#46 MONTANA - An Actual Hole In The Wall 

  
     
ANNIE'S CAFE
Butte, Montana



We parked the car a little ways down the somewhat shoddy block from the address I had from Annie's Cafe's Facebook page - 815 E. Front St. - and then found the building. Uh-oh! Mile High Herbal Medicine didn't appear to serve the type of breakfast we were interested in. I immediately got on the phone and discovered that I had an old address and that Annie's had relocated. Fortunately, it seemed that we didn't have to get back in the car because the new address was 801 E. Front St.

We hurried down the rest of the block past a large vacant looking building with boarded up windows. Upon reaching the end of the 800 block there was no Annie's Cafe to be seen. I was getting a little irritated and hungry. We reversed course and took a closer look at the doorway to the big brick building we thought might have been an abandoned tenement building and noticed both an "Open" sign and a 801 over the doorway. And then we looked up.

There was the sign, not exactly at eye level. We entered the hole in the wall half expecting to meet a hulking goon asking us to give a secret password to gain entrance.


AMBIENCE:   Walking into Annie's is like coming down the stairs and seeing your friend's over the top basement remodeling project for the first time. It's not quite what you would expect. It was a fairly large room with booths and tables scattered throughout. There are no windows. There is plenty of artificial lighting to make up for the lack of natural lighting. Although the room is large, the combination of no windows and faux carpeting gave the room a cozy feel.

Then there is the plethora of paraphernalia on the walls, in the corners, and hanging from the ceiling. The owner is a coke addict. There are Coca Cola signs, Coca Cola plates, Coca Cola cups, Coca Cola clocks, Coca Cola bottles, and other Coca Cola objects placed, hung, shelved, and strewn throughout the room. There also was an occasional Pepsi and Royal Crown interloper artifact on the wall. If you can't look out the window you certainly can keep your eyes stimulated with the decor. It was fun.

5 out of 5 stars 

FOOD:  I ordered a ham, cheddar, and green pepper omelet with hash browns and toast. My go to toast is rye. Here I was given a choice of the type of rye bread! I chose the deli rye over the dark rye although I was not sure what difference it made in terms of taste.

Annie's slogan is "Just Good Food" and I would agree. It wasn't fantastic nor mediocre. It was just good.

The Healthy One put in a one and done type order - one egg, one pancake, and one piece of bacon. There is something pitifully sad about seeing a lone bacon slice trying to escape into the shadows. Its like opening a bag of Doritos and finding only one Dorito or ordering onion rings and getting just one ring. Its just a tease. Most disappointing, it is not conducive for sharing. 

4 out of 5 stars
    

COFFEE:  Annie's may be the home of good food but it just has okay coffee. The Healthy One reported that her decaf was "pretty awful". For some odd reason I had an urge to order a Coke to help caffeinate my system but I didn't. It just didn't seem appropriate at 7:30 in the morning. 

3 out of 5 stars

SERVICE:  Our waitress was terrific. She was friendly, buoyant, and helpful. She told us that she usually did the cooking but on this particular morning Annie was doing the cooking and she was doing the serving. I believe that having a break from kitchen duty may have contributed to her cheerful attitude. There was also a not so young gentleman who refilled our coffee cups a couple of times and who was just as convivial as our waitress. Perhaps Annie's father? He told us laughingly that "I forgot to put in my hearing aid and take my meds this morning". We just felt fortunate that he remembered to put on pants.

 5 out of 5 stars

.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT BUTTE:

I had read somewhere that Butte was the "armpit of Montana". A shopkeeper in Bozeman told us to be careful because it was a "rough town".   After a brief visit I came away thinking that Anthony Bourdain hit the nail on the head when he said this about Butte, "It's not pretty but its deeply beautiful".

This is one fascinating city of 33,525 people. The physical appearance of this once thriving mining town is startling. Fourteen headframes, ranging from 9 to 18 stories high, still remain over mine shafts. Some of these are lit in red LED lighting at night to commemorate Butte's copper mining heritage. Much of the city is a trove of architectural treasures. Butte still contains hundreds of commercial and residential buildings that were erected in the late 1800s. A significant number of these buildings are now empty but still in great shape. About 100 of the commercial buildings have alluring "ghost signs" painted on their sides advertising the merits of such products as Wrigley Spearmint Gum and Hoyer's Magic Liniment.

Known as "The Richest Hill On Earth", Butte was the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century. Population peaked at 95,000 in 1917 when World War I accelerated the demand for copper. At that time there were 14,500 underground mine workers. Many of these miners were immigrants from various countries, but especially from Ireland. Today, Butte has the largest population of Irish Americans per capita of any city in the U.S.. You might think that St. Patrick's Day would be a big deal here and you would be correct, attracting 30,000 revelers to the festivities.

With its large miner population toiling in physically dangerous conditions, Butte has had an active labor union movement. It was not a company town. The unions often butted heads with Anaconda Copper Mining Company who had a virtual monopoly over the mines in the area. Sometimes things got violent. In 1920 company guards fired on striking miners killing one and injuring 16.

Copper mining went from being underground to open-pit in the mid-1950s and then it all pretty much ended in 1983. Over the course of Butte's history, mining operations generated an excess of $48 billion worth of ore but it came with a big price. The local environment suffered unimaginably. Butte has the largest EPA Superfund site in the U.S. The poster child of the environmental degradation is the Berkeley Pit. The Pit is a former open-pit copper mine within the Butte city limits, measuring an incredible one mile long by a half mile wide. It is 1,780 feet deep of which 1,000 feet is filled with highly toxic waste water. In 1995, 342 migratory snow geese stopped on the poisonous lake for a rest. They all ended up dead. Now The Pit has a 24 hour watch program to prevent birds landing in the water for more than a couple of hours.

 The Pit is a tourist attraction. It is about the only place in the world where you can pay to see toxic waste ($2). We went to see it but it was closed for the day. I did take a picture from outside the fence.

Perhaps Butte's most famous native son is Evel Kneivel (real name Robert Craig Kneivel). He was raised in Butte, lived in Butte after getting out of the army, and buried in Butte. For 16 years Butte hosted Evel Knievel Days in July. This year the 3 day event has been cancelled due to lack of funding.

I should also add that the night before breakfast I ate the best New York Strip steak I've ever had at Casagrande's Steakhouse, just around the block from Annie's Cafe.



BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

After breakfast we drove to Couer d'Alene, Idaho where we walked around town and up and around Tubbs Hill which offered magnificent views of the 25 mile long Lake Couer d'Alene. After settling in to our Airbnb in Post Falls we walked to Falls Park where the Spokane River is damned up and then on to dinner at the White House Grill where I certainly gained more calories than I lost getting there.

       June 17, 2018

NEXT UP: IDAHO

#45 WYOMING - Not So Great Expectations 

  
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh", said Piglet at last, "what’s the first thing you say to yourself?"

What’s for breakfast? said Pooh. "What do you say Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet

Pooh nodded thoughtfully, “It’s the same thing” he said.

  - A.A. Milne

After some extensive internet research, I had picked Tootsie's Take or Bake in Thayne as our Wyoming breakfast stop. I liked the name, it got some good reviews, and had some delicious sounding menu items. We arrived at our motel in Thayne in the early evening and set out for dinner. Thayne has exactly five restaurants, four of which were closed on this Tuesday evening. The only one that was open happened to be Tootsie's so that's where we headed to dinner.  As we approached Tootsie's door I noticed a sign that said, "Closed on Wednesdays". There went my carefully constructed breakfast plan. It probably didn't matter. I ended up jamming the button on their self-help soda machine and caused a flood of Dr. Pepper to pour all over Tootsie's floor so I probably would have been persona non grata anyways.

Yet now I was in a quandary. There were not a lot of options. I started to feel a little panicky. Directly across the street from our motel there was a cafe that opened at 6 AM on Wednesdays. On our walk back to the motel from Tootsie's (which went a little slowly because the bottom of my sneakers were sticky from the soda incident) we stopped and looked in the windows of this potential breakfast candidate. "Eh" I remarked. We looked at the menu and again I remarked "eh" but on the other hand it said breakfast was served all day which is usually a good sign. Not convinced that this cafe was the best place for us, I got on the internet back at our motel to see if any other possibilities existed. The next town up the road had a breakfast cafe but reading the comments on Yelp it appeared it also doubled as a shrine to our current president and his policies and I was in no mood for that. There was also a doughnut and coffee place that a few people raved about that might have a lot of potential.

"Are we going across the street or for doughnuts tomorrow?" asked the Healthy One. Both options had her worried.
"Let me sleep on it", I replied.
"So, what did you decide?" she asked the next morning.
"We're going to both", I replied.

  

      
WAGON WHEEL CAFE
Thayne, Wyoming

AMBIENCE:   The Wagon Wheel Cafe sits on Highway 89 just like every other commercial establishment in Thayne. It is a small restaurant with a decor leaning on the woodsy side. Of course, given its name, it has the obligatory wagon wheel light fixtures. The place was spotless and the shine off the tables almost required sunglasses. Notice the soda machine in the far corner of the room. I tried to sit as far away as possible from it.

There are about 8 seats at the counter, maybe 25 chairs at the varnished wooden tables in the middle of the room, and four and a half booths along the windowed front wall. That's correct, due to poor planning, inadequate space, or both, only half of a booth could be fitted along the wall. When we arrived no one was sitting at the counter, and no one was sitting at the tables but all four booths had occupants. We figured a half booth was better than none and settled in the corner. The picture is overexposed, but that's our romantic booth in the corner, where we sat side by side staring out the window at the front grill of a Chevy Silverado parked in the lot.

 4 out of 5 stars 

FOOD:  There was nothing real exotic on the menu. This was good old Western grub. I ordered eggs over easy, hash browns, English muffin and sausage. The eggs were beautifully cooked and fresh, the hash browns were very good, the English muffin was perfectly toasted, but it was the sausage that really shined. The patty must have weighed somewhere between a quarter and a third of a pound and was perfectly spiced, not-to-greasy, oh so satisfying pork. It was the best sausage I had tasted on the almost completed breakfast tour. 

  

 Then Healthy One received her eggs scrambled, her whole wheat toast un-buttered, and her bacon stacked high and mighty. Sitting side by side it would have been easy to swipe a bunch of bacon ("Hey, look at that cowboy getting out of the truck!") but she was very generous and allowed my pitiful countenance 5 strips. 

The bacon was jam packed with smoky flavor. It was incredibly delicious and almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. No doubt, it was the best bacon I can remember ever having and I once belonged to the Bacon of the Month Club. Wagon Wheel Cafe was meat heaven.

Having low expectations result in little disappointment. If I had the highest expectations about the food coming into breakfast at the Wagon Wheel, I would still be one satisfied customer. Having low expectations made the meal so much more special. I felt like a student who thought he had bombed the essay exam but when the test was returned it had a big "A" on top.

5 out of 5 stars



Twenty minutes later and fifteen miles up the road, we pulled into Delish Donuts & Coffee in Alpine Wyoming for our breakfast dessert. I ordered a half dozen plain mini-donuts. The woman behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy. "Is that all?", she asked increduously. I guess it is the rare person who goes in and only takes away six donuts of a size that you can easily ingest in two or three bites.

These miniature nuggets of goodness, crisp on the outside, moist and warm on the inside, were fantastic. I took a picture of four of them on the hood of our car. Two of the donuts were gobbled down somewhere between Delish's door and the car. These four never made it inside the car. Now I know why the counter woman thought I was crazy.    

COFFEE:  I was smitten with the coffee at the Wagon Wheel. It just went down real nicely. I commented to our waitress that I thought the coffee was excellent and asked who the roaster was. She sort of chuckled and said it was from Farmer Brothers. Sounded to me like a couple of brothers had set up an roasting operation in some old barn up a nearby dirt road. When I later googled Farmer Brothers to get more information I was in for a surprise. Farmer Brothers is a 1,800 employee wholesale coffee roasting operation based in Texas. This proves that I am not a coffee snob and that I can't tell the difference between a mass produced generic restaurant coffee and coffee brewed from high altitude coddled beans harvested one at a time by Guatemalan virgins.

I have a few theories on why I liked this coffee so much. One is that the coffee to water ratio was such that it resulted in an optimal strength and boldness that I could appreciate. A second theory is that Thayne has really good water. A third theory is that my taste buds were so titillated by the marvelous sausage and bacon that I could have drunk Sanka and been happy. Finally, maybe Farmer Brothers does have a good product.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

SERVICE:  Our waitress who I am guessing was also the owner, was soft spoken and business like. She came to our half booth promptly, took our orders graciously, and delivered our food without fault. I have nothing to complain about nor nothing to rave about it in terms of our service.

 4 out of 5 stars

.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THAYNE:

Thayne is tiny with only about 350 people. In sits in the southern part of the 50 mile long, 10 mile wide Star Valley near the Idaho border. The pulchritudinous valley is filled with meadows, lush green farm fields, and the Salt River and is hemmed in by two mountain ranges with peaks over 10,000 feet. Thayne itself has an elevation of 5,945. The sunny 70 degree June day we visited evoked my idea of the perfect summer climate. On the other hand, winter is said to be brutal. In December and January the average low is 4 degrees and the average high is 27 degrees. Thanye's record low is -38, recorded in 1979.

More than half of the population identifies themselves as members of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Star Valley was settled by Mormon apostles in the late 1800s. Many of these Mormons practiced polygamy and came to the Star Valley seeking refuge from prosecuting lawmen in Utah and Idaho who were enforcing the federal Edmonds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882. It is unknown how many current residents in Star Valley still practice polygamy but I would recommend that they not use the half booth at the Wagon Wheel.



BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We took a beautiful hike on the Big Elk Creek Trail just over the border in Idaho. We then spent the next two days exploring the wonders of Yellowstone National Park.

       June 13, 2018

NEXT UP: MONTANA

#44 UTAH - Scone Zone 

   
Somewhere I had read that Utahns have a real affinity for scones. I thought this a little strange given that the couple of times I bought a scone at Starbucks I thought they were rather dry with not a lot of taste. I viewed a scone as that proper uptight aunt in a family of doughnuts. I was soon to discover that a scone in Utah is unlike any scone elsewhere.

I had gotten on the internet and read some reviews about a few places in Logan that had scones on the menu. One place in particular stood out in terms of people's positive experiences with scones.  

      
ANGIE'S
Logan, Utah

AMBIENCE:   As their sign states, Angie's is "where the locals eat", and that's no lie. The place was alive and bustling on a Tuesday morning. Seated next to us was a table of six orange-vested construction workers. Across the aisle was a woman drinking coffee and on her phone frantically trying to straighten out misguided deliveries for her daughter's upcoming wedding. Next to her, four paramedics were downing omelets. Families with multiple children were everywhere. People stopped by the tables of others to say hello and chat a little. This is an immensely popular, genuine community restaurant. The owner has stated that he has customers that come to eat three meals a day.

An Afghani immigrant, Saboor Sahely, opened Angie's for business in 1983. This gentleman started as a dishwasher at the same site but at that time it was a Sambo's. (If you're over 50, you should remember Sambo's, that oh-so-racially-insensitive restaurant with 1,117 locations in 47 states and that went bankrupt in 1983). He then got a $10,000 loan to buy the building and named the restaurant after his two year old daughter. Sahely's success has made him into a generous philanthropist. For example, on Thanksgiving, the restaurant serves a free traditional Thanksgiving dinner to anyone who shows up, typically 1,200 to 1,300 locals.

Angie's is by far the largest restaurant we have eaten breakfast at on the tour. Upon entering through the door, I noticed a large room to the right lined with booths surrounding about 15 tables in the middle. Most of the seats were filled. We were seated in the front room which mostly contained booths and a long counter with at least 15 chairs in a row. On this morning, most of the stools were occupied by men who seemed so comfortable that they were my likely candidates of those who might eat all three meals of their meals in one day at Angie's.

Logan is predominately Mormon and Mormons, on average, have large families. Angie's has made the necessary preparations.

 4 1/2 out of 5 stars 

FOOD:  The Healthy One was stunned when I gave my order to our server. "Are you okay?" she asked after I ordered yogurt, granola, bananas, and a scone. I said I felt fine but that I had read that the scones were really huge. I didn't want to over do it. 

The "healthy stuff" was brought to the table first. It was somewhat disappointing, reminding me of those inclusive breakfasts at a Quality Inn or Ramada. I guess I was expecting something more "home made" except for the bananas of course. 

 Then the scone arrived.

It was huge, but that was no scone. It was the fried bread of my youth, purchased at the local fair or sporting event concession stand. Except this fried bread wasn't laden with powdered sugar, the dusty  white treat that usually got all over your T-shirt making you look like you just returned from a cocaine frenzied Hollywood party.

It turns out that the Utah or Mormon scone is unique to Utah. The scone as I know it and the rest of the universe knows it, is baked quick bread cut into various shapes (e.g.,wedges, diamonds, rounds) and that originated a long time ago in Scotland. This free form piece of bread dough fried in oil covering my plate has always been a popular part of Mormon food culture. Some think that it might have been brought back by Mormon missionaries from Navajo communities because of its similarities to Native American fry bread. Others think that it originated on the Great Plains with the Mormon "exodus" because it provided high calorie, high energy, food that didn't spoil.

Regardless of how it originated it became known as a scone in Utah sometime during the 1960s. My thorough internet research revealed no real reason why fried bread became known as scones only in Utah. It also raises the question of what Utahns call those wedge shaped baked breads that are sold at Starbucks. Maybe, the traditional scone is not even sold in Utah. I never checked.   

I thought my Utah scone was pretty bland. Even slathering it with the accompanying honey butter didn't turn my taste buds on. I decided that some fresh honey poured over it would be the perfect way to kick up the taste. This was the Beehive State wasn't it? So I asked for some honey and it was promptly delivered.

Smuckers??   Noooooooooo!


The Healthy One had a three egg vegetarian omelet with sauteed onions, mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and topped with avocados. It came with hash browns and toast. She thought it very tasty.

   

Looking around at other tables, it appears that you get a lot of food for a reasonable price and that may be the number one reason why Angie's is so popular.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

    

COFFEE:  Given that Mormons don't drink coffee I wasn't expecting much and what I got was what I expected. The coffee was so-so with little boldness.

3 out of 5 stars

SERVICE:  I learned that Angie's has between 40 and 45 full-time employees. A number of them came to our table. One took our order, another delivered our food, another checked up on us and asked if there was anything we needed (how about some decent honey young man?) and others came by with coffee refills. They were all young, clean cut, polite, and very pleasant.

 4 out of 5 stars

.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT LOGAN:

Logan is located in the Cache Valley of northern Utah. It was originally the hunting grounds of the Shoshone tribe. The town was founded in 1859 by settlers sent by Brigham Young to build a fort and was named after Ephraim Logan, an early fur trapper.

Today, Logan has a population of approximately 50,000. It is home to Utah State (enrollment 23,000) which is the city's largest employer. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) dominates the city's character. Seventy-five percent of the population are LDS members, compared to 60% for Utah as a whole.

Much of Logan is laid out according to Joseph Smith's vision of what a spiritual utopia should look like. Smith called his vision the Plat for the City of Zion. The plat provided details on such things as the width of the roads, the size of the blocks, the setback of homes, and the placement of religious and civic buildings. Many streets in Logan are 132 feet wide which was stipulated in the plat. It would take the chicken a good amount of time to cross that wide of a road. Blocks are 10 acres in size, that's 660 feet on each side. In other words it's two football fields from one intersection to the next. The coordinate-like naming of the streets can be infuriating to a stranger. Here is an example of eight actual street names in Logan:

W 800 N St.
E 800 N St.
N 800 E St.
S 800 W St.
N 800 W St.
S 800 E St.
W 800 S St.
E 800 S St.

Be very careful when you enter an address into Google maps.


BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We did a 5 mile hike along the Logan River in the lower section of the stunning Logan Canyon.We then drove further up Logan Canyon and hiked around Tony Grove Lake. The Golden Asters were in full bloom.

       June 12, 2018

NEXT UP: WYOMING

#43 NEVADA - Going Green in Buckaroo Country  

There are not a lot of roads or towns in northern Nevada. While driving through states we usually like to stay off the Interstates and take the two lane highways. The late Charles Kuralt once said, "Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything." We like to drive through the small towns and the landscapes that shape the turns in the road and see things. That wouldn't work in this state so we zipped east along I-80 and stopped over in Elko just like a lot of motorists do when travelling between Salt Lake City and Reno.     

    
McAdoo's
Elko, Nevada

AMBIENCE:   McAdoo's can be found about a half of a block off the main highway that runs  through town. Next door to McAdoo's at Cowboy Joe's you get a latte or espresso. And next to Cowboy Joe's is the Stray Dog Pub and Cafe where you can you get a designer cocktail and a Mediterranean pizza. Some people in this city with a deep cowboy and mining tradition refer to it as "Yuppie Row". You're just as apt to find a Mercedes-Benz parked out front as a Chevy Silverado.

McAdoo's is relatively new, having been opened by a young couple in 2012. The inside of the cafe has an appealing design. It looks like a food establishment that could easily be transplanted without any modifications to the upper east side of Manhattan. It is a small space with tables set close together. In one corner is found the "bar" with four chools (my term for a combination chair and stool), fancy hanging lights, and fresh flowers adorning the counter.

There is a lot of artwork on the wall, exposed brick, and large front windows that allow ample light into the room. I was particularly taken with a painted sign on the wall that said, "TODAY I WILL BE HAPPIER THAN A BIRD WITH A FRENCH FRY".  The decor of the room, the early morning sunlight, and the hipster music playing in the background all contributed to that french fry feeling.

I am lowering my ambience rating by a half point because we were sitting at one of those tables that wobble. Wobbly tables are not an uncommon occurrence in our breakfast adventures and it irks me to no end. I urge all proprietors to periodically check that their tables are level. Stop the wobble!!

 4 1/2 out of 5 stars 

FOOD:  The menu was surprisingly pricey and upscale with 7 menu items that emphasized fresh and healthy ingredients. There are also pancakes and french toast for the random cowboy who might wander in.

I journeyed way outside my comfort zone and ordered an open-face Canadian bacon and egg sandwich with tomatoes, arugula tossed with a shallot vinaigrette, and shaved parmesan on toasted ciabatta. It came with "house-made" roasted potatoes.   

Wow. There was more green than I ever saw growing on the ground during the entire 6 1/2 hour drive from California. This looked like the cardiologist's answer to the the "leaning tower of lard" I had for my New Hampshire breakfast. Basically this was bacon and eggs disguised as a salad.

I'm not the biggest fan of arugula but I figured the peppery taste would complement the egg.  Due to the large quantity of arugula, the greens instead dominated the egg as well as the bacon. I think a little less arugula would have worked much better. Nevertheless, it was a good tasting salad and much more nutritional than that bird's french fry. The roasted potatoes were decent and appeared to be flecked with some sort of bread crumbs which were almost tasteless but possibly healthy.

The Healthy One breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the menu. Given the western feel of the town, I think she was expecting bull testicle omelets or such. She ordered the quiche special that contained roasted veggies and dill havarti. She eschewed the  roasted potatoes and requested two pancakes which came with lemon syrup and the requisite mega-blob of butter.

She found both the quiche and the pancakes to be delicious. I got to taste the pancakes and immediately regretted choosing the potatoes as my side.

4 out of 5 stars

    

COFFEE:  I'm a big fan of glass coffee mugs so I was gratified when the coffee arrived at the table in such a mug. The reason for my infatuation is that I derive joy from pouring the white cream into the mug and watching it swirl through the black coffee. I guess I'm easily entertained but I find it as cool as a lava lamp.

The freshly roasted coffee was a step above your average cup. I wonder if McAdoo's was supplied by their next door neighbor, the highly regarded Cowboy Joe's.

4 out of 5 stars

SERVICE:  Our server named Connie took good care of us which was easy to do since there was only one other customer in the place. She was high energy and chatty and made sure our coffee was refreshed and our needs were met.


 5 out of 5 stars

.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT ELKO:

The famous radio and television newscaster, Lowell Thomas once called Elko "the last real cowtown in the American west". That was more than 60 years ago and things have changed somewhat. Due to a boom in gold mining, Elko has become a bustling little city of over 18,000 people with a convention center, museums, and upscale restaurants. But the buckaroo (the locally preferred term for cowboy) culture stills survives in a big way. Large cattle ranches are common in Northern Nevada and Elko is the only place where the buckaroos came come and shop, drink, and gamble.

Elko sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet and offers a beautiful panoramic view to the south of the Ruby Mountains that rise to an elevation of 11,387 feet. It is the largest city on I-80 between Salt Lake City and Reno which helps explain its 35 hotels and motels, 6 casinos, numerous restaurants, and even some legal bordellos. The city hosts a couple of large events when all these hotels and motels sell out : The Cowboy Poetry Gathering held every January and the Basque Festival in July.

Elko was born as a railroad town in 1868. One curious remnant of the Western Pacific train presence is a immense five block parking lot smack in the middle of the downtown area. This is where the main train switching station was located before it moved in the 1980s.

The State of Nevada produces more gold than all but four countries. Much of that gold is mined in the Elko area. There was a major gold boom in the mid-1980s. In one 12 month period beginning in July, 1986, Elko's population grew by 21%. The gold boom eventually went bust in the late 1990s but a new gold boom starting in 2009 continues to fuel Elko's economy.



BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

After breakfast we walked down to the Humbolt River and strolled up and down a paved bike path. We then drove to Logan Utah where we did an extensive 5 mile stroll through neighborhoods and the campus of Utah State University.

       June 11, 2018

NEXT UP: UTAH

#42 CALIFORNIA - Where Am I?

   
Here's  a geography trivia question:  Name the city with a population of more than 2,500 that sits in the most northeastern part of California. 

Answer: Alturas

Never heard of it? Neither had I. If you put someone down in the middle of Alturas and told him he was in the State of California he would probably look at you like you were crazy. No traffic. No surfers. No vineyards. No movie stars. No cable cars. No redwoods. No almond trees. No avocados. Not much of anything in fact except pickup trucks and bovines.

We were trying to get from Oregon to Nevada and points east by minimizing our driving miles and also stopping for breakfast in California. Cutting through Northeastern California was the logical solution. I had identified a cafe that was open on Sunday morning. In fact, it may have been the only place open for breakfast in northeastern California on a Sunday morning.


       
Auction Yard Cafe
Alturas, California

AMBIENCE:   The Auction Yard Cafe sits just outside of Alturas proper on the main highway going into town. Google maps told us "your destination is on the left". "No it isn't", I said to myself because this is what I saw on my left.

The old dilapidated, seemingly abandoned building had definitely seen better days and looked like it wouldn't survive a windy day let alone be the home to an eating establishment. I was wrong on both counts. The Modoc Auction Yard operates every Saturday selling cattle and at the end of the long building we discovered what was to be our breakfast destination.

 























Located high in the sky, a gigantic Hereford was leaning over the top of the building, looking like it was ready to leap into the dirt parking lot. Below the giant heifer, a ramshackle sign that said "Auction Cafe" with the word "Yard" peeled off clued us in to where we could find the front door of the cafe.

It was a chilly morning. The car thermometer registered 47 degrees. We entered the cafe where the temperature inside felt like it was oh, about 46 degrees. Some patrons were bundled up and others looked comfortable in short sleeve shirts. The room was small and had what you might call rustic charm with about seven tables and a counter with four stools. The place was very clean but I wasn't quite sure about its structural viability. I figured I was going to be eating my meal as fast as possible to finish before my food got cold and/or the room collapsed.

There was an open kitchen visible under a large sign that said "MOM'S KITCHEN". You could see a woman back there doing all the cooking solo. I'm guessing she was Mom. The room was filled to its capacity of about 18 customers by the time we had finished our breakfast. Mom had her work cut out for her.

 4 out of 5 stars 

FOOD:  The menu was straightforward: eggs, meat, pancakes, and potatoes. I ordered the "Country Connection" which included three pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausage.

The pancakes were quite tasty. (By the way, I've run into this phenomenon in quite a few other breakfast establishments, but when ordering pancakes or biscuits why do they give you enough butter to grease a locomotive?)  The sausage was also very good but the scrambled eggs were little bit too overcooked for my taste.

The odds of the Healthy One finding granola, yogurt, avocado toast, or anything remotely healthy on the menu were about as great as the odds of us retiring to this town. Remember, this cafe is housed in a building that auctions off cattle.

Having little choice, she opted for bacon, eggs, hash browns and a small biscuit (not pictured). She actually thought it was pretty good.

   

4 out of 5 stars

    

COFFEE:  The coffee was hot which was much appreciated. Other than that, it tasted pretty institutional.

3 out of 5 stars

SERVICE:  Our server was a woman with a straightforward personality dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I felt that she was making a statement with the shirt by having it imply that it was not cold in the room so don't you dare complain. She did exude some friendliness but was mostly all business, maybe because we were probably the only non-locals in the room.


 4 out of 5 stars

.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT ALTURAS:

Alturas, population 2,800, is the hub of just about everything in Northeastern California. The name is Spanish for "Valley On Top of a Mountain".  The town is the governmental seat of Modoc County which has a population density of two people per square mile. Compare this to San Francisco County which has a population density of about 17,500 people per square mile.

Agriculture has long been the mainstay of the area with alfalfa being the biggest cash crop and cattle ranching a major economic activity. Cattle and sheep outnumber people by seven to one. Logging at one time was an important economic catalyst but has diminished to a wisp of what it once was. The federal government owns 73% of the land in the county. This has set up an almost inevitable conflict between locals and Washington. With so little private land available, ranchers, loggers, and others have to negotiate deals with the federal government. 

Not surprisingly, the region is very politically conservative. In the most recent presidential election, Trump received 71.8% of the vote in Modoc County versus 32.8% in California as a whole.

Alturas has a stagnant economy and a declining population. Almost 20% of the population live in poverty. Young people leave for college and don't come back. The decline in the logging industry has much to do with the economic miasma.

One radical economic development strategy, which has a large amount of support, is for the town and county to secede from California. Both Modoc County and Siskiyou County which borders on the west have passed formal declarations to secede from California and form a new state called Jefferson. This break away idea has been around since the 1940s but has recently gained momentum in the Trump era. The declarations assert that state lawmakers are ignoring the counties' interests. Many feel that the State of Jefferson is the answer to revive logging, preserve ranching, protect water rights, and lure new businesses.

Another, more rational strategy, is to trumpet the natural wonders of the area as a way to bump up retirement relocation and tourism. A local real estate company promotes the county as a "giant playground" and shows a photo on their website of an attractive woman with a fishing pole clamped in her mouth while holding a foot long trout. How can anyone resist that?

Photo credit: Stevenson Realty Auction Services and Property Management


BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We did a short jaunt up and down the main street of Alturas including wandering through the beautifully restored Niles Hotel and then journeyed to Winnemucca, Nevada where we hiked a couple of trails in the Water Canyon area high above the city.

       June 10, 2018

NEXT UP: NEVADA