Let me Tell you about Huckleberry Pie

Before I get on track with my storytelling (which has been the absolute truth thus far), let me tell you about Huckleberry Pie. All throughout Montana and Wyoming, there have been cafes advertising huckleberry pie. I am not usually a pie person as I find that most people make the dessert too sweet, so I have put off any association with huckleberries thus far—although I did have a taste of huckleberry ice cream and did not think much about it—so I have been reluctant to try anything else. But on our last dinner in Montana, I decided to give it a go for dessert. My diet is shot anyway, I might as well enjoy it. SWOON. Let me tell you about homemade graham cracker crumb crust, a thin layer of cream cheese filling topped with a thick layer of huckleberries. Oh Lord. Sin on a plate. It was so good. I am salivating as I write this. I could have eaten the entire pie in one sitting. It was that good and I doubt I’ll ever have anything like it again. The Café was called Luna’s in East Glacier park. The Sailor dined on Buffalo Bratwurst while I tried a local Indian dish that was a puffed flour tortilla, topped with chili and salad. Yummy! It probably wasn’t very healthy, but it sure was good. The kids enjoyed a cheese quesadilla, but their true delight was in learning that we would be driving to Washington and moving into our home a week later. LMS was dancing in the restaurant when she heard that and Mr. Hawking has declared that only he and LMS are allowed on the playground. They are super excited.

Prior to the dinner festival, we enjoyed a hike to Baring falls and Sunrift Gorge on the Eastern side of Glacier as well as a picnic on Two Medicine Lake, a drive through of the eastern side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road and Many Glaciers. What an incredible relaxing and peaceful place. Even the fits of my children were quickly dispelled amongst Father Mountain (s) and Mother Earth. And the funny thing is that my kids are perfectly content to skip rocks in lakes, rivers, puddles and any source of water than anything. Mr. Hawking loves to hike, but LMS gets carried around by daddy wherever she goes. She has him wrapped around her little finger.
We are leaving Montana today in hopes of making it to Washington and/or Dupont tonight. Even the kids have said they would rather spend one long day in the car instead of two shorter ones. We will see how it goes. The weather is an apropos arrival to the Seattle area—it is pouring down rain, so we would not have been able to do much hiking either way.

Some random thoughts I realized that I have forgotten: we now have pictures of the Montana State University stadium. We only did a drive by of the University of Montana stadium. I think the Sailor must have been tired of driving as well. He has been trying to convince me to detour down to Boise State to see the blue field. I roll my eyes. And if one more person tells me that we should turn around and go back to Omaha for the baseball game, I will tell them that they can drive around with my kids for three weeks in a small car while I check myself into a spa for the duration. While I am thrilled that Clemson has made the College World Series in Omaha, NE, I am NOT turning around. Ain’t happening folks. Not to mention the Army owns the Sailor—helloooooooooooo!!!!!

While driving through Bozeman, we HAVE to recommend the Museum of the Rockies. This is the coolest collection of dinosaur bones in the US. They have a full T-Rex skeleton on display and parts of 16 others including the oldest known T-Rex to have been found. Its head is HUGE. The interesting thing I learned is that T-Rex was probably a carrion predator rather than an executionist—it cannot run fast, nor use its forehands well enough to fight a live animal. To my dear friends the Pretes—if LL is still into dinos, this is a must do when you come to see us.

We have also been following the World Cup, but like many of our military friends we are perplexed by the lack of frenzy in the US as we experienced overseas. The last world cup match we watched was in 2002 at the Athens airport with Germany playing Brazil for the final. People were GLUED to the TV and it was a party in the Airport. I am sure people missed flights for the game. It’s a great experience and we kind of wish our American brothers and sisters got into it too. Ah well. Cest la vie!