Allison Cafe

Whenever I experiment with a new vegetable recipe, I always think back to dinner time as a child and being forced to eat asparagus or broccoli, and hating them. Now I love vegetables. I have learned that enjoying vegetables has a lot to do with freshness and how they are prepared. And let’s not forget variety. Trying new things can keep our taste buds interested.

Recently, my husband and I joined a local food co-operative. It is a small grocery store that offers fruits and veggies from local growers, and has an amazing variety of fresh offerings. As I strolled through the rows of vegetables, I stopped to look at the variety of squash available. I have eaten a lot of zucchini in my time; fried, sauteed, baked in muffins and cake, and so on. But I saw this unusually shaped, light orange colored squash and stopped to see what it was called. Butternut squash. I had heard the name many times before, but I had never attempted to try to cook with it. Ripe for adventure, I selected a 3 pound butternut squash and left the store ready to attempt a new recipe.

I decided that (more…)

I recently finished reading the non-fiction book, Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School At A Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book came recommended to me by my Mom and Dad, who had just finished reading it. They both gave it a glowing review and I decided to give it a read.

Every now and then you come across a book that affects you in profound ways, Three Cups of Tea is no exception. The book chronicles Greg’s experiences in Pakistan and Afghanistan while trying to spread the opportunity of education to remote, and often secluded, villages. What I found amazing was that Greg didn’t start his journey by setting a large goal of building hundreds of schools throughout the region. In fact, the need for schools in these small villages came to him by accident.

After a failed attempt to climb K2, Greg stumbles into a remote, poor village in Pakistan. What he discovers there is (more…)

Please note the new slide show format above, we had too many images to share to include them all, so we made a slide show.

Part 5: After leaving Wyoming we headed south to Utah. We stayed at our first KOA RV Park on the trip in Brigham City, Utah. KOAs (Kampgrounds Of America) are network of campgrounds around the country that offer full services for RVs and campers alike. We needed to stay here for several reasons, the most crucial being the use of laundry room. After 1 week in the RV we needed some clean clothes that did not smell like campfires. The RV lifestyle was fully apparent at the KOA, some people appear to have been there for weeks and others just passing through like us. But there was a sense of community among some of the campers, they even had a live musical performance taking place in the center of campground. It was already after 7:30pm and we didn’t feel like being social RV people at this point, so we simply squeezed into our small slot next to our neighbors, setup shop, ate dinner and called it a night. I was working from the road too, so this was a welcome opportunity to get some work done as well, without any amazing views to distract me.

Another tidbit about Brigham City is the availability of fresh peaches, corn, and other fruits and vegetables here. We stopped at a local fruit stand, and for about $5 got our fill of peaches, sweet corn, berries, tomatoes and peppers. We noticed also here a series of drive-in eateries that looked like they hadn’t changed since the 50’s, we were sorry we couldn’t stay to check them out. Just looking at them made we want a malted shake and a greasy cheeseburger! After stopping at the local Walmart for some provisions, we hit the road a few minutes before noon for Zion National Park in southern Utah.

We arrived to the north part of the park that evening around 5pm, and were surprised to find that there isn’t any camping nearby. So (more…)

Part 4: After viewing the impressive geysers at Old Faithful, we continued south through the park to the south entrance of Yellowstone and the entrance to the Grand Teton National Park. If Glacier and Yellowstone weren’t impressive enough, the Grand Teton mountain range certainly took our breath away. It is just incredible to see the impressive natural wonders that exist within our own country. The John Rockefeller Highway that takes you through this part of the park happened to be under construction while we were there. My parents had warned us that the roads were stripped down to dirt roads and 1 lane at times. Luckily we timed it well and it only set us back a half an hour or so, it wasn’t nearly as bad of a delay as it could have been.

Here again, we had some amazing views, even of the smaller wildlife such as the butterflies and the bees. And the stars, we had forgotten that there were so many, and just how exciting it can be to see shooting stars. It was truly magical. We also

experimented here with RV pizza. We had a Betty Crocker packet of just add water pizza dough, to which we added tomato sauce that was leftover from pasta we had made a previous evening, mozzarella cheese, Canadian bacon slices and pineapple chunks from a small can. It turned out great, we were thankful for our generator which allowed us to use the oven without being plugged in to shore power. This post is already getting to be a novel, so I’ll have to write a separate post about our provisioning for the trip.

The next day we continued our whirlwind tour of the park and drove south along the Teton Parkway road to Jenny Lake, a truly beautiful place. There are some great bike trails in this area, it made us think of the road bikers in our life and what a beautiful bike ride this would be. We continued south to another must see, the Chapel of the

Transfiguration. It is a small Episcopal chapel that has a picture window behind the alter, a framed view of the stunning Grand Tetons peaks. We sat in the small pews and took in the beauty and serenity of the moment, only briefly though, we had a time table to keep! Next, we drove through Jackson Hole, Wyoming and stopped to enjoy lunch here at a local restaurant and went window shopping through the downtown streets, lined with wooden sidewalks. It would have been nice to stay longer, but we were weary from travel and knew we needed to keep moving to put some miles behind us, so we kept the RV rolling down the road all the way to Brigham City, Utah.

Part 3: While the dramatic splendor of Glacier could have kept us there longer, we did have to make it back to southern California, so the road trip had to keep on pace. We left Two Medicine in the morning, made a stop for lunch and internet access in Great Falls, and arrived our campsite just south of Livingston, MT by early evening. We camped for 1 night at a small campground with no services called Mallard’s Rest. It was funny how the cheapest sites, this one was $7 with a valid fishing license and $12 without, were the most amazing. We practically had the campground to ourselves except for one other campsite of fisherman. Our site was right on the Yellowstone River and was extremely relaxing. We made a campfire that night, toasted some marshmallows for s’mores and had the most amazing view of the stars.

The next day we (more…)

Part 2: The real road trip begins, as my parents fly back to southern California and Steve, Hayley and I begin our journey in the RV through Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and back to southern California. On the first day of our trip we drove about 5 hours from Divide, MT to Whitefish, MT. We arrived rather late, after 8pm, so we stayed at the Whitefish RV Park behind the Cheap Sleep Motel on Highway 93 South. I have to say, from the road we were concerned about our decision, but once we drove into the RV park, it was actually pretty quiet and clean. The nice thing about an RV park versus a regular campground is that you usually have the ability to plug into shore power, water and emptying of your gray and holding tanks. The price is usually higher than a campground, in this case $35 for the night. But when living in an RV, you often have to stop at one of these parks every 3 or 4 days to replenish water and empty tanks, oh and take a real shower. The shower in the RV is nice, but imagine showering in an airplane bathroom, not a lot of space. We did find campgrounds along the way the provided the water and dumping services, which made for a nicer campsite with the services we needed, but more on that later.

The next day we treated ourselves to a Cafe Au Lait from a local coffee shop, and explored downtown Whitefish before heading into Glacier National Park through the West Glacier park entrance. Now, before I begin our detailed journey through one of the most spectacular places on earth, I have to stop to share with you a favorite treat of mine best experienced at the West Glacier Restaurant just before the park entrance. This diner style restaurant has an old fashioned soda counter with “a slice of heaven” scooped to order. For only $2.50 you can enjoy heaping scoop of huckleberry ice cream in a waffle cone, which is so good that it completely dictated our route for entering the park. Huckleberries are similar to blueberries, only a little smaller and not as sweet. They grow wild in Montana, and are a favorite treat of the grizzly bears as well. So even though you may be tempted by the plethora of huckleberry scented beauty products in Montana, don’t wear them in bear country!

Ok, so after my guilty pleasure of huckleberry ice cream, which I can still taste and wish I had more of, we (more…)

Please note the new slide show format above, we had too many images to share to include them all, so we made a slide show.

Part 1: We flew into Missoula, Montana on a new airline, Allegiant Air. We were very impressed with Allegiant, the fares are hard to beat, $59 for a one way fare. And the service was friendly and we departed on time and landed early. We drove to Divide, a small town south of Butte and stayed several nights at the Divide Campground. We were really impressed with the Divide campground, we had a semi-private campsite right along the Big Hole River, a blue ribbon trout stream. Here we spent time visiting with old friends, learning how to fly fish and I reminisced about my childhood. This by far was our favorite part of the trip. We can still close our eyes and imagine sitting by the river, hearing nothing but the rush of water over the river rocks, with the warmth of the sun on our faces, a cool breeze on our skin, and sipping cafe lattes in the afternoon with my parents, and our friends Jack and Judy. Oh and lovable BJ too!

Divide is the small town in rural Montana where I grew up. My parents built the house we lived in. Jack and Judy were our neighbors, but actually much more than that. They are our Montana family. I attended a 2 room schoolhouse (see the slide show above) just a short distance from our house. And yes, in the winter I did ski to school on occasion. That is something for the grand kids someday! It meant so much to come back here, but also even more to share it with my husband.

Stay tuned for the next stage of our journey, Glacier National Park!

Well, we made it back home to sunny California. Our great road trip has ended, but the memories we made will last a lifetime.

We saw so many incredible things, we visited 4 National Parks in one week, that’s a lot of nature! And Steve and Hayley got to experience Montana for the first time, something that I truly will treasure. I’m pretty sure that Hayley is still day dreaming about all the freedom to run she had there, we misses her new friends Jack and Judy and their lovable golden retriever, BJ. Steve is missing the serenity of Montana, as we return to our noisy street of restaurant music, car horns and ambulance sirens.

We also got a first taste of the RV lifestyle, it really is a culture of its own. We met a lot of interesting people along the way and stayed at some entertaining RV parks. But all in all, we liked the whole experience and are missing the “GuyLin”, a Dodge Sprinter RV, a little this week.

Here was our route: View Road Trip 2009

There is so much to say about our trip, that I will have to publish our itinerary in a 5 part series. Stay tuned!

As the road trip winds to an end, we made a few stops along the way in Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons National Park. In a future post I plan to share our itinerary, including a list of the campgrounds that we visited, a review of those sites and a provisioning list. The RV lifestyle is definitely a culture in and of itself, but one which allows freedom of travel from place to place while taking all of your belongings with you.

I had not been to Yellowstone since my teenage years and this was Steve and Hayley’s first time

there. While Glacier was breathtaking in a dramatic way, Yellowstone was  incredibly mysterious with its geysers, thermal ground and bubbling mud pots, and beautiful with its sweeping plains and wildlife. We saw elk, bison, deer, moose and many types of birds along the way. There is so much to say, and yet so little time to say it in, we have had limited internet connections while out in nature. So stay tuned, I’ll have to create another post with even more detail as the trip continues!

The Montana road trip continues. After visiting the favorite haunts of my childhood, we headed North up to Glacier National Park. This is my third trip to Glacier, and my husband’s first, and on every visit I never cease to be amazed by the awesome height of the mountains and the beauty of the landscape. As we made our way through the park, it was snowing at Logan Pass, so Hayley got her first taste of snow, and hated it!

I should also mention here that thanks to the generosity of my parents, we are using their cherished “GuyLin”, or Dodge Sprinter in order to see the many sights within Montana. We were lucky enough to spend time with them here in Montana for a few days, fishing and spending time with old friends.

We are now heading south to Yellowstone. Stay tuned for more pictures!