Thursday, August 12, 2004
I’m So Stupid-Or- Grab Good Food While You Can
08/12/04
I have real trouble with town food. Mostly it's the sugar, etc., that's in everything. It can catapult me into an awful mood over the littlest thing.
Plus, I love good food. So, this trip has been hard, and town food, that oh-so-looked-forward-to treat and reward has been nothing but maneuvering and compromising. I don't WANT to eat a burger and fries when I go into a place, but sometimes it's the only thing I can have and be sure about what I'm getting.
So, here in Yellowstone National Park, there was a chance for better food, maybe even some non-canned vegetables and some non-iceberg lettuce salads. After all, we'd just entered a new state, and Montana/Idaho had been so bad, I figured things had got to be looking up.
We were even sitting for lunch at a table in the restaurant that held the promise of the first good meal on the trail, the first good meal in two months.
And for some reason, we left to go to the cafeteria. I may have been part of that decision, but I was hungry and not thinking clearly.
On the way out, I said that I'd like to come back to the restaurant for dinner, and the matter seemed settled.
I had to throw out my first lunch at the cafeteria. It was horrible, and it was sweet when it shouldn't have been sweet. The second meal had enough sugar to be able to extract a box of Captain Crunch.
Well, a town day being what it can be, soon it was time for dinner. We wandered, packs in tow, over to the good dinner restaurant only to find that they were booked until 10PM. I moderated my disappointment with the thought that at least we could eat at the second-best restaurant in the area. The 30 minute wait was too much now that the evening was getting on, and we had 4 miles to hike to get to our site tonight.
I still held hope that a place called The Grill might provide an unexpected surprise and offer some really great food. My hopes slid into the recesses of my bowels when I had the door halfway open and saw a tray full of fries and burgers with In-and-Out-looking customers pushing themselves into fixed seating.
I gave up. My first thought was that I was going to take the time necessary to get a good meal and that Spur and Apple Pie should keep to the schedule they want: That I would meet them at the campsite. They began to look for solutions to keep us together. My next solution was to let them go where they wanted for dinner, and I'd just have a trail dinner. They coaxed me out of that solution by showing they cared enough to try to find something that worked for us all.
I agreed to return to the cafeteria. Since the menu had not likely changed, I began to concoct a probable meal: two sides of sautéed vegetables, a side of shredded chicken, a Greek salad, and a side of rice.
The menu was the same, and I got the meal, which cost nearly $14. I was in a foul mood from lunch while all this was happening. I know it's best to wait these moods out. They pass at some point.
