Rapid City – HappyStinkingJoy

“Deadwood”… or “Where Not to Eat While in South Dakota! Part 2″

So other than the crappy places to eat, the first day of our Black Hills weekend-getaway was pretty nice. Despite the the trailer trash at Tin Lizzie, the yuppies and horrible food at Deadwood Thyme Cafe and Bistro, and the stupid parking fees (seriously, Deadwood, you don’t make enough on the taxes on gaming… you gotta screw people out of money to park? Deadwood city officials should all be duct-taped down to a booth at Tin Lizzie next to moo moo trailer trash lady while having a New York strip from Deadwood Thyme Cafe & Bistro shoved down their throats), we manage to have a pretty good time in Deadwood… and we didn’t even gamble away our life savings! Gambled less than 10 bucks in like 5 hours in the casinos 🙂 Yeah, they weren’t tripping over themselves to offer us free drinks or anything, but I did grab a couple of bowls of free dirty rice at Bourbon Street… ’cause the steak at Deadwood Thyme Cafe & Bistro actually may have created a black-hole of hungriness in my stomach. Bourbon Street even gave the wife and me some beads, like we were in New Orleans or something, and we didn’t even have to flash our hoo hahs… I kept offering, but the waitress told me she’d call security if at any point during our visit my hoo hahs joined the party. Party pooper 🙁

We awoke on the luxurious bed at our Legends cabin refreshed and relaxed and ready for a grand day! We already knew where we are going for lunch, and we were excited. See, I told you in the previous post that eating at new places is kinda our main reason for taking holiday. Hahaha… “taking holiday”… all of a sudden I’m Harry Potter, ’cause eating good food is somehow magical for me or something 🙂

Breakfast was provided by the owners of Legends. We had heart-shaped blueberry muffins and trail mix and orange juice and cereal bars. All of this was awaiting us on our arrival in a cute little basket on the dining-table-for-two in our kitchenette! Seriously, I can’t recommend this place enough… very romantic, very charming, and no matter how crappy the food in Deadwood was, our stay at Legends made the entire trip worth while (disclaimer: I am receiving no compensation in any way, shape or form from Legends for my recommendations… however, if the owners of Legends ever stumble across my blog and would like to throw a little sumthin-sumthin my way, I’m a greedy little person and would be more than willing to consider any and all offers 🙂 )

After lounging around the cabin for most of the morning, we embark on the 1/2 hour drive to Rapid City. We have a day full of activities planned for our Saturday (which means finding a good bookstore or two and losing ourselves in our true passion [besides each other 😉 ]: reading), and we are ready to get going. When we arrive in Rapid City, we make our first mission finding our lunch destination… Philly Ted’s .

I’m a sucker for Philly-style cheese-steak sandwiches. I don’t know if this love evolves from my love of sandwiches, steak, Cheez Whiz, or the Philadelphia Phillies; but I know I like a good Philly cheese-steak. Thing is, I discovered I had never really eaten a good Philly cheese-steak until we actually found Philly Ted’s.

Now finding places when traveling, for the wife and me, usualy doesn’t go well. I’m really lazy, so I don’t look at directions or maps or anything before setting out to a destination. The wife is meticulous and knows the address of every place we plan on visiting… but she sucks at directions. So we are driving into Rapid City on the interstate and I say, “Where is Philly Ted’s?”

The wife spouts off the address, “1415 LaCrosse Street.”

“And how do we get there?” I ask.

“We find LaCrosse Street,” says the wife. “Then we find 1415.”

“And where is LaCrosse Street?” I ask.

The wife gives me that here-we-go-again-look and says, “You know how I am with directions! Why are you asking me?”

We exchange a few more sentences, most of which looked like this:

me: “where is the map”

wife: “I didn’t get a map. why didn’t you get a map?”

me: “do I have to do everything”

wife: “I can’t believe you didn’t plan better”

me: “do I have to do everything”

wife: “just stop and ask for directions”

me: “so you’re saying I’m weak”

wife: “I’m not saying anything, I just think you should stop and ask for directions”

me: “you think I’m an unfit husband”

wife: “just take the next exit, stop at a convenience store, and ask for directions”

me: “you don’t trust me. you wouldn’t want to be lost in a forest with me because you think I couldn’t hack it… you think I’d let us both die!”

wife: “I’m just saying that asking for directions would probably help us find the restaurant, and I’m hungry.”

me: “so you think I’m worthless and you’re wondering why you ever married me… that you’d starve if your safety depended on me… that you can’t count on me when the going gets tough!”

wife: “just take he next exit.”

So, I take the next exit… which happens to actually be LaCrosse Street, and drive south for a couple of blocks… and, what do you know… there’s Philly Ted’s.

“See, we didn’t need to ask for directions,” I say. The wife just gives me a side-ways glance and rolls her eyes. She loves me 🙂

okay… so these two chicks didn’t actually greet us… but we could feel their love…

Inside Philly Ted’s is… uh… well, an order counter; that’s about it. There are all kinds of really cool signs on the wall, like “If you want a kid’s meal, put on your big-boy pants and go down the street… they have it for you under their heat lamps.” Hahaha! No kids meals at Philly Ted’s, but I doubt there are many “kids” who would not love one of these sandwiches. I ordered the “Viking” (’cause I love the Minnesota Vikings… and they have sandwiches named after every good NFL team), with consisted of cheese-steak and bacon. The wife had a cheese-steak with mushrooms.

The wait to get the sandwiches wasn’t too long, and we thought we would eat in the “dining area.” We discovered that the dining area consisted of about three tables resting right beside the kitchen, and it was full. We opted to eat at the outside dining area, which consisted of a couple of plastic tables… and we had to pull our chairs from a stack-o-chairs resting against the building. Even with the effort required in setting up our own dining-area, Philly Ted’s was an awesome experience! The sandwiches were kind of like Arby’s Beef & Cheddars… except with real meat and tasty cheese… so they were nothing like Arby’s Beef and Cheddars, but they were very AWESOME! They had to be close to a foot long and were loaded with thinly sliced steak and Cheez Whiz on a hoagie-style bun.

I finished mine in a matter of minutes, and the wife couldn’t finish hers. Needless to say, I had to help the wife out by finishing hers. What a great place to eat. Philly Ted’s will definitely be a place we have to stop every time we visit Rapid City 😀

After the feast, we scoured the city for some cool bookstores. We found a neat little place downtown called Again Books & Bazaar . This was a pretty cool little new/used bookstore and we had a pretty good time here, but I like my used book stores to have a little more selection and to be a little cheaper. There are some pretty cool used book stores in Estes Park, Boulder and Ft. Collins that far surpassed Again Books, but it was worth checking out.

After downtown, we made our way out by the mall and spent most of the remainder of the afternoon at Borders. Now, Border’s ain’t no Barnes & Noble (’cause it isn’t nearly as big), but it was close. Isle after isle of book after book containing multitudes of ways to escape reality and lose oneself in an adventure were to be found at Borders. The chain stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble are a good way to waste a couple of hours on any given afternoon. The wife and I prefer more intimate, personal bookstores. The Tattered Cover in Denver is one of our favorite places to “lose” ourselves. In fact, this past summer we made a special trip to the Tattered Cover, driving four hours with the entire family in tow, just so that I could get the newest book by my favorite author signed by the man himself. I am a huge Christopher Moore fan. The wife had never read any of his work. I have read almost everything he has written. I asked the wife to read Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story and You Suck: A Love Story, because they were the prequels to his newest release: Bite Me: A Love Story. The wife, who is more into the Twilight crap that she is into funny stuff, reluctantly obliged. She read Christopher Moore, she liked him, and she agreed that a signed copy of Bite Me would be cool… and this is the reason we have been married for over 16-years 🙂 Needless to say, having Christopher Moore write “Rich & Kim… OMFG… CM” inside a first edition copy of Bite Me was one of the coolest experiences of my life… but back to Rapid City…

For supper, the wife and I found ourselves up against a conundrum. We wanted to have a classy meal with good food, but we didn’t want to bust our budget. We had asked our Facebook friends for help in choosing a good supper place in Rapid City, but none of the suggestions were working out. One friend had recommended Alpine Inn in Hill City… but Hill City was too far away to meet our hunger needs. A second friend had recommended the Fireside Inn, but we couldn’t find a website for it, so we backed out. We settled for a quaint little place on our drive from Rapid City back to Deadwood called the Pirates Table. We were not disappointed.

When we first walked in, I was amazed at all of the young hotties dressed as bar wenches and female pirates in tight-fitting pirate gear. I knew this place wouldn’t disappoint! We were seated and told that our wait-person would be with us shortly. I was already drooling 😉

The wife seemed hesitant as we awaited the arrival of our wait-person. We glanced over the menu and our mouths watered over the vast selection of bovine and aquatic selections that awaited our ordering! The wife decided on the coconut shrimp, and I had arrived at the conclusion that scallops (deep fried, not sautéed) would be my choice. We were both ready to have our appetites tamed when our wait-person arrived…
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“Good evening,” the pirate dude said, “my name is Stephen. Are you ready to order?”

Needless to say, the wind in my sail departed and I truly focused on the food. The wife ordered her shrimp and I ordered my scallops. The hairy guy left and I got kind of pouty.

When the food actually arrived, the fact that our server was a dude crept to the back of my conscientiousness (didn’t disappear, mind you, just crept to the back). The food was AWESOME. The wife claims it was the best coconut shrimp she had ever tasted (and the wife knows shrimp). As for the scallops, they were AWESOME! And they came with a side of FRIES! The night in Rapid City ended with a bang. We drove back to our cabin at Legends and were sated!

The next morning, we packed our getaway stuff and prepared for the trip home. We were going to have one final feasting experience before we headed home. We had scoped-out an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet in Deadwood while we wandered the casinos a couple of days previous. “All-you-can-eat” + “brunch” + “casino” seemed like it had to = AMAZING! Apparently, in Deadwood, they use fuzzy math.

We went to the Silverado, headed to the dining luxury of the basement, and were overcharged for a buffet that looked like a couple of breakfast items had been thrown in with some crap from the evening buffet the previous day. There were scrambled eggs and dried-out looking meatloaf and link sausage and really tough fried chicken and bacon and a green bean casserole and really tough biscuits with a really watery gravy. Stinking Golden Corral would have been better… and would have cost less that $10 per person. Plus, they had stupid announcements going over the intercom about who had won what and whatnot. Not a good dining experience… which would have been acceptable if the buffet had been cheaper, or had included drinks, or the waitress hadn’t acted like we were a pain-in-her-ass just for deciding to eat there… or SOMETHING.

We drove home and lamented our miserable brunch experience the entire way. Overall, the trip was a blast. The food in Rapid City was wonderful. If there was one thing to be learned from our weekend away, we learned… STAY AWAY FROM THE FOOD IN DEADWOOD!!!

“Deadwood”… or “Where Not to Eat While in South Dakota! Part 1”

Okay… I’m gonna be completely upfront and honest about my idea of a vacation. When I travel on business or pleasure (and the wife feels almost as strongly about this as I do), my one rule is that I do not eat at any place that I can eat at in the Craphandle of Nebraska. Even if the kids are screaming bloody murder ’cause they are “starving”, we will not stop at McDonald’s while on the road. If our only choice is between Applebees and the scary looking place with all the Harley’s parked outside and the two fat dudes with leather vests and ZZ Top beards duking it out in the parking lot… well, I’ve discovered that drunk bikers will usually leave you alone if you’ve got kids… and you don’t touch their bikes nor look them in the eyes. At least 50% of the fun of a vacation is trying new places to eat!

Eating at new places is an adventure of a sort. There is little chance you can be hurt by trying a new place to eat (as long as you keep your eyes off the biker’s babe… no matter how short her shorts are, or how low-cut her t-shirt is…) and the potential reward is humongous. You may just discover a favorite place that will become a necessary stop every time you visit a certain local.

The wife and I just celebrated an anniversary, and we spent the weekend in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We love the Black Hills, but on our few visits over the past 12 years or so, we have had kids in tow. When you have kids in tow, your sense of adventure is diminished by the fact that you have to go somewhere that serves something that the kids will actually eat. TGI Fridays, Burger King, Red Lobster, Olive Garden… these are the kinds of places you are stuck going when you travel with kids. These places all are not available in the Craphandle, and they all have kids menus. Thus, the wife and I decided we were not going to go anyplace that we would have chosen had the kids been with us. We were so excited!

For our anniversary, the wife and I usually go to the Estes Park, CO area. Estes Park has all kinds of cool places to eat and all kinds of fun things to do… and if you tire of Estes Park, you can always go on an excursion to Boulder or Longmont or even into Denver for restaurants and excitement. We usually stay at a little place right outside of Lyons, CO called Shelly’s Cottages . Shelly’s cottages is an awesomely romantic place to stay. They are like rustic little apartments right on the St. Vrain river. If you go in the fall, you can pick apples and pears right off the trees growing by the river. If you get one of the cottages with a hot tub (which I highly recommend), you can sit in the hot tub and (if the time of year is right) bask in the warm water as snow gently floats around you. Awesome! However, we thought that this year, we would try something new.

Because we really like the Black Hills, and because we really like the hot tub/cottage vibe of Shelly’s Cottages, we looked for a place like Shelly’s in the Black Hills.

Enter Legends .

Legends is AWESOME! We stayed in the Lakota Suite, and to say the decoration was radical would be a major understatement. This cabin was all hardwood, from the floors to the vaulted ceilings. We could actually smell the wood when we walked in. The Native American decor was really cool and… was… everywhere. In fact, there was Native American music playing on the CD player when we arrived. I could go on and on… but that would detract from the fact that I wanted to write about how much food in Deadwood sucked!

Although Legends has a Sturgis address, it is way closer to Deadwood than it is Sturgis. Our check-in wasn’t until 2 pm, so we thought we would stop at one of the casinos for lunch before checking in. One of the great things about Deadwood is how they get your money at every opportunity. Parking anywhere near any of the casinos costs money. As we were driving down the main street, we noticed that Tin Lizzie had free parking… for their guests. Well, we weren’t going to be forced to spend our money at a place just to get free parking! So, we drove all the way to the other end of town into a residential area. We parked in the first free parking spot we could find, and we proceeded to hike. We walked and walked and walked, popping into every casino that had a restaurant, in an attempt to find something that sounded good. After like an hour, we found ourselves standing outside Tin Lizzie… and we were “starving”… so we went in to have lunch. Hindsight, huh?

So we go in and the lady at the food counter tells us that the special of the day is the shrimp dinner. That sounds great and all, but the shrimp dinner comes with baked potato and I’m kinda craving fries, so I order the shrimp basket (which is the same thing but it comes with fries). The wife orders the same. We sit and wait and finally the little light-up-thingamajig that they gave us goes off and I go get the plates.

After I sit back down, the wife says, “Didn’t you order a basket?”

Sure enough, where the fries should be sitting is resting a baked potato. Damn it! I get up and start toward the order counter to get my fries. I am not going to let our anniversary weekend start like this!

Directly in front of me, I see a severely overweight lady of about 30 in a moo moo walking with a cane. She is with an older lady who looks very similar to her. The two are obviously sisters or mother and daughter.

“What’s that over there?” the older lady asks of the young gimp in the moo moo, pointing at the salad bar.

“That’s the salad bar,” says the gimp

The older lady looks at the gimp, confused, and asks again, “What’s that over there?”

“It’s the salad bar!” screams the gimp. “Put in your f#%&ing hearing aid, you stupid b#@ch!”

I immediately turn around and sit back down with the wife. “Baked potato sounds kinda good,” I conclude.

After we finish our shrimp dinners with the stinking baked potatoes, we are forced to walk by the hearing impaired lady and her very disrespectful gimp-sister/daughter/gay lover or whatever. I happen to catch part of the conversation going on between the gimp and the unfortunate lady that chose to sit at the booth beside her.

“Yeah, I spent some time working at the Hampton Inn,” says the gimp.

“Oh, and how are things going over there?” Asks the other lady, and you can tell by the meek way that she asks it that she really is looking for the conversation to end.

“Wouldn’t know,” says the gimp. “The son of a b#@chs wouldn’t let me come back after my fifth surgery. I’m gonna sue the s%*t out of them b%#*@$ds!”

As we were leaving Tin Lizzie, I came to the realization how much of a resemblance there is between a casino and Walmart. Needless to say, this was actually the best meal we had in Deadwood.

So the wife and I go and check out our awesome cabin up in the hills. We are so impressed with the cabin that lunch is soon forgotten. The owners of Legends leave all kinds of personal little notes all over the cabin in a welcomed attempt to make your stay more enjoyable. In one of their notes, they make some recommendations of local restaurants. The place that they point out as their favorite is a place the wife remembers seeing very positive reviews of online before we left. It is called Deadwood Thyme Cafe and Bistro, and we suddenly know where we are going for supper. Now, all of the reviews that the wife remembers reading were for breakfast and lunch; and even on the menu that is in the binder of menus of local restaurants in our cabin, there is no mention of dinner. But, hey, we figure if the place is that popular for breakfast and lunch, they have to serve a killer supper, right?

A sign by Thyme states that there is parking in back, ’cause there definitely ain’t no parking in front. We drive around back… and find parking meters at every parking spot. Crap! So, we fork over some change to park, and I’m already thinking, “This had better be good.”

We walk in and the waitress… the only waitress in the entire place… brings us our menu. The menu is on one side of one piece of paper. Every meal on the menu is around $20, and most of it looks like fancy crap that is not going to fill a guy up. The waitress tells us of the special, which is a New York strip with starch and vegetable for $19. The wife orders the special, and so do I. Turns out that starch means either rice or broiled potato… no fries. Damn it! We both order the potato. The meal doesn’t come with any soup or salad… those are extra.

The wife ordered a Sprite, to which the waitress says, “Uh, we don’t have Sprite. Would you like a… (and this is the point where one would expect the waitress to say something like ‘Sierra Mist’ or maybe ‘7-Up’, but instead she comes back with)… lemonade?”

“Uh… I guess that would be fine,” says the wife.

I order an iced tea and the waitress is off to fulfill her duty of waiting. The waitress pops her head out of the kitchen and says to me, “Uh, it appears that we are out of iced tea. Would you like some hot tea, or perhaps some coffee?”

“Uh, how about a Coke?”

“Fine, coming right up,” smiles the waitress.

So she brings out the lemonade for the wife and she brings me… a very expensive looking glass bottle of Coke. Apparently no fries… and free refills on the cola are out. Crap!

“Heh heh, make sure you keep that water coming,” I smile. I don’t think the waitress heard me, or if she did, she wasn’t amused.

As we are waiting for our food, the place starts to fill up. Of course, right next to us, they seat a young couple… and that young couple’s three toddlers! We drive for over four hours for a relaxing weekend away from our kids to spend an expensive evening next to someone else’s noisy, can’t-sit-still kids. C’mon! At least we like our kids! At least I’ve already seen the menu, and I know there isn’t a kids meal in sight. The yuppies are going to be forking over some major cash to feed the toddlers. Sometimes, life can be a little sweet!

Our food arrived. I wish there was a way to de-emphasize the typed word… you know, like how you can emphasize a word by italicizing it. If such a de-emphasis existed, I would have definitely used it when I typed “Our food arrived”. A few thin slices of carrot, four or five very small chunks of potato, and a small steak that appears to be at least 1/5 fat.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I say to the wife. She just starts to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“This whole thing is funny,” she laughs even harder. She is having a hell of a time cutting through her New York Strip. I try to cut mine and see exactly where she is coming from. It’s like trying to cut a rope in half with a butter knife. “Maybe we just need sharper knifes.” She takes a bite and chews… and chews and chews and chews. By now we are both laughing and chewing and laughing and chewing.

“No, I don’t think it’s the knifes,” I say. “I think they served the wrong part of the cow. I don’t believe a New York Strip is usually cut from the hide.”

I take a bite of potato.

“Tastes like cardboard,” I say, and the wife laughs all the harder.

“The carrots are good” says the wife, and she’s right. Best thing on the plate is the stinking vegetables… you know, the thing you usually don’t eat when you get a steak dinner… and there are only four or five thin slices.

I hear a grunt come from the yuppie table next door and I see the young wife, near tears, attempting to cut up a steak to divide amongst her toddlers. The husband is working on his own steak, his face red, beads of sweat on his brow. The kids are relatively quiet. They look hungry.

“Here, you work on this for awhile,” says the yuppie wife as she shoves the partially shredded steak-on-a-plate at her husband.

The husband mumbles something under his breath and starts working on the children’s steak, as the smallest of the three children, crying, says quietly to the mother, “I’m hungry, Mommy.”

My wife and I look at each other and we stop laughing. We both realize that if we distract the young parents from the cutting of their children’s food, a child may die. This steak is the kind of steak that your parents warned you about when they said, “You might choke on this if you don’t chew it all the way.” Well, there ain’t no chewing this crap all the way to anywhere, so the wife and I stop the laughing and let the yuppies concentrate. Quiet weekend away from kids or not, no one wants to see a child choke on cowhide.

When the waitress comes and asks us if we are interested in desert, we start the laughing all over again. The waitress, somewhat confused, walks away. I notice the yuppies again. The young wife is weeping openly, the husband has his head in his arms on the table, and all three hungry children are crying. My wife and I stop laughing and leave.

Before going back to the cabin, we decide to get some snacks. We’re both still hungry as hell and know we won’t make it ’til morning on what we just ate. Just a couple of warnings to you if you ever decide to go to Deadwood:

1. Deadwood does not have a grocery store.

2. Expensive convenience stores in Deadwood close at 10:00 pm… at least on a Friday night… and even though many of the casinos are open 24 hours a day, aside from the casinos, there is no where in Deadwood to get food after 10:00 pm.

We ended up driving to Lead a few miles away to find an Exxon at which to grab a couple of bags of chips and some pop. Like $30 later, we went back to the cabin.

This is only the first day of our adventure. Day two actually went much better… and I have a couple of really cool places to recommend for you to eat in Rapid City… but this post is already way too long to hold the interest of the average reader, so I’m calling it quits for today. Consider this “Part 1”. “Part 2” will follow shortly 🙂

Something About Nebraska That… Doesn’t… Suck… I Guess

I have come to the conclusion that the negative attitude I hold toward all things Nebraska is starting to have a negative impact on my health. My family has an ongoing rivalry with heart disease, and heart disease seems to be winning. All of the males (and some of the females) on my dad’s side of the family have battled high blood pressure and I am no exception. I can actually feel my blood pressure rise when I get stressed, and I am constantly getting stressed. The stress gets so bad that, once it kicks in, I can’t concentrate. My thoughts flutter around my head like moths around a campfire. If I try to pull those thoughts into my psyche to concentrate on, the thoughts, much like the moths, burst into flames and are forgotten. The feelings of hopelessness then descend in waves, and I actually begin to question my sanity. Ever felt like you were going crazy? Not a good time. Stress makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

In order to try to alleviate a little of the stress I feel in my life, I decided to focus this entry on something about the panhandle of Nebraska that actually makes me happy. That’s right, I’m going to try to find a positive angle to follow on something. Finding something in the panhandle that I don’t perceive as completely sucking is not easy, but I’m going to give it a shot.

Nebraska is known for its beef: marbled, corn-fed beef that practically melts in your mouth. If you want a truly great rib-eye steak (perhaps the best rib-eye on the planet), and you want to experience that steak in a truly Nebraska-esque setting, there is only one place to go…

The Oregon Trail Wagon Train.

The Oregon Trail Wagon Train is a local landmark. It used to be known as “Gordon Howard’s” until the Howard family sold it. I’m sure that most folks are familiar with a chuck-wagon-style cookout. Many of the touristy places in the West and Midwest have these kinds of cookouts, but most of them serve crap like barbecue beef or barbecue chicken… you know, the shredded stuff that goes on a bun… and with most of them, you are paying for the experience (because the food sucks).

I remember going to the Flying T chuck-wagon supper last summer near Rapid City, SD. It was over $20 per adult, the food was not impressive, and the portions didn’t come close to filling me up. The staff was kind of rude and barked orders to the paying customers (which, I guess, is supposed to be part of the charm). There was some good-old country music after the meal (if you like good-old country music… which I don’t) and the band tried to hawk their CDs the whole time. I love Rapid City… the Black Hills are one of my favorite areas to visit… but I will never go back to the Flying T. There are much better places to eat in the Black Hills.

Anywho, back to a good chuck-wagon meal. At the Oregon Trail Wagon Train, the ambiance is pretty rustic.

They have a horse-drawn wagon and they take you for a short ride. Usually on the wagon ride, the driver will point out spots in the vicinity that were actually part of the Pony Express trail. It’s pretty cool to think that Pony Express riders used to actually ride so close to where you are about to enjoy your heavenly steak.

The “cowboy coffee” is plentiful and is cooked over an open fire.

When you get to the botton of your cup, you get a mouthful of grounds… which is the way it should be. If you ain’t chewing your coffee, it ain’t real cowboy coffee. All of the food is cooked over wood coals from a real fire… as opposed to a fake fire, I guess. The boiled potatoes and the green beans are cooking in these funky, homemade-looking metal structures, and the “grill” is loaded with fire wood. When they light the wood, you know that good times are getting near. See, this is the thing with the Oregon Train Wagon Train: you pay something like $22 per adult (same as the Flying T), but you are actually getting an honest-to-goodness rib-eye dinner that exceeds the quality of a steak you could get in a fancy chop house.

On my last visit to the Oregon Trail Wagon Train (which was a couple of weeks ago), there were a crapload of grasshoppers. I happened to notice a spider hanging in her web on the eave of one of the old buildings. I figured that, since my family was about to dine on some good grub, I would treat the spider. I grabbed a grasshopper and threw him into the spider’s web. Honestly, I didn’t figure the spider would mess with him, but I went back about fifteen minutes later and found the following:

I showed the kids (the wife refused to look) and they thought it was gross. You can actually see where she has her mouth attached to the hopper. You know she injected her venom into the hopper, waited for the venom to start dissolving the workings inside the exoskeleton, and is now sucking out the juicy remains. Awesome! The kids didn’t really think so… not right before dinner. Still, I thought it was pretty cool.

While I was playing with the spider, the wood on the grill had been started.

Now we were just waiting for the fire to burn to coals and the steaks would go on. There are some pretty cool things to check out while you are waiting for the steaks to start cooking. There is a path you can follow that takes you back to the North Platte River.

Usually this area is kind of mosquito-infested, but this late in the summer, I guess the mosquitoes had other things to do. There is a little fort for the kids (of all ages:) ) to check out. You can actually climb up into the watch tower and check out the grounds.

There is a old black lab that hangs out (except she seems to disappear at meal time) and she loves to have her belly rubbed (if you are so inclined to rub a dog’s belly… which I am).

There are a variety of old tools attached to the sides of the out buildings that are kind of fun to check out. The Oregon Trail Wagon Train also has a small gift shop and a small bar attached to the gift shop, so you can buy some overpriced, low-quality toys and nick-knacks right before you start downing the brews.

I usually avoid the gift shop and the bar. Why pay for a beer when there is all of that free cowboy coffee to chew on?

For the more sportsy people, there are a couple of horseshoe pits.

Yeah, I guess horseshoe tossing ain’t really a sport, but this is Nebraska, so horseshoe tossing is right up there alongside tumbleweed chasin’, cow tippin’, and sheep… uh…

… shearing? Besides, tossing a shoe from time to time can be kind of fun.

If you run out of things to do and are feeling a little bored waiting for the steaks to go on the grill, there is a multitude of spiders which I am sure would love to find a juicy grasshopper in their webs 🙂

Finally, the fire has burned down to coals, the coals are raked out nice and smooth, and the steaks get thrown on the grill.

Every time I have been to the Oregon Trail Wagon Train, the guys in charge of grilling the steaks seem to have a beer in their hands. Every time. And dinner is served 7 nights-a-week all summer long. I wonder if they are hiring?

The dinner bell rings, we all get in a line, and we proceed by the grill. They ask you how you like your steak done, and you get it exactly how you like it. You then get a heaping spoon of green beans and a large, red boiled potato. You help yourself to the available condiments (from which steak sauce is absent… and you better not even think about asking for it) and make your way to a table. Waiting for you on the table is a freshly baked loaf of the best sourdough bread in Nebraska.

After you gorge yourself on a hearty meat and potato meal, you head to the ice cream counter and get yourself a cone filled with delicious home-made vanilla ice cream.

While you are licking your dessert, you are directed to the campfire area where one of the steak cookers (half-baked on beer) will lead the entire dining group through several sing-along songs that are usually silly and probably quite fun (if you go for sing-alongs… which I do not).

We usually leave after a song or two and head for home, quite satisfied.

I promised myself that I was not going to bitch about anything at the Oregon Trail Wagon Train. This chuck-wagon-cookout is the best cookout-type place I’ve ever been to, and I am trying to manage my blood pressure. However, I am know for breaking promises… and it goes against my nature to not complain about something, so I’m gonna complain about the flies. The Oregon Trail Wagon Train is out in the middle of nowhere. You can see Chimney Rock from the cookout site, which is also in the middle of nowhere.

When you are in the middle of nowhere and you cook-up good grub, you are going to be invaded by flies. And I’m not talking about a few flies, I’m talking about flies of horror movie proportions. The setting is great, the food is awesome, but you are going to spend a large portion of your time waving flies away from your plate. I guess this doesn’t bother me too much. The food is worth the waving, but I kind of wish the owners of the Oregon Trail Wagon Train would do something about the flies. I don’t know what they could do, but if they could find something, I would not have a single bitch about the place 🙂

If you ever find yourself in the panhandle of Nebraska, I have a couple of things to let you know. First, I want to apologize that you are in the panhandle of Nebraska. Second, if you find the time, check out the Oregon Trail Wagon Train . It’s out of the way, but worth it. Besides, the entire panhandle is out of the way, and your here, so you might as well eat some good grub!