusted chicken that reminded Joanna of Shake’N Bake, tender roast pork, cheesy mashed potatoes (she took some without cheese), and mixed vegetables, which were the hit of the day for Joanna. She took seconds of those. 

During lunch, Joanna realized that we were visiting the shrine on August 14, the day before the Feast of the Assumption. 

We drove another 150 miles on I-90 and U.S. 18 in Madison to get to the state highway that took us to Monroe.

Wisconsin 69 took us through New Glarus, Wis., which bills itself as “America’s Little Switzerland” and “Home of the Spotted Cow.” (No, really. I didn’t make that up.)

Most of the building fronts—the Anchor Bank branch, the Chalet Landhaus Inn, the CPA’s office, the supermarket, the Storage Haus, and the bowling alley—are dressed with window boxes and dark wood gables. The town even has a chiropraktiker.

It also has a brewery. I tried its Moon Man session ale, which they call a No Coast pale ale. Light flavor, like a lot of sessions, but very fragrant.

A little farther, we came to Monticello, where we stopped to read a historical marker. Nickolaus Gerber, who learned cheese-making in his native Switzerland, in 1868 established Green County’s first Limburger cheese factory.

We got to the AmericInn in Monroe and found a bar right across the street. Wow. I can walk there. I don’t have to count beers. And maybe even be able to walk back.

No such luck. It was closed. We went to a Piggly Wiggly where we found some Wisconsin Cheddar (no Limburger, please) and a six pack of Moon Man. With that and a box of crackers later, I was set. Joanna bought a peach for good measure.

Monday we entered Illinois on the way to Merrillville, Indiana. It may have been a bit of luck that we stopped at the Illinois Welcome Center on I-90.

We asked for a roadmap. The lady asked where we were going. 

She warned us not to take the I-90/290 route through the Chicago area. Construction, she said, had made some of the intersections risky.

She showed us an alternative route to Merrillville. 

Traffic and tolls are heavy around Chicago. We spent long periods creeping through construction zones. 

We left Monroe, Wis., around 10 and got to the hotel in Merrillville around 2:30.

The trip is supposed to take less than three hours. But that’s all right. 

For some reason, while I was driving, I developed a craving for shrimp cooked in butter. 

And damn, what do I see when I get to La Quinta? A Red Lobster practically next door to us. I’m all set again—provided, that is, that it’s still open.

Be well, all.

Harry




Wednesday, September 28, 2016

In the Pink





August 10-12

We’ve been riding the pink highways of South Dakota for the past few days. 


From Keystone, we passed through the Black Hills and onto the Prairie to Pierre, which turned out to be a very tame place. 

The main attraction is its connection to Lewis and Clark. 

We stopped at Wall Drug on the way for some pie. Well, that’s what I had. I saw cherry pie looking very red and disgusting. I used to love it as a kid, but probably haven’t touched it in decades. 

So I had a piece of cherry pie and several of Wall’s nickel cups of coffee.



You leave I-90 at Wall and take U.S. 14 across the endless Prairie to Pierre. We crossed the Missouri River and right at the end of the bridge was our hotel.

The hotel is part of a convention center complex and had both restaurant and bar. Wow. My kind of place.

I forget what I had to eat on Wednesday night, but I remember the disappointment of the beer. I think they had four taps, including a wheat, Bud Lite, and another mainstream commercial beer. All that I could find palatable was the IPA from Goose Island, which is very good and comes out of Chicago.

The bar didn’t stock a single local or regional brew, not even in the bottle.

It has been much to my surprise to discover that this Bible-thumping part of the country is a powerhouse of great beer. And here’s a bar that didn’t have so much as one local product.

That night there was a wonderful thunder storm, so we opened the curtains to watch the lightning.

Next morning we walked across the parking lot to a park on the river. Part of the way is a gravel path. The stones are pink, like the surfaces of the highways here,

A black paved footpath runs above the bank and we learned that it is a 26-mile stretch called the Lewis and Clark Trail. 

The Corps of Discovery came through here in 1804. It was across the river from here, about two miles south at a place that is also a park, that the expedition had a tense confrontation with the Sioux.

The explorers and the Indians tried to have a meeting, but of course, couldn’t really communicate. Neither side had an interpreter.

Lewis and Clark took some of the chiefs for a cruise in one of the pirogues. When they put in to shore, several Sioux grabbed the boat and refused to let go. 

Apparently, they were on the brink of open war before one of the chiefs intervened to calm things down.

That was the first contact of the U.S. government and the Sioux.

According to some sources, the Sioux were apprehensive about the expedition’s purpose. What gave them that idea? After all, Lewis and Clark were merely mapping the territory so the U.S. could take it over.

We walked about a hundred yards on the trail to get into the spirit of exploration.

The site of the meeting with the Sioux is at Fischers Lilly Park in Fort Pierre, on the west bank of the river across from Pierre. We went there later in the day.

A smaller stream, known as Bad River, flows into the Missouri there. Water from the Bad is muddy brown, and you can see where it meets the blue of the Missouri. 



Later in the day we went up to the Capitol District. A neighboring park has a monument to service men and women called the Flaming Fountain. 

The water, I read, contains enough methane that you can light it. 

I had seen something like that in a tawdry display near Niagara Falls when I was a young boy. Burning water. Fascinating.

For whatever reason, the flame was out when we got there.

We had dinner at a restaurant in the hotel next to ours. The restaurant has the rather redundant name Redrossa.

It had a long wine list, but only one Italian wine, a Barolo for about $70 a bottle. 

I had a few glasses of house wines, a merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and pinot noir. They were all right. But remember, that’s coming from a guy who never met a bottle of wine he didn’t like. 

Years ago, I wasn’t crazy about Thunderbird, but I drank it readily enough.

I polished off the night with more reds at the hotel bar.

Friday morning, the 12th, we headed for Sioux Falls. We took a route along the east bank of the Missouri River that included the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation. It was at Fort Thompson, the capital of the reservation, that we stopped for gasoline.



We had piles of clouds overhead in fantastic shapes. But because the sky is so big, we could see blue sky at the edges. 

Sometimes after a late afternoon rain, the sun comes in under the clouds at a sharp angle. You can become keenly aware of the direction the light is coming from, and the space around you feels so strange and very present.

We stopped at a rest area on I-90 and saw what looked like a toy church. It wasn’t part of the public rest area, but apparently was on private property with a welcome sign. It was behind a fence, with no lock on the gate.



It had a half dozen pews, each able to hold two or three people and a spare altar with a New International translation of the Bible and a few inspirational tracts. 

A rack in the back included some red, white, and blue cards telling us to “Vote for Jesus Christ.”

We got back to Sioux Falls in the afternoon and found the Dakotah Lodge again, with only a small error. I turned at the wrong intersection, but Joanna saw the sign for the hotel.

We found our way later to the Falls Park. This is a broad waterfall of the Big Sioux River, and it gives the town its name.

The river breaks up and flows through several passes of rock. The rocks are all pink.



Pink rocks also protrude from the ground all over the lawn of the park. Maybe most of the rocks in South Dakota are pink. 

Anyhow, there are enough pink rocks in that state to make most of its highways pink. 



We got a few snapshots of the falls and then headed back to the car just in time. Yet another thunderstorm cut loose. We sat in the car and listened to the rain.

Then I drove downtown to find beer. I was actually able to find the area where we ate dinner last time, more than a month ago. I felt almost competent.

This time, we skipped JL Beers and went to the Mackenzie River Pub (which I later learned is a chain stretching from Ohio to Washington). We had bison burgers. We both figured that we’re almost out of bison country, so we’ll enjoy it while we can.

I had something called smoked red ale, made by West O Beer in West Okoboji, Iowa. I didn’t know they would even drink beer in Iowa, let alone brew it. 

I love red ales. I have had them heavily hopped and as sours. The smoking, whatever that is, added to the flavor of this one and made it a winner too.

I also had Driftboat Amber Ale from Great Northern Brewing Co. in Whitefish, Montana. Ambers are usually like English bitters, and also good. Driftboat was no exception.

You buy beer at gas stations here. Not a great arrangement, but I managed to get a six-pack of New Belgium Ranger IPA, a damned good bitter ale made not too far from here, in Fort Collins, Colorado.

It’s getting late. We’re back in the Central Time Zone, so we are only one hour ahead of my computer’s clock instead of two.

Good night, all.

Harry





Monday, September 26, 2016

Black Hills Redux



August 8-9

We took part in an Amerindian tradition at Devil’s Tower the other day. As we approached the trail around the base of the mountain, a sign told us not to disturb the prayer bundles and prayer ribbons.

We saw several of them, some elaborate, others very simple. In the visitors center we learned that praying at the mountain can make you stronger. 

I thought it was whatever doesn’t kill you. Or maybe it’s “Whatever doesn’t kill you merely delays the inevitable.”

Anyhow, having bathed the Buddha, lit incense in various temples and said the Hail Mary in front of Kwan Yin, we tied a piece of Joanna’s bandana to the limb of a Ponderosa pine and asked the powers that be to watch over the living and the dead.



They must be watching over bikers. We see motorcycles everywhere, sometimes dozens in a column. And a lot of the riders have survived long enough to have white hair and beards.

So far we have seen only one wreck, apparently of a biker who misjudged a curve.

This is the week of the big Black Hills Motorcycle Rally, which is centered on Sturgis, S.D. 



We left Gillette on Monday morning and went to Deadwood.

Can’t come to the Black Hills and not visit where Hickok died.

Deadwood is about a dozen miles from Sturgis, and the rally was spilling over. The town was packed with bikes, bikers, and concessions selling to bikers. Sidewalks were jammed and so were the streets. 

On the way into town, we passed one of several bikini bike washes. At one of them, a young woman held a hand-drawn sign promising, “We give a great hand job.”


We had been warned by a lady at the welcome center on I-90, so we left the car in the first public lot we found. It was a hike to the action in town, but it worked out all right.



I led Joanna to the Wild Bill Saloon, “location of the original Saloon No. 10.” That’s where Jack McCall killed Hickok in August 1876, about five weeks after the Battle of the Little Bighorn and about 140 years ago this week. 

It was a tough summer for guys with long hair and moustaches. So far, though, I’m OK.



The bar didn’t serve food, so we went a few doors up the street to Oyster Bay. Joanna had fried oysters, and I ate smoked oysters, along with an Odell’s IPA, a lightly fragrant ale with plenty of sharpness.

Back at the Wild Bill, I saw that there was a $10 charge for a half-hour tour of the location where Hickok was shot. It was downstairs. Main Street was raised years ago to avoid flooding (like Seattle).

But then they fessed up. It wasn’t even the real place, not the room or table or anything that had to do with Hickok’s last hand. It was just the geo coordinates.

The No. 10 Saloon burned down in the late 1870s, along with the rest of Main Street.



So I decided to have a beer instead.

One of the taps was for a red ale. The bartender told me it was from Firehouse Brewing in Rapid City. 

The balance of malt and hops was very good. Red malt is delicious, but too much malt tends to be sweet. This was not quite Hop Head Red IPA, but bitter enough that the malt didn’t take over. I think it qualifies as beautiful.



The tab came to $4.50. Change for a twenty was a ten, a five, and a Kennedy half. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those coins in circulation. But it’s appropriate, and probably calculated, the same color and size as an old silver dollar. 

It felt good to hold. It goes well with the golden dollars in my left-hand pocket.

The barroom is packed with western memborabilia—photos of Hickok, hats like his, a glass case full of pistols. A few artifacts were damaged originals found in the area, including most of a repeating rifle found in a nearby river.



Joanna stopped at a store advertising official Sturgis Black Hills Rally clothing and bought a black T-shirt with sequins and large vents in the sides and back. Very biker.



We detoured to Sturgis after Deadwood. We crawled along the main street among bikes and tents set up for the big biker market. People were offering motor trikes, bikes, parts, mechanical and legal services, accessories, and God know what all. We couldn’t find a parking spot, so we didn’t get a close look.



But you can believe it was loud.

We got to the motel in Keystone a while after we left Sturgis. It took four tries to get a room. No, literally.

First, the desk man wanted to put us on the third floor. Do you have lift? No. 

What is this? I’m thinking. Cambodia? Who has a three-story motel and no elevator?

All I said, though, is that we can’t haul the luggage to the third floor. 

Well, I guess I could manage if I were paying about a quarter of what this Super 8 was charging.



He rebooked us for a first-floor room. When we got there, we met the people who were already in it.

The next open space was on the second floor. He told us of a ramp to that would take us to the floor, so we wouldn’t have to drag everything up the steps. The climb, as it turns out, involves only three steps.

We got to the room, and the toilet seat fell off.

After some delay, he came, took the seat, and said he’d call maintenance. I called a halt.

I don’t want to sit here for an hour or two waiting for maintenance. I want a room, and this time I want to see it before we move in.

Well, fourth time is a charm. There’s no fridge but I have beer cooling in the ice bucket.

Super 8 is one of the hit-or-miss hotels. This is one of the misses. The bed is clean, but the rug needs some work. The wifi so far has been working.

We have several eateries next to the motel, including a bar offering tastings of local wines and pints of local beer. We needed food first, but all we found was DQ, pizza, and a bake shop.

Several bikers sitting outside a barbecue store and drinking light beer told us about Grizzly Creek Restaurant, a short walk the other way. We took their advice and I’m glad we did.

There was buffalo sirloin on the menu, Joanna had a beef sirloin, and I had a few of the craft beers. 

They were out of Knuckle Head Red, so I had a Caught Looking blonde ale from Blacktooth Brewing in Sheridan, Wyoming. I had tried this one before. It is light and almost citrusy, but sharp enough to have a bite, and tastes like a distant cousin to a Pilsner, but without the strange aftertaste I get from lager beers.

There was Honey Badger Brown, an ale from Firehouse Brewing in Rapid City that was malty, like most browns, but not sweet, which is often a characteristic of browns.

Then came 11th Hour IPA from Crow Peak Brewing in Spearfish, S.D. It had good body, and the hops gave it a floral aroma and sharp bitterness.

I got up late Tuesday, the ninth, so breakfast in the lobby was pretty much gone. We walked to the mall next door and found a coffee shop with muffins and yogurt. 



We went back to Custer State Park and got a close-up view of a solitary buffalo bull. A few burros were stopping traffic about where we saw the herd before. Most of them were grazing in the distance.



Four or five had invaded the rest stop, where people fed them apples and carrots. A lady gave one burro a carrot and got to hug its neck.

Another was drooling all over an apple. He was a little shy, though, and tended to pull back when people tried to pet him.

Trees of the Custer State Park grow on the hilltops and frame large prairie meadows. Joanna saw a small pond and noted how much the landscape looks like a huge golf course. 

From the wildlife loop, we drove back to Mount Rushmore on the winding Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway.



The road was finished about 20 years ago, but was proposed much earlier by Peter Norbeck, a South Dakota Senator who died in 1936.

Among its features are single-lane tunnels. Most of them face north and frame views of the faces on Mount Rushmore.

There are also pigtail bridges, large timber bridges over ravines that lead into tight curves, so the road passes under itself. There’s something like that involving a short tunnel through the rock in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.



Aside from the fun of looking at the Mount Rushmore Monument, we went back for the food. No kidding. It is the only place we have seen so far to offer buffalo stew. 

It is delicious, a little tangier (I think that’s the best way to describe it) than beef stew. Very savory and tender.

We sat in the cafeteria, which is my favorite part of Mount Rushmore. You get to view the sculpture through huge glass windows. The room is lined with state flags and portraits of presidents. It’s fun to see how many you can identify without coaching or reading the captions.



When we got back to Keystone for a break, Joanna took a nap and I started on this message, which maybe helps explain why it is so long.

We went back to the Grizzly Creek later. I had my main meal of the day at Mount Rushmore, but no beer. Grizzly Creek was still out of Knuckle Head Red, so I had another brown, one that I had drunk before, called Moose Drool.

I think the Honey Badger is better. This one was all right, but a little sweeter.

I went back to the 11th Hour, which was as good this night as it was the night before.

I got to the Naked Wineries store next to the motel when it was open this time. I’m working on a Sick-n-Twisted imperial IPA called Hop on Top. More brewers who are Dr. Seuss fans. (You may remember that Flying Fish out of South Jersey brews two of my favorites, Hopfish and Redfish.)

OK. This is time and a half long enough. I’m going to start rhyming next. And it’s just as well that I don’t subject you to that.

So good night, all, from the Wild West.

Harry