Text 16262, 151 rader
Skriven 2011-10-02 21:40:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Re-post trip 1, 2 and 3
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WTF happened there?

This was our longest road trip in years: Yellowknife, to Hay River
(work related), Peace River (where Ray and Neekha live), a ranch
near Clinton in B.c.'s Cariboo country (home of a high school
friend), Whistler (Roslind's conference and work shops), Fort
McMurray (where Raine, Lexi and Charlee are) via Jasper, Edmonton
and Athabaska, Edmonton again (dental work and visit Roslind's mom)
and then home.

I had most of our meals planned out long before we hit the road,
using on-line reviews from trip advisor and chow hounds etc. to
guide me. Armed with a list of the 10 top rated Whistler restaurants
in the mid price range we had a lot of good meals, one spectacular
one and only one dud which was actually an unplanned one in Kamloops
on the way back.

We did get stymied twice finding a Mexican place but made up for it
later in Edmonton. We also missed out on the Alta Bistro
(www.altabistro.com) which was rated the second best spot in
Whistler overall and the only one in the top 5 that was mid price
rather than very high end. We went there for lunch the second last
day to discover it was only open from 5 PM onwards, went that night
to find out it had been booked for a private party and we couldn't
go back the last night we were there as Roslind's seminar group was
having a final dinner at the convention centre with the spouses
invited.

The trip started off Friday with a very bizarre breakfast of mixed
clean-out-the fridge leftovers including Senate bean soup, re-armed
stir fried bok choy and microwaved "grilled" Havarti cheese
sandwiches made with somewhat stale toasted hamburger buns.

Lunch, as always, in Port Providence on the bank of the Mackenzie
River was at the Big River truck stop where I had a bison burger
with chili fries and Roslind had a perogi and sausage platter. Plain
but good and very filling trucker's fare. Somewhat lacking in
vegetables but we certainly made up for that later in the organic,
locavore, health food, sprouts and salad ridden places in Whistler.

Along the way we stopped at an old gravel pit that we remembered as
being good for berry picking where we quickly picked a quart of
lingon berries, a pint of rose hips and a cup of juniper berries
which we dehydrated gradually in little spurts whenever we had
access to an oven.

We arrived in Hay River just in time for a birthday supper at
Roslind's sister's place, thrown for our oldest niece, featuring
roast beef, unfortunately very well done >:-< but the gravy for the
mashed potatoes was good.

For breakfast Saturday we had convenience store takeout coffee as my
SIL only had instant and we politely gave it a pass.

We lunched (as usual) at High Level's newest and best restaurant
situated in its newest and best hotel, a Best Western owned by the
people who name all their motels after famous Las Vegas hotels.
This one is the Mirage and joins the family group of the Stardust,
the Flamingo and the Sahara. Quirky, silly. High Level's claim to
fame is as a truck stop half way between Edmonton and Yellowknife
and these guys have a lock on business as they own 4 of the 6 motels
and restaurants along the highway strip.

(www.bestwesternhighlevel.com/Lounge.html and
www.bestwesternhighlevel.com/Dining_Menu_2010.pdf)

The chef is large, jovial and French, from a small town between Nice
and Toulon, near enough to the Italian border that he was quite
proud of his pasta dishes. On quiet days he loves to visit the front
end and chat with the customers. He convinced Roslind to try his
sausage, clam, sun-dried tomato linguini lunch special while I held
out for a more mundane mushroom and Swiss burger with a salad in
lieu of fries. Both were excellent. He also remembered Lexi and
Charlee being there in July as they had made quite an impression on
him. They refused to order from the kid's menu and split an order of
lamb shanks in a red wine sauce which surprised him both when they
ordered it and later when they said they liked it.

Supper was in Peace River with Ray and Neekha. Ray killed a chicken
and they produced a most excellent soup made from a long stewed old
laying hen, followed by moose (shot within a few hundred feet of the
house) steaks with Back Eddy steak seasoning and lots of fresh
garden vegetables including kohlrabi and a beet and parsnip mixture
that was quite tasty although the pink parsnips looked odd. We also
had bannock made by Ray's new girlfriend's three small kids, under
Roslind's guidance.

Sunday morning we had a big breakfast of Neekha's chickens' super
fresh eggs and grilled Havarti (from my place and pulled out of our
cooler) and leftover bannocks before hitting the road.

Our lunch stop was in little Chetwynd, B.C. which I had not
researched beforehand. On a hunch we went to a Chinese place on Main
street, one of two in town. We chose the shabbier one without a
liquor licence. And that turned out well. The menu was old and
battered with hand scribbled price changes and featured such
Canadian-Chinese standards as eggrolls, chop suey and chow mein
with a slightly newer insert that offered more trendy dishes. We
chose and shared some pretty reasonable Sichuan shrimp and General
Tso's chicken. Both were a bit on the mild side but that suited
Roslind just fine and I was able to get a little bowl of fermented
chile paste for mine.

By supper time we were in Prince George and stopped at an Earl's.
They started with a guy named Earl who had a burger joint named
Earl's White Spot (on Whyte Ave in Edmonton) and a Tex-Mex place in
Calgary called Earl's Tin Palace back in the 50's but today it is
now a western Canadian chain of about 50 places, with a few more in
the western states as well and a varied casual menu. They have been
voted Calgary and Edmonton's best casual restaurants annually for at
least a decade (and a nephew of mine cooks at one in E-town).

www.earls.ca/about-us/our-history
www.earls.ca/food-menu

The one in PG was no disappointment. I had a good Caesar salad
topped with Cajun spiced blackened chicken breast and Roslind
selected a dill and yogurt sauced salmon (very good, very fresh
salmon as it should be, as we were now in salmon country.) The drink
specials of the day were $4.50 Caesars and raspberry Mojitos so I
had a spicy Caesar with my spicy Caesar while Roslind had her first
ever raspberry Mojito. She liked it so much I had to go out and buy
rum, limes, raspberries and fresh mint for our cooler!

Late in the evening we arrived in Clinton, high up in the (sic)
Cariboo country and spent the night at a friend's place. He is a
recently retired Air Canada flight attendant with a hankering for
country life so he bought and renovated a dilapidated A-frame cabin
in the mountains on 10 acres, with a big garden, a pasture for two
horses and room for a couple of dogs to roam around freely. He also
has a part time job as a trail guide and riding instructor for
tourists at an old gold rush stagecoach museum in nearby Cache
Creek. A pretty cool way to make a little extra money when you're
retired.

We had a few drinks and then a wonderful spicy salmon dip with
lavash washed down with delightfully minerally spring fed creek
water for a late snack.



Cheers

YK Jim


... Geeky Road Trip Game: NASCAR Driver and Pit Crew RPG

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