The Misadventures of J. and Beau - Day 3: Swing, Fall!

The next day we spent a little bit of time at the lake, which was blessedly free of the obnoxious crowd. The water was nice and cool and it was a beautiful day. After having a nice pancake and egg breakfast (with a somewhat less-impressive campfire), and washing off a bit in the scenic water pump, we packed up our dust-covered Honda and were off again. This time we headed to Libby, the nearest town. I was curious about Libby, since Beau had mentioned it a few times. But driving into it was a bit of a disappointment -- the town is just depressed - run-down, dusty businesses with the paint chipping - you can't quite tell if they're open for business or closed for good. It did proudly proclaim itself the "City of Eagles," fortified by the prominent featuring of various GINORMOUS raptors lunging and diving from overhead signs and posts. I couldn't figure out if I thought it was cool or totally hideous.

Water pump at Howard Lake

Howard Lake on Sunday Morning.

From there we headed to the duel tourist attraction of the Kootenai Falls and the Swinging Bridge, located on the side of the road - blink and you'll miss the sharp turnoff - just outside Libby. Since I have no cute or unlucky story this time around, but the photos are pretty cool, I'll let the photos do the talking. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to tweak them in Photoshop, but they're still pretty pretty.

Kootenai River

Somewhat Scary but fun Swinging bridge. It doesn't exactly feel stable when you're walking across it, but I guess that's part of the point.

Me pretending I was in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But cool like Indy, not stupid like Willie.

Beau

Well, there was one other thing...on the way back, and entering Kalispell, I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted a Sizzler to my right! I thought they had gone extinct years back! The only time I'd seen one in the past several years was in Singapore, of all places. I had eaten there, and it was pretty blech. This did not in any way dampen my enthusiasm at seeing this endangered species in Montana.

"Sizzler, OMG Sizzler! Let's eat there, quick, turn right!" I was pretty excited, I admit. As a kid, Sizzler with its 2349 different bars - the salad bar, the soup bar, the kid's bar, the appetizer bar, the pasta bar, etc. - was always my favorite place to go to (well, except for also Monti's La Casa Vieja in Tempe, AZ which is AWESOME if you like steak and cowboys and Roman bread. But I haven't been there in years). We walked in, and just like in the old days, it was packed with senior citizens. Nothing like a buffet with early bird specials to rustle in grandma and grandpa.

So, they still had a salad bar, a couple vats of soup, and a little bit of pasta, but overall, it was not even close to the giant of a buffet it had once been. The soup was pretty yuck (tasted like Campbell's that had been cooking for a LONG time), the pasta was pretty bland, and though I did enjoy making my own taco, the shell was stale. Oh well, at least all the food in the salad bar seemed fresh! *sigh* Poor Sizzler, won't you come back to me?