My OperaThe World’s Largest Purple Spoon (maybe)
Sunday, June 25, 2006 5:18:26 AM
From: Glacier
To: Cusick, WA
Miles: 405
MPG: 52.0
Leaving Glacier we went the long way around the park and across the rest of Montana on small, secondary roads (that still have a 70 MPH speed limit – God bless Montana).
Passing through one small town, Jessica suddenly said “Hey! There’s a huge purple spoon on the side of the road!” Quick u-turn, and sure enough, there it was.
We went into the shop, which sells hand-carved wooden spoons, and asked Charlie, the gregarious proprietor with a slow cowboy drawl, what the deal was with the big purple spoon: “Well,” he said, “my wife told me one day that we needed a 14 foot purple spoon in our front yard, and so…” One long winter later, there it was.
From there, we rolled across the lowest point in the continental divide, then on to Idaho.
We stopped at the first town that advertised tourist information, and lo and behold, the Clydesdales were visiting town on their 2006 North American Tour!
While the horses were not too impressed with the flamingo, the Sheriff escorting them through town thought it was pretty cool.
So did the Anheuser–Busch Pooper-Scooper Brigade.
The little town also had a bordello museum. Pretty hip for a small Idaho town.
Last stop of our Idaho adventures was for a wine tasting. Yes, we swore we wouldn’t do it again, but we just had to stop. Surprisingly it was not that bad – far exceeding Indiana, Nebraska, Wyoming or Montana.
Crossing into Washington, we set off in search of Jon’s HBS classmate Dustin, who is bicycling across the country with a couple friends. We were not terrible optimistic of finding him on the road, but the next thing we knew there he was, pedaling down a lonely road in a very redneck part of Washington (a looooong way from Seattle). Honking and waving out the window, we nearly caused an accident as Dustin slammed on his breaks, saying “Hey, I know those guys!”
Much to Jessica’s delight, we ended up (by default) camping for a fourth night in a row. This led to a new rule according to Jessica: If you are in a place where it is “normal” to camp (national park and, uh, yeah, that’s it), fine. If, however, you are in a place where it is not only not “normal” to camp (i.e. the fairgrounds in a hillbilly town in the middle of nowhere), camping is not acceptable. It may have been the walk through the stables to get to the bathroom that put her over the edge.
(Though even she admitted that meeting up with Dustin and his friends made the fourth night of camping well worth it.)
To: Cusick, WA
Miles: 405
MPG: 52.0
Leaving Glacier we went the long way around the park and across the rest of Montana on small, secondary roads (that still have a 70 MPH speed limit – God bless Montana).
Passing through one small town, Jessica suddenly said “Hey! There’s a huge purple spoon on the side of the road!” Quick u-turn, and sure enough, there it was.
We went into the shop, which sells hand-carved wooden spoons, and asked Charlie, the gregarious proprietor with a slow cowboy drawl, what the deal was with the big purple spoon: “Well,” he said, “my wife told me one day that we needed a 14 foot purple spoon in our front yard, and so…” One long winter later, there it was.
From there, we rolled across the lowest point in the continental divide, then on to Idaho.
We stopped at the first town that advertised tourist information, and lo and behold, the Clydesdales were visiting town on their 2006 North American Tour!
While the horses were not too impressed with the flamingo, the Sheriff escorting them through town thought it was pretty cool.
So did the Anheuser–Busch Pooper-Scooper Brigade.
The little town also had a bordello museum. Pretty hip for a small Idaho town.
Last stop of our Idaho adventures was for a wine tasting. Yes, we swore we wouldn’t do it again, but we just had to stop. Surprisingly it was not that bad – far exceeding Indiana, Nebraska, Wyoming or Montana.
Crossing into Washington, we set off in search of Jon’s HBS classmate Dustin, who is bicycling across the country with a couple friends. We were not terrible optimistic of finding him on the road, but the next thing we knew there he was, pedaling down a lonely road in a very redneck part of Washington (a looooong way from Seattle). Honking and waving out the window, we nearly caused an accident as Dustin slammed on his breaks, saying “Hey, I know those guys!”
Much to Jessica’s delight, we ended up (by default) camping for a fourth night in a row. This led to a new rule according to Jessica: If you are in a place where it is “normal” to camp (national park and, uh, yeah, that’s it), fine. If, however, you are in a place where it is not only not “normal” to camp (i.e. the fairgrounds in a hillbilly town in the middle of nowhere), camping is not acceptable. It may have been the walk through the stables to get to the bathroom that put her over the edge.
(Though even she admitted that meeting up with Dustin and his friends made the fourth night of camping well worth it.)
