Curtis BBQ

This place was written up in the NY Times 24 yrs ago and i have been meaning to go to Putney, VT to try it. I am a little slow but 24 yrs later, i made it. Funky place with a couple of old blue school buses, one of then selling food, the other one, ???, a wooden pagoda with picnic tables, a sand pile with kiddie toys and a volleyball court, very cool.

all they serve is chicken and ribs, the ribs were huge, everything was tasty including the collards and the cole slaw. Worth the 24 year wait.

VT Beer

Hill Farmstead Edward & Smuttynose Noonan

London Calling & TLA IPA

first trip to Burlington and two places that i needed to try was the Farmhouse for some Hill Farmstead beers and American Flatbread/Zero Gravity for pizza and beer.

Went to the Farmhouse first and all they had was Edward, an american pale ale, 5.2% beer. It was very good, worth the 5 hr drive. Also had the Smuttynose Noonan, a black IPA in honor of Greg Noonan, creator of the Vermont Pub and Brewery who died recently. Also had the Trapp Lodge Dunkel and a taste of a 1 yr old Smuttynose Wheat Wine, on of my favorite styles. It was amazing.

Off to American Flatbread where we sampled at the bar, a Gruit and a Madhava which is a 9.2% belgian pale ale brewed with honey and aged for 7 months with Brett, it was great, we also had the TLA IPA and a the London Calling, a 3.9% session english pale ale. Very tasty for  low alcohol beer. Oh yeah, the pizza and salad where great too.

accident

Mountain biking? Nah, just the results of me tripping over two crates of firewood.

I have no bruises from mountain biking except for a sore crotch.

Minnesota and Civilization

Woke up to a beautiful South Dakotan morning, dry (see previous post). Repacked the car, ate some breakfast and hit the road. We drove east with a planned stop in St. Paul, MN to see some family friends.

This should have been in yesterdays posting, not this one, this has been a lot trip (We drove thru Bighorn National Park in Wyoming which was probably one of my favorite drives of this trip. Driving thru rock outcroppings that were 250 million to pre cambrian granite 2.5 billion? years old. A lot of switchbacks, winding turns and some amazing views. The road then went thru ranches where i saw a real cowboy watching his cattle graze.) When we got thru the park South Dakota just turned flat, the entire rest of the state which brought us into Minnesota, which is just as flat and all farms until we got to outside of the Twin Cities.

My family has friends from skating in this area, so we were put up at one their homes. It was nice to be in a house, we sipped some beers, ate some brats, it is MN, nice conversation, which i nodded out a couple of times, not cause the convo was boring but because i was tired and sitting in a comfy chair. Got to sleep in a real bed. It was a very nice pitstop.

More National Parks & We Ain't Camping No More

So we leave out of Cody, WY this morning, stopping in some little eatery for breakfast with 25 cent coffee and a halfway decent breakfast. Drove across Wyoming into South Dakota to go see Mt Rushmore. Our first long, long day of driving.

We get to Mt Rushmore and we find that our Nation Park pass does not work for parking. It seems that our government owns the park but parking is a private concession. We had some of the coldest water out of a water fountain ever in the park. The monument is impressive. This couldn't be done in this day and age, the unions would make it to expensive to build. Also, in some change from coffee, i was handed a few of the new $1 coins. Never saw them before so i figured that the government was stuck with millions of dollar coins so they send them to their parks system.

We left the park and headed east to drive thru Badlands National park. We got here near dusk and for a little while saw some wildlife when we first entered but after that we saw some amazing scenery until it got to dark to see really anything. The drive at night is pretty hairy, lots of sharp turns, no guard rails and big hills too drive off of if you were going too fast or not paying attention.
We were watching an amazing lightning storm in the distance.

We left the park around 9pm and headed to a campground in Belvedere, SD because that is all we could find, got caught in that amazing lightning storm with a ton of rain for about 15 minutes. I must have been driving fast because the storm stopped but it was following us the whole way. Got to the campground around 10pm, got our late reservation pass and set up camp. We put the tent up and threw our gear in the tent to only have the skies open up on us, damm storm caught me. We sat in the car for like 25 minutes to watch our tent get blown over, only two stakes were holding it in at this point, 60 mph winds, rain and lighting. When the storm passed, we found that our tent was torn, our tent poles were shredded and our gear was wet. We tossed the tent and packed the wet stuff up in black bags. The owner of the park drove up on his golf cart to see if we were alright. Told him our story and that we were going to hop back on 90 and keep driving east until i can find a hotel. It is South Dakota if you know what i mean, i could be driving forever. We asked him if he had any cabins left, we were willing to pay but he gave us one for free for the night, which was way cool.

My little guy fell out right away and we stayed up drying pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, while sipping warm IPA's until 1AM

National Parks and I Eat Balls

Teton National Park

Old Faithful

So we leave Jackson on the way to see some national parks and go to Wyoming. The first park we hit was Teton National Park which had spectacular snow covered mountains, we walked around a little bit because we were going to Yellowstone next. We enjoyed a nice ride thru the park, amazing scenery.

Onto Yellowstone to see Old Faithful. Once again we enjoyed the drive thru these beautiful parks of ours, made it to Old Faithful 10 minutes before it blew which for me is pretty good because i am late for everything. It was pretty cool to see, then we proceeded to walk around the thermal fields near Old Faithful, there are 1,000 thermal geysers in the world and half of them are in Yellowstone. Another beautiful park, different from Teton but just as beautiful. Saw buffalo, elk, mule deer, and even a moose fr in the distance.

So once again we had no place to camp, so we drove to Cody, WY to find a place. This is a real, cowboy rodeo type of town, lots of history. The first hotel was the Grizzly Bear which was the cheap, clean and old, real Wyoming. 

We went out to dinner, late, around 10pm, we went to the Proud Cut Saloon and Steakhouse which had good food and good beer. On the menu they had Rocky Mountain Oysters, which if you don't know are Bulls Balls. Years ago, in Durango, CO, some native Coloradian tried to mess with my Bronxness by ordering me an order of bulls balls but not telling me what they were. My secret was i knew exactly what they were but i had to get up the balls to try them and show them that us Bronx dudes don't scare easily. They weren't half bad, the Proud Cut's balls were far better.

Back to the Grizzly Bear for some sleep to get ready for tomorrow

Jackson Hole, Wyoming - Snake River Brewing Company

Left Salt Lake City heading to Yellowstone National Park this morning. Took 89 up thru the the canyons and traveling thru many National National parks, very beautiful scenery, stopped at Bear Lake in Utah, went thru Idaho and wound up in Wyoming. Hit some pretty hard rain thru out the day, a 6 hour ride to Yellowstone, according to GPS was wrong. It was like 6-7 hours just to Jackson Hole Wyoming with another 1 1/2-2 hours to Yellowstone.

When we reached Jackson Hole, we changed plans and decided to grab a room instead of getting to the camp site in the dark and probably wet. Found a small hotel that didn't cost me an arm and a leg, just the leg but thats ok i have another one and, what else, found the local brewpub.

IPA and Hefeweizen

Left the car at the hotel, drinking and walking tonite, Snake River Brewing Company, right down the street from the hotel, grabbed some beer, their Pakos IPA, Hoback Hefeweizen, Black Diamond Tripel and 8.4% belgian ale and Slow Guy a belgian single. Food was good, pulled pork, brisket, buffalo chili, trout. I got them to put the White Sox on the tv because my little guy is a huge fan, they were cool and took care of us.

We walked around Jackson and i was a little disappointed, it was a cool looking western town with the town square and the antlered entrances but there were so many t shirt shops and other touristy places, in the west they have touristy cowboy boot and hat stores, i could have been at the Jersey Shore.

At one point we moseyed in to the Million Dollar Cowboy bar to grab a drink and wound up paying a cover to hear some band that was having some sound issues, too much bass. It was a cool place, a bunch of pool tables, three bars with saddles as bar stools for the cowboys in all of us. Went to the bar and ordered, no not sangria, but what else, whiskey and beers. This is a cowboy bar and you drink like a cowboy here. stayed for a bit and then headed back to sleep

Whiskey, which i already drank and local beer