Food, Drinks and Bedding Down

[Mike Powell]

As I age, comfort becomes a rising priority in my trip planning. Here are a few bright spots in some proximity to LBH I'll share and perhaps others will chime in with their favorites.

Best Mexican food in Billings and perhaps the lower 48: Don Louis on 26th street about two blocks from the Clock Tower Best Western (a place I'm having reservations about making reservations) The Don's has the heartiest, most flavorful Mex I've found between Fort Worth and Chicago, though I'll admit I've never tried Topolombampo. The pork riblets are superb, spicy and nicely charred edges, the enchiladas packed with fresh, savory ingredients, no water infused chicken here. Best of all, the rice and beans out shine the entrees at most places. This is rice and beans at a whole new level. The meal required five bottles of beer and the help was excellent. I live 1,200 miles away and the drive is worth it.

Best Joint. The Grizzly Bar in Rosco, about 30 miles west of Red Lodge. I generally limp into this place, dirty and stinking after hiking around Slough Lake just up the East Rosebud. They always treat an old man with respect and the burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches hit the spot. The prime rib beats that you find at The Prime Rib in Gillette, WY and that's going some. Best of all, the bar sells Bushmill's to go by the bottle as a navigational aid.

I'm hoping someone can name a decent place for breakfast in or around Sheridan, WY. I had a place spotted in Ranchester but ran afoul of a bad cheese omelet last trip. Any help would be appreciated.

yours,

Mike Powell

[BrokenSword]

Mike,

You sound like a man after my own heart while on an expedition.

BS

[crzhrs]

Try Cowboy Bruce's quiche at Broken Back Restaurant!

[Treasuredude]

When our group was there last summer we had a great breakfast in Buffalo outside on the deck of the Occidental Hotel.

The Mint Bar in Sheridan is great.

And although I had already left for home and didn't go, my buddies on the trip rave about the Montana Brewing Company.

[crzhrs]

Montana Brewing Company?

Sounds kinda "elitest" to me. Don't real men in Montana drink Coors or Budweiser?

[biggordie]

Only if they've never been introduced to real beers. And there's nothing wrong with being selective when it comes to beer - or "elitist" either.

[Mike Powell]

Dude,

I've never stayed in Buffalo, always wind up dragging up the road to the Wagon Box Inn in Story. I like the place because its separate cabins, but maybe a little pricey for what you get, though it does put you right into the Fetterman site. I may try the Occidental next trip. I've talked with the lady who runs it and she seems pretty decent. Glad to hear the foods good. Only other place I've tried in that area was a failed attempt to sleep in the truck in the lot of the Fetterman monument. It was past midnight, rainy and wind blowing, imagination got the better of me after 15 minutes or so, landed at the No Tell Motel in Sheridan.

Wouldn't have any thing to recommend in Cody would you?

Yours,

Mike Powell

[Diane Merkel]

In Cody, you should stay in the old section of the Irma Hotel at least for one night. That is the hotel Buffalo Bill built and named for his daughter. The old section doesn't have the amenities we expect today, but it definitely has the look and feel of 100+ years ago. Have drinks and/or meals in the bar/restaurant. A lot of the furnishings are authentic.

www.irmahotel.com/

[Treasuredude]

Aug 29, 2008 17:54:56 GMT -6 Mike Powell said:

Dude,

I've never stayed in Buffalo, always wind up dragging up the road to the Wagon Box Inn in Story. I like the place because its separate cabins, but maybe a little pricey for what you get, though it does put you right into the Fetterman site. I may try the Occidental next trip. I've talked with the lady who runs it and she seems pretty decent. Glad to hear the foods good. Only other place I've tried in that area was a failed attempt to sleep in the truck in the lot of the Fetterman monument. It was past midnight, rainy and wind blowing, imagination got the better of me after 15 minutes or so, landed at the No Tell Motel in Sheridan.

Wouldn't have any thing to recommend in Cody would you?

Yours,

Mike Powell

We didn't stay at the Occidental -- just ate and drank there. Our first night there we all had incredible buffalo steaks. Bubbabod for some reason or another had pork chops?!?! There used to be a place on Main Street that sold pancakes the size of a spare tire. That was closed up and so we headed to the Occidental instead.

We stayed at the Big Horn Motel. Nothing fancy but great people. And it's next door to a liquor store. Frank (bubbabod) knows the owner. She was nice enough to let us stay there anyway.

www.bighorn-motel.com/

[lew]

Mike, I must say I admire your courage by trying to sleep in the parking lot of the Fetterman monument--at night! Whenever I look at photos of the battlefield it always seems quite eerie and spooky to me. I would hate to camp out there.

[biggordie]

Larry:

They're ALL scary as the dickens, if you know what happened there. If you don't, they're just other places in the middle of nowhere, with the spooky feeling one can get simply by being in the middle of nowhere, especially if one is actually one - that is to say camping solo.

I used to do a lot of camping out in the boonies, up in the mountains, out in the desert, in the BC rain forests - anywhere where there was no civilization [or as what's her face wrote about someplace - "there is no there, there."]. I once camped by a little stream at a place called Fishtrap in the Chilcotin region of BC, and I had the shivers all night and a real feeling of unease, even though I was rather heavily armed, as usual, because I was in grizzly country.

A year or so later, I was back along the highway near the same place [earlier, I had come down from the "inland" hills], and I noticed a roadside sign, which we stopped to read. It turned out that I had unknowingly camped on the site of a minor battle between British troops and the local NDNs in which the soldiers suffered thirty odd killed and wounded [the numbers might be wrong, it was in 1972] when ambushed while stopped for their noon break. I had never heard of this fight, and never bothered to find out anything more about it; but it was rather weird that I would have felt whatever it was that I felt - as if the battleground held vestiges of the terror that some of those men must have felt.

If you believe in that sort of thing. Pish Tosh, I say; but I long ago gave up camping in the woods by myself. I disliked feeling scared a lot of the time.

Gordie

[Diane Merkel]

Neat story, Gordie.

I think places of tragedy must retain something -- something that can't be defined -- of the events there. I've heard too many men, who otherwise believe nothing of the supernatural or paranormal, say they have "felt something" at LBH and similar places.

[Mike Powell]

Diane,

I may give the Irma a shot. If you liked the Irma, may I suggest The Grand Hotel in Big Timber. It has the feel; high ceilings, no elevator and some of the rooms feature floors with a definite list toward the center of the hotel. The help is casual, not unfriendly, almost exclusively female. The dinners are excellent and the rooms come with a breakfast which varies day to day but comes with no choices - you take what they decided to prepare that day. The bar is decent, though I get the feel the regulars prefer to stick with the native born. Big Timber has two other major assets; the drug store across from the Grand features a genuine fountain. Phosphates are topped off with a lid full from a crusty old blue bottle and the shakes and malteds take a while to scoop and mix. Understand they have huckleberry shakes. Secondly, BT has a bowling alley a block from the hotel with three lanes as I recall. Automatic pin setters, but other than that pretty 1950's. Decent little town that's the gateway to the Boulder River canyon.

Larry,

Wasn't my courage on display that night. Anyone hoping to snooze in that lot, especially with the storm rocking the truck, deserves to get blown out. As I said, my stay lasted 15 minutes.

Gordie,

What a great unplanned experiment. Even on the most innocent of soil, I find solitary tent camping generates the heeby jeebies about the first two nights and then dead tired sets in.

Yours,

Mike Powell

[Diane Merkel]

Mike,

Your description of the Grand fits the Irma quite well, except I don't remember the floors listing! I haven't heard of Big Timber, but it sounds like a fun place to explore.

Thanks!

Diane

[biggordie]

Diane:

You could visit Big Timber next year while you're in Billings, if you go. It's about an hour west on [or just off] I-90.

Gordie