Playing With Our Food

It's a hike I always wanted to make. I'd driven by it many times. I reported on it back in my TV days . But to be there in person where it happened more than a century earlier was a little surreal. To most people, Wallace is just a dot on the map in the Idaho Panhandle. Drivers just blow right by it, or should I say over it, on Interstate 90. For trivia buffs, Wallace was the final town along I-90 that still had a traffic light. Given the town's history, locals did not want progress in the form of a new, wider interstate to wipe out any of its structures so it successfully filed to have the entire town declared an historic site. As a result, I-90 is  now elevated on cement pylons with all the buildings below and around it permanently preserved. But, that's not the history I referred to. Lori and I, along with our monthly-dinner double-date-friends Doug and Shellie, planned an overnighter to Wallace to enjoy the town's vibe and eventually hike the Pulaski Tunnel Trai...

To be honest, it was their turn. Most of Lori's family lives in Utah so when we gather, that's where we go. For two of the family members, Lori and her brother Jon, we have a long drive or flight to get there. Having said that, we have visited Jon, Lisa and their family a couple of times over the decades in Tennessee. They had not made it to Montana, granted an even farther journey for them, but when they finally did, we took advantage. They needed to experience a real Montana adventure so we took them 90 miles west of home to the Route of the Hiawatha Scenic Bike Trail.  I had ridden the trail three or four different times previously. On one outing, I took Lori and a camera there during my TV days where I shot, edited and produced a story about it. (See the video below to learn about the trail's amazing history.) My most recent visits were to serve as a volunteer for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. That's a pretty cool  story as well, but is one for another day. I ...

Family time, friends and food. Yes indeed, we had a great time in the Salt Lake Valley during a week-long visit. In addition to spending time with Lori, my daughters, their husbands and their combined six fun-loving kids/cousins, I also got to hook up with a couple of longtime friends with ties from the other side of the world that date back more than four decades. John Stabler and I became friends when we entered the Utah Missionary Training Center. We quickly found out we had a lot in common and became friends before leaving the U.S. together with other missionaries in 1982 for southern Italy and Sicily to serve a year and a half in the Italy Catania Mission. And when we finished our service, we capped off our time abroad by touring Europe for a couple of weeks in northern Italy, Austria, Germany and France. After some post-mission racquetball as BYU students, our encounters were few and far between over the years, so it was great to catch up for an extended lunch. John suggested we ...