breakfasts with bison
the big family roadtrip
I’ve got a question for y’all.
If you were to stock up for the winter – hear me out - KNOWING it would absolutely be three whole months, okay four, maybe five, and potentially a few more weeks on top of that – until you would or even could visit a full-on grocery store again, how would You do it?
Ding ding ding, yes, this is the situation in my very near future.
And why yes, it’s been a while. Adventure beckoned, so to speak.
Hellooo to everyone reading this missive from the now not-so-so-north!
In early September, my partner and I hit the road with our crew of 2 humans + 2 cats for 8 long yet fascinating days. We made our way south to yet another iconic national park. The oldest!
For the record, the gray striped feline was chill. The orange one was miserable, but, that’s all a story for another day. Once we finish unpacking.
(And for that record, they’ve since seemed to forgive us once the moving truck showed up with all their “stuff”, too).
Me? I missed Alaska before we even left. The pangs for cold air, the midnight sun, the rotating assortment of berries to forage everywhere you looked, those magnificent moose, and the ever-seeping ferocity, calm, and everything I’d learned about the land around us. And, yeah, myself.
On the road again…
We soaked in the sights along the road, lost hours, went back in time from early sub-arctic snow to even now, a cacophony of autumnal leaves and sunshine.
You could definitely say our quartet became quite acquainted with a full range of “pet-friendly” lodgings across 4 states and 2 huge provinces. And that’s the confirmed “C-A-T-friendly” ones, to boot.
It all began with a charming cabin in Tok, Alaska, with the northern lights above and neighborhood reindeer, and then went downhill with a seriously stinky airbnb in Whitehorse - though I did see my first-ever wild bison and elk en route through the Yukon! (I’ve since lost count ! )
Don’t worry, it was all A-OK in terms of lodging from there, with a cream of the crop stay at a super clean, shiny new “Best Western Plus” in Prince George, B.C. after our longest day of driving. That meant 11+ hours south, and again east, that ended with windy mountainside roadwork delays. In the rain. And a very, very upset cat, despite his prescriped chill pills and calming spray. : /
Really, the memories are morphing into a blur of scenery & playlists & black bear sightings & wanting more coffee & meowing & howling, along with a 5am emergency medical visit for yours truly in the form of a ring cutter after a horrific heavy cooler smashing incident at our motel in Dease Lake. And I’d still recommend that place. True story.
Ah, and lest we forget the lessons (er, agony) of cleaning out the never-again storage unit on a hot last day of the month in Portland, OR….as grateful as I am to be reunited with my late mother’s Kitchen Aid mixer, precious pasta bowls and assorted artwork, among other “things”.
From there, we kept east, and spent our seventh and final night on the road in Boise. I’m getting there. We’re getting there!
There in the Idaho capital - at our second La Quinta of the week, ahem, the much nicer one being in Olympia, WA - we tucked our cats in for the night, and went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s and Natural Grocers (omg, lower 48 prices + goooooood avocados).
We then ran through the last Asian supermarket that I’ll see for months before closing, and come morning - and yeah, that means *before sunrise* – stopped by an Alchemist Roasters for coffee & go-time rations. There was an impressive scrambled tofu breakfast burrito for Jules, and my second (!) avocado toast of the roadtrip. Society, right.
It’s cool, we left it soon enough, as we ventured north once more to our new abode in NW Wyoming: a state that is even less populated than Alaska!
Let me clarify that technically, we remain ‘northern’ in the grand scheme of things/the lower 48 of the US. And technically, certainly, in an accepted twist that I opened with, we’re now even more remote come winter.
My partner’s new post is in Yellowstone National Park, tucked away in a region where the roads close for the to-be-determined-winter.
Once again, our fate depends on the woes and glory of the impending weather.
Challenge accepted in exchange for months of winter solace, albeit rather limited internet, and the might of casual, frosty bison.
Thus, I return to the topic at hand: the grand preparation!
You may recall….
After five years (ish) in the Denali region, we are easily / yet exhaustingly / yet thankfully / no strangers to stocking up. Nor driving four plus hours round trip for those supplies. We make a day of it. You have to.
Dude, the lessons we’ve learned. Oh, what you come to rely upon. Oh, what you find yourself craving when the next city supply run is delayed another week, then two, by blizzards. Oh, the toasting of homemade sourdough that makes mornings better.
We recognize what vegetables may last a month, or two, tbd. We’ve identified what frozen vegetables are best roasted, puréed, or seared super hot in a cast iron pan.
How cabbage, carrots and potatoes (and hello, garlic) become everything. When we’ll run out of flour. Why a back-up olive oil is always a necessity. And there’s now way more to go.
Rest assured, we’ve already done one large winter stock-up of dried & frozen items in the closest big city of Bozeman, Montana, and plan for one more in the coming weeks. And if the forecast permits, one trip east to Cody, WY later this week. So, do you have any tips for the mountain states of the American West?
….And ah, this is the part where I was going to lament the patient wait for our “stuff” from Alaska. The bed, the couch, the cast irons, the scratchng post, the spices! And then suddenly a truck showed up, a thrilling week ahead of our anticipated month-long reunion.
Now, to find a space for our belongings *and* winter rations in our smallest dwelling yet!
So, how would YOU stock up for a wintery month or two or three (or four or five?!!) without fresh supplies?
What would you cook? What soups are a must?
What would you read? Play? Write? Do?!
I truly appreciate any suggestions for this wild ride*!
[*which, holy moly, will exclusively be by snowmobile, snowcoach, ski or snowshoe come winter precipitation, and for the Alaskans reading this, don’t worry, it remains snowmachine in my head]
What an under-taking!! I’m talking frozen peas, corn, mangos, strawberries, rice, pasta, oat milk, miso, curry pastes, nutritional yeast & vitamins to name some of the musts/musts/musts, and shopping at stores including the biggest Costco I’ve seen yet, the ease of Winco & its bulk bins, the fabulous Bozeman Co-op, the big box-ers, a sweet Mexican market, and so, so, so, soooooo much more that remains “on the list”.
Stay tuned for way more wildlife, geothermal wonders, unpacking, sanity, cooking, nutrition - and I mostly kid – but like I said, suggestions & worry & awe alike are TOTALLY encouraged ~
References + Relevant Links from the Road →
@dinners.in.denali aka my culinary insta set for a name change…
Alchemist Coffee Roasters in Boise, ID
Bugwood Coffee in Smithers, B.C.
Caribou Cabins in Tok, Alaska
Ghost Town Coffee Roasters in Bozeman, MT
Montana Legislator Zooey Zephyr Unsilenced and Unyielding at Equality Convention, The Advocate October 17, 2023
Cannot wait to see what you get up to! I don’t even know where I would begin in terms of stocking up... lots and lots of things would be bought at the Asian grocery store, let’s just say that.
Here I was naively assuming you were back in the land of grocery stores and produce near by. Oh, how little I know! I look foward to seeing what you stock up with and make.
Some top tips for what you can do during the winter: Watch all of Buffy. Watch all of Our Flag Means Death, multiple times. Come and scream at me about both in my IG messages. Listen to Taylor Swift and Jenny Owen Youngs music on repeat. Build a tiny way too complicated cat house. Kiss the cats a thousand times each day. Read all the queer books. Finally put up the stack of art you have sitting in your cupboard. OK, maybe that is just what I would be doing if I was shut away for the winter. But I think it is a good plan. ;)