Adventures in Chinese Food

I'm a big fan of the Chinese restaurant we have here.  I consider us very lucky to have such a good Chinese restaurant in such a small town.  (In spite of that one time that there wasn't a fortune in my cookie I still really like them.) 

I'm picky about my Chinese food - I like real chicken, no fillers, and preferably white meat.  The Chinese restaurant here meets that requirement. 

I eat there fairly often.  Often enough that they smile big when I come in and know that I like lemon with my water.  They also love my dog (outside of the restaurant of course.) 

Every once in a while I splurge and get the Sweet and Sour Chicken, although I'm sure it's just as bad for me as all of the other Chinese dishes I get when I'm not "splurging"....okay, let's be honest...eating almost any type of Americanized Chinese food should probably be considered splurging.  Anyways, one evening I got Chinese Take Out....for some reason I enjoy getting Chinese Take Out more than other types of take out.   Always have....probably always will.    Here's a picture of one of my pieces of chicken.  It's a snail!  Haha....I just thought this was fun.  I love eating food that's fun to eat, this qualifies!  (Yes, I just spent precious minutes of my life posting a blog about a piece of snail-looking-fried-Chinese-chicken.....did I mention the pace of life in Red Lodge is a lot slower. I have lots of extra time on my hand...LOTS.)

Why did the ducks cross the road?

The last time I was in Billings I saw something in person I'd never seen before.  You know the email forward that goes around showing the 'crazy pictures' and you always wonder how someone just happened to have a camera.  One of the pictures is of a momma duck and her ducklings crossing a scary busy road.  Well that's what I saw!  No kidding....and even crazier I saw it twice.  Two different groups of ducklings I'm sure since I saw them on different sides of town.  The first was right by Target and the second was near the on-ramp to the interstate.  Crazy!   I know! 

I happened to have my camera and was able to snatch a picture of the first group once I pulled safely into the Target parking lot (not that I was going to Target to shop....).  I almost ran over the little ducks as they were walking down the side of the road....how they managed to cross over four lanes of traffic....whew, God obviously was watching over His special creatures. I couldn't get a picture of the second group because the traffic was too heavy but, it's the sweetest thing watching cars stop to let a line of ducklings pass.  Shows there's still some humanity left in all of us. 

So, why did the ducks cross the road?  To get to the park of course!

Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit in July.  I wanted her to experience Independence Day in what I consider 'small town America'.  We had a great visit which included a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Grand Tetons National Park.  We also hit the rodeos in Cody and Red Lodge....I've probably seen enough rodeos for a while.  We wrapped the Fourth of July up with a seafood boil party and a BEAUTIFUL double rainbow (see pictures below for proof!).

We of course hit up the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.

A little odd but they have four of these arches, one at each entrance into the main square downtown. The antlers are collected by Boy Scouts (I think) from the National Elk Refuge just outside Jackson Hole.(Where the Elk spend winter.)

Grand Tetons....they aren't called Grand for nothing!

I could have sat there for hours just soaking it all in.

This guy was great, posing for the camera!

A Reindeer!  Or maybe an elk.  :)

A Moose!  We saw him just as we were leaving the park. 
He was great!

Cody Rodeo - They raised the flag onto a firetruck ladder.  Beautiful.

Double Rainbow!  The colors were soooo vibrant!

Ahhh yesss, Independence Day done right.