Full “Steam” Ahead

Full “Steam” Ahead

So…..since the last time we had our blog active, we no longer have a working pc. Discovering that Blogger does not cooperate nicely with ipads has been a frustrating experience this week. Needless to say, we are migrating the blog to WordPress. We are not sure what we will do with the old posts, but for now, here is a link to the prior blog. Please “bear” with us as we learn the ins and outs of this new site.
www.wanderingholyokes.blogspot.com
We promised ourselves that if we came to Glacier again this summer, that we must seek out new experiences and try for at least one new experience each week. Our first week back has been a nice mix of old and new.

The KOA has a mix of familiar faces and new friends to make. It has been awesome to catch up with old friends, and we are enjoying getting to know our new coworkers. Glen has plans for a group cookout soon and is excited to start that tradition with a new group of workampers. We still think of Dan’s cornbread, Dave and Kathy stocking our camper with chocolate chips for cobblers, Perry’s ribs, sharing homemade Sangria and the shrimp boil with Kim, Lisa, Zoe, and James…. fun times. Our mouths are watering wondering what good things will come this summer. Whatever it is we are sure it will be shared with laughter and good times.

Our first work week is complete, and we have not caused irreparable harm to the place yet. In the spirit of trying new things, both of us were forced to learn some new skills this week. One of the work assignments here is “coffee bar”. Terry had never done this before, and Glen had only done it a few times, but we were both asked to try it this week. This is a combination position of store clerk, ice-cream scooper, and coffee barista. This is a full espresso bar. So we have learned to make lattes, cappucino, americanos, cold brew iced coffee, mochas, blah, blah, blah. OMG. People are weirdly particular about coffee. And steaming milk is tricky. Be nice to your coffee makers. First we have to grind the beans, then tamp them into the scoop, place it on the machine with cups to collect the espresso shots. Make that, steam the milk, put in flavor shots, separately pour milk or foam, play with whipped cream and chocolate sauce….
Terry did try to explode the machine and ended up looking like a little kid that fell in a mud puddle. Coffee came shooting out of the espresso machine when there was a missing filter incident. It is a good thing she wore a tank top beneath the work shirt! Clothing needed to be removed and washed. Cupboards needed to be scrubbed. And the embarrassment was fun, too. Of course there was a line of people witnessing the fun. Good thing teachers know how to fake calmness and smile through most anything! The good news is two people came back later saying that she made great cappucino!
One small inconvenience that comes with living in paradise for the summer is the distance to a grocery store. We choose to turn that into a daylong excursion. We travel over the Going to the Sun Road to the west side of the park, and then a few more miles to get to a decent grocery. We usually add in a small hike, or a trip to some stores, or something to make it a play day, but we take the cooler and fill it with ice to transport our groceries back across the mountains. So, check out the scenery we get on a grocery trip.

Last time we were here, we discovered a cute organic grocery store in the ski town called Whitefish. We neglected to remember that it was closed on Sundays. Next time we will not plan our grocery trip for a Sunday. However, we did see online that there was supposed to be a disc golf course in Whitefish as well. Glen likes to play and just happened to leave his discs in the car for the journey to Montana. We decided to try to find this place.
Actually there are two disc golf courses in Whitefish, or at least there are supposed to be two. Terry tried to find driving directions from downtown Whitefish to the Smith Lake course, and the projected driving time fluctuated from 30 minutes to 5 hours. That’s Montana for you; we decided to leave that adventure for another day. The second place was called Buffalo Bob’s Disc Golf. Well, it showed up as a place to play disc golf online, but the driving directions gave the name as Buffalo Bob’s Pizza. It seemed like it was pretty close, so we decided to give it a try.
A few miles out of Whitefish, as we were dutifully obeying Montana’s 70 mile an hour speed limit Terry’s eyes were drawn to a KOA sign that flashed by. At the bottom of the sign was a welcome to Buffalo Bob’s Pizza — remember us mentioning that a few lines ago? We pulled a u turn and headed down the drive. It would take too long to completely explain how we eventually ended up on the course, but the 1 mile drive on the road included two free range llamas(or alpacas, we can never tell the difference), a little kid on a big wheel who had a death wish, a petting zoo with miniature ponies, a grumpy donkey, and a trail to the first tee that had the theme song from the movie Deliverance running through our minds Look at the pictures and tell us we’re lying.

The course was free to play, and it certainly was worth the price of admission. On the plus side, the baskets were absolutely beyond description, Terry got to throw a few discs, and we made it back alive and unharmed. In fact, the whole experience had a very “steampunk ” feel to it, from the disheveled nature of the course to the various repurposed items that made up the baskets, the benches, and the wayposts that were located around the course. It felt like a scene out of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower; we were in a place that had “moved on”.

The ride home included our first mountain goat sighting of the summer.

Today was a wildflower hike to test out our bodies before embarking on any crazy long hikes. We went 5.2 miles with a lunch at a gorgeous waterfall halfway. A beautiful deer decided to greet us on the trail. We did see one bear today, but while we were driving out; not while hiking (and we do not have photographic evidence). So our important wildlife count (we do not count squirrels and the like) is one mountain goat, one bear, one deer, one eagle.