2015 Trek - Blog #7 - June 14 - , Glacier National Park - Sibling Reunion

At the Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish, Montana, there’s a sign out front that reads:
     “HUNGRY?  WE WILL FEED YOU!
          THIRSTY?  WE WILL GIVE YOU BEER!
               LONELY?   WE WILL GIVE YOU BEER!”
     I think I’m going to like this state.

And of course, by “this state,” I mean Montana, Land of the Big Sky.  It now becomes state #34 in which AB1 will have camped.  And this week’s stop is at Glacier National Park (GNP) which is poised to usher in its 100-millionth visitor while we’re here.  This milestone comes on the heels of last year’s (2014) record-setting attendance.  We’re trying to figure out how to be that 100-millionth visitor to GNP, because if you are, you’re set for life.  The park gives you … I say, GIVES you … a week’s supply of Don Alverzo's tweezers if you’re lucky #100,000,000.
     I’ve got my fingers crossed.
     GNP is huge; it has 27 glaciers and 762 lakes.  In fact, it’s a one-million acre national park and has some of the best scenery in the USA.
        Okay, it’s now Sunday, June 14.  We arrived yesterday at the lovely West Glacier KOA campground.  Today is not only “Flag Day,” celebrated with appropriate red-white-and-blue décor, but also the birthdays of Diedre’s big brother Doug (6/14) and little brother Remy (5/31) .  I bring this up because our trip to GNP is also slated to be the Diederich clan’s 11th annual family reunion.
     Over the years, the usual suspects have been Diedre Kaye’s mom, Barty Diederich, the aforementioned big brother Doug Diederich and wife Linda, big sister Jeanie McIver and husband Mac, and younger brother Remy Diederich and wife Lisa.  It’s funny that almost everybody else had their names changed to “Diederich” when, as I so aptly figured, the family name is “Kaye.”  Oh well, to each his own.
        The reunions started upon the death of Diedre’s father, Fritz.  He was a good guy, but he couldn’t handle all his children, once grown, visiting at the same time.  It was too much for him, so each offspring came to see him and Barty individually.

Cousins Christy & Doug Spiern-Smith joined us for breakfast in 2011

 Barty, on the other hand, loved having as many of the family members as possible around, so when she became a widow, the reunions started.  These annual events began in 2004; the direction of each yearly get-together rotated amongst the four offspring from oldest to youngest.  The director, along with their spouse, was given the responsibility of choosing dates and the location for their year’s four-day reunion.  Through 2011, the nine of us had met all over the country: Wisconsin, Colorado, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida. 

 Then, our numbers cut back to six: in 2012, our beloved Barty passed away, and soon after, Mac’s health no longer allowed him and Jeanie to travel.  But shortly before Barty’s passing, she made the kids promise that the reunions would continue.  It meant so much to her that we all agreed.  So during the last three years, the six of us have kept the tradition going, meeting up in Michigan, Utah, and this year in our northwestern most location, GNP.
        Our cats were eagerly awaiting the arrival of both Doug and Remy; they especially love to torture the brothers who are allergic to cats.

This year’s reunion got its start with a Copper River salmon dinner at the fine three-bedroom cabin Doug and Remy rented near our RV park.  The big news at dinner that night was the announcement of the next two reunions’ locations: Banff, Canada, in 2016 and an Alaskan cruise in 2017.  We can hardly wait!
    

 The reunion got its vigorous itinerary started the next morning with a car trip into GNP and up the “Going to the Sun Road,” acclaimed as one of the outstanding scenic roadways in the country.  It has been voted on by the people of Montana as their state’s most outstanding feature.
     The GTTSR was a tight drive with narrow switch-back trails that was built by CCC workers during the depression.

Halfway up the road is “Logan’s Pass” which is one of the sheerest slopes in the country to cross the Continental Divide.  Only mountain goats and bighorn sheep climbing around up there.
     The road is normally 50 miles long extending all the way across the park, but because of snow (yes, even in mid-June, they’ve got snow up there) the road was closed at the halfway point as was the Logan’s Pass Lodge.  Still, we were able to get a little mountain hiking in there. 
 We took some great photos on the way down the mountain.  At a place called “Haystack Creek,” the water was really tumbling down and through a viaduct.  

By the time we got back to the RV park, I was ready for one of my now common “Casey Replacement Naps,” so named for my overly gabby cat Casey who wakes me several times each night on the road to discuss politics, the weather, and debates over which is better, salmon snacks or mouse bites.  Only his darned cuteness keeps him from being clan-destinely strangled.
   

 Tuesday we got into hiking mode by doing the non-GNP “Whitefish Trail” outside of the city by the same name.  The incline was more than my plucky-yet-bypassed-surgically heart wanted to deal with, so I spent the time walking the parking lot and contemplating my navel.
     The rest of the day was spent in Whitefish as Diedre led her followers on discovery tours of two of her big three favorites: a brewery and a distillery (a “winery” being the 3rd).  Doug and I, using better sense, toured the local ice cream shop where I was suitably satisfied with their sugar-free offerings.  The evening was topped off with a wonderful dinner back at the cabin, and I even lucked out by being able to watch the final game of the NBA basketball championship won by the Golden State Warriors (their first title in about 40 years) under the leadership of the baby-faced assassin, long-range gunner Steph Curry.  He’ll definitely be one to watch for the next 5-10 years.
     Wednesday was our heavy-duty hiking day.  Before we left, we debated about whether or not we should unwrap the recently purchased “bear spray,” guaranteed to dissuade the angriest of bears, or at least annoy them greatly.  The spray cost $33.95, so one school of thought was that if we didn’t use it, we could get our money back provided it was still sealed.  Smarter brains than mine, however, offered that if a bear does approach, he’s probably not going to be gentlemanly enough to wait for us to unwrap the nearly-impossible-to-unseal bear spray container, thus causing havoc and consternation that would be sure to ruin our day.
        The “unseal” votes had their way.
     In GNP, we went up the Avalanche Creek Trail all the way to Avalanche Lake at the foot of Avalanche Falls (It dawned on me about halfway up that any trail with “avalanche” in its name, especially not once, not twice, but THREE times, well, that’s probably not a great trail in which to entrust your vital signs.  It would be like having a picnic in a place called “The Field of Angry Bees”).  
The trail was a sea of trees, dead and otherwise, that made the landscape look like a giant forest of Tinker Toys (you kids will probably have to Google that one).
    
 Passing people on the hike, I conscious-ly mixed my “hellos” with “heys,” “hi’s” and “howdys.”  I didn’t want the strangers passing us by to think I was too predictable.  But the deer we met up with gave me “the raspberry” for failing to offer him appropriate greetings.
     The day’s round-trip to the falls ended up being a 5.9-mile hike.  My knobby legs felt every inch of it.  My Grand-Canyon-hiking wife, however, was ready to go jogging and then maybe have at a game of handball.  Nobody really likes her any more .
   

 Recovering from the previous day’s “Bataan Death Hike,” we mostly viewed the east side of GNP contentedly from the car.  We started the day off with breakfast at one of the historic “Izaak Walton Hotels” made so popular around the turn of the century (20th, not 21st).  This place even had some fun, refurbished old railroad cars that were turned into hotel rooms.
     We then took limited walks to a few nearby falls.  First we checked out Running Eagle Falls. 

Then our 2nd mini-hike of the day took us to Appistoki Falls.  The scenery more than made up for the collective aches and pains in our bones.  We closed out the day with a fine pizza dinner and a roaring bonfire back at the RV campground.  Reunion XI was almost over.
     Friday morning, Diedre bravely staged a one-woman-reunion-pancake-campfire breakfast.  The highlight of said breakfast was her making the Diederich family favorite, “pecan-caramel-cinnamon rolls.”  They were an extreme hit with everyone, even with me and my “Okay, I guess you can have one bite, sugar-boy” serving.  It sent everyone on their way home with big smiles and high hopes for “Kaye … “  I mean … “DIEDERICH Reunion XII.”
     And you we’ll see at the next blog … same Bat-time… same Bat-channel!

--------------------------------------
Diedre here - for those of you like me, who have never heard a reference to Don Alverzo's tweezers - this is where it comes from...a memory test that Alexx first heard on the Jerry Lewis show in the early 60's.  
"One hen
Two ducks
Three squawking geese
Four corpulent porpoises
Five globular lobsters
Six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers
Seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array
Eight brass monkeys fom the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt
Nine apathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a direct propensity towards procrastination and sloth
Ten lyrical, spherical denizens of the deep who haul, stall and crawl around corners under quo, quivey and quay all at the same time without bumping into each other"

Chocolate flourless cake for the birthday boys.

Fruit infused Tequila - "fermented fruit"

One of my joys of the Diederich sibling reunions is being able to cook foods that I know my family loves.  Since it was Alexx and my turn to host this year I did a few of our favorite recipes that will appear in the long awaited (and still in process) cookbook that is diabetic friendly and a few forbidden ones (rhubarb pie and caramel-pecan cinnamon rolls.)  I also made a fruit infused tequila that was a hit at the cousin reunion in Los Angeles but didn't go over so well at this gathering.  Remy dubbed it a "fermented fruit" drink, so I ended up drinking most of it and eating the soaked fruit for quite some time!  I'll try to get these recipes posted on my "DiedreCooksLoCarb.blogspot.com" for those interested.