Fabulicious Places to Eat on Vacation

During the three weeks we were on the road, we ate at restaurants. LOTS of restaurants. These were our favorites:

1. Greg's Grill Bend, Oregon

One evening while Hubs relaxed in the hotel, Jake and I walked through the Old Mill District in Bend. We strolled along the river, watched the ducks and the people paddling down the Deschutes, and then we caught a whiff of something amazing.

What did I smell? Food, wafting through the air from the patios of the restaurants nearby. We had eaten diner food much of our vacation, and had assumed that the restaurants in the Old Mill District were surely a bit more upscale and expensive then we wanted. Despite that, I couldn't help but follow my nose; and it let me to Greg's Grill. We checked out the menu, and seeing that it was affordable and had things everyone liked, we insisted that we MUST return.

The next evening, we sat with a view of the river and dined on the best Fantan Ahi Tuna sandwiches I have ever tasted, complete with shoestring cut fries that were salty, crispy, bits of deliciousness. The incredible food, high ceilings, beautiful decor, soft music, and great service gives this restaurant the number 1 spot in my Fabulicious Places to Eat. You can't beat the atmosphere of Bend's Old Mill District in the summer; it is a perfect holiday locale.

2. The Peace Tree Cafe, Moab Utah

Jake always describes this little cafe as a 'hippy joint'. We found this place after I discovered a write up in a travel book three years ago and it has become a staple whenever we visit Moab. Plus it's practically a stone's throw from our hotel, so why not? With all that rich restaurant food, we are always tickled to find a place where we could get wraps loaded up with a ton of veggies and NO fries. Our favorite is the Leo's wrap (veggies, hummus, and artichoke hearts)

You can get your food to go, or you can eat outside on their cute little patio in the shade. If you choose to stay, you also get some blue corn chips with your wrap. I admit that the food is a bit pricey, but in all honesty I'd rather pay a bit more and get really healthy, preservative/high fructose corn syrup free food.

3. The Moab Brewery, Moab Utah

The best thing about the Moab Brewery? Jake says it's the root beer, and I'll admit that I think he's on to something. Besides brewing up their own actual beer, they make a root beer that even the adults would enjoy. Jake bought a growler full of root beer to bring home and share with his best friend.

Big portions, tasty food, and fun stuff to look at through the restaurant makes this one of our favorites. Try their Jack Daniels burger-it's super yummy. You definitely won't go away hungry from this place!

4. Mimi's Cafe, various locations

Mimi's is the only really large chain restaurant on the list, but we felt it deserves a spot because it is one of our favorite places to dine out in the States. What's so special about it?

The menu.

What we love best about Mimi's is that they have lots of options on their menu-you can order the greasy, cheesy, baconed, calorie crazy sandwich with fries, or you can stick to something far healthier and better for your waistline. They offer salad and fruit with meals instead of just fries, and don't blink an eye when you ask for no mayo, dressing on the side, etc. Salad is actually a real salad of mixed greens (not tired iceberg lettuce), tomato, cucumber, carrot, and croutons. Finally! A salad that isn't loaded with bacon and cheese! If you are watching what you eat, this IS the place to go.

You can also order from their "just enough" menu, which I loved because I finally could order something and not worry that I'd end up with a mountain of food.

Not just that but they have awesome service and oh my, who could resist their warm blueberry muffins? Not me. I tried, really I did, but then I took one bite and...well. Let's just say that the muffin was gone after that.

Oh, WAIT! You can even get a coupon if you go to the site for FREE dessert. Yummy.

5. Zax's Pizza (Moab, Utah) and the Black Bear Diner (Madras, Oregon)

This one was a hard choice and so is a TIE.

Zax is our favorite pizza stop in Moab. The service has always been good, and the pizza delicious. I especially love their BBQ chicken pizza and the garden veggie. Plus it's a short walk from the hotels downtown, and Jake loves the misters that spray you just as if you were a carrot in the produce department, right outside on the sidewalk. We never can finish a pizza and always take the leftovers in a box back to the hotel room, ready to be fought over later in the evening.

The Black Bear Diner is another chain restaurant, but one that we always enjoy as well. The menu seems to have changed from last year-the only wish that I have is that they offered more healthy options and chicken dishes that were NOT deep fried or slatered in gravy, cheese, or sauce. Despite that, the cute atmosphere and the delicious potato salad, BLTs, or French Dip sandwiches make it a great place to stop for lunch. The location that we stopped at in Madras was packed with people and had a line up out the door, so it's obviously a very popular spot!

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1880's Train, Hill City, South Dakota

There is something to be said about a good train ride. The wind in your hair, the scenery, the whistle, it's all very romantic.

We've been on numerous train rides in our travels, but so far nothing compares to the 1880's Train in Hill City, South Dakota.

We boarded in Hill City, ready for adventure.


"Mom, it's just like the train in Harry Potter!"


We meandered through the hills, past grazing deer, homes, ruins from old mines, and gorgeous scenery (check out a map of the route!). It was so relaxing and fun to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Kid friendly? You betcha! We chose an open car because we wanted the breeze in our faces.

As usual, we booked our tickets for a morning train so that once we did the round trip to Keystone and back, we could eat lunch in Hill City and then poke around through the shops. Hill City is somewhat less commercial than Keystone's bright flashing billboards, and we had a fantastic time poking around through the rock shops and native American craft stores.

Tips for visiting the 1880's train:

-there is no bathroom on the train. Make sure everyone goes BEFORE you board. You will get a brief chance to run to the bathroom in Keystone/Hill City when you stop.

-you can go on a round trip or one way; the amount of time you have at your destination varies (check the schedule)

-reserve your tickets in advance.

-snacks and drinks are available both at the stations and on the train.

- the gift shops both in Keystone and Hill City are fun to browse through, and make sure to get a pressed penny up in the shop in Keystone!

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Mesa Verde, Colorado

"Mom, you mean there are actual ruins? Really?" Ten year old Jake was bouncing around in the car. "And we get to SEE them?"

Cliff Palace

"Yep. We're going on a tour, even."

Mesa Verde National Park, located in southern Colorado, makes the top three in my personal list of best US National parks (that I've visited). When we researched, I wasn't sure what we'd find because they just make those tours sound so god-awful!

"This one-hour, ranger-guided tour involves climbing five, 8-10ft (2.6-3m) ladders, on a 100ft (30m) vertical climb. Total walking distance is about 1/4-mile (400m), round-trip. The tour begins at Cliff Palace Overlook, an 8-mile (13km), 20-minute drive from the Visitor Center. "
(*NPS website)

Ladders? Climbing? What kind of ladders? Will I be precariously hanging off a cliff? We have a 10 year old and people with asthma in our family, will they survive? Will *I* survive?

Waiting to go on the Cliff Palace Tour

We didn't just survive, we were awed. At first, we had to sit and wait for the ranger with our group. She arrived and the crowd began to move, and as we came around a corner, the group collectively gasped.

Eerily beautiful, almost haunting, white stone houses loomed out of the rock, beckoning us to explore. We walked and listened to the stories of a culture long since gone, marveling at their handiwork. If you kids study ancient cultures in school this is the place to take them. If you enjoy history and culture, this is the park to visit.

Tips for visiting Mesa Verde:

-if you want to do a tour, plus see the self guided options, allow yourself at least two days.

-Book your guided tours ahead of time at the Visitor's Center . In the summer, I highly recommend that you go in the morning when it's less hot and there's less chance of a thunderstorm. You will have a better chance of getting into a morning tour if you book it the day before.

- A great place to stop after the visitor's center is the museum. Make sure to walk down to see Spruce Tree House. Jake loved this spot, where he could actually go inside a kiva and the ranger was around to chat with.

Walking down the trail to Spruce Tree House

-bring good walking shoes, like runners. Flip flops or Crocs are a bad idea.

-there are various dining options in the park, and the food is pretty good.

-Mesa Verde has some of the coolest gift shops we've ever seen! Make sure to check them out.

There's lots to see along the road at various viewing spots.

-lots of places here are not stroller/wheelchair friendly. Would be best to call ahead and find out. If you have little ones, I think a carrier might be the best option.

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Hell's Revenge

Hell's Revenge, originally uploaded by Scatteredmom.

A few years ago we got our first taste of crawling the slickrock and have been hooked ever since!

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Lots of pictures!

You may have noticed in my feed that I'm uploading pictures. That's correct! I got my scanner working and have been scanning and loading up all sorts of awesome photos to Flickr from past road trips, mainly Road Trip 2006.

Lots more stuff to come!

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Mammoth Site, Hill City, South Dakota

Got a kid who is into paleontology? Are you fans of the movie "Ice Age?" If so, then you can't miss the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. When Hubs first suggested this place, I wasn't sure. For some reason I thought it would be lame, but when we arrived, I was captivated. A real dig site? With people actually...uh...digging? Wow! We paid and then poked around the gift shop while we waited for our guided tour of the actual dig site. The prices were very reasonable, and very worth it!



Inside the museum, there is a guided tour of the dig site, where there are people actually still unearthing Mammoth skeletons. The tour is about 30 minutes long and you walk along carpeted ramps that wind through the site. They are stroller and wheelchair friendly.


The fossils are really easy to see, and fun to show the kids exactly how they would be in the rocks.


In the digging room, you can check out various things along the way, such as this massive mammoth bone! Jake was chosen to pretend he was a member of the Flintstone family and show it to the rest of the people in our tour group.

Once the tour was over, we checked out the other parts of the museum, which had lots of fossils from other animals, like saber toothed tigers. There was also a mammoth bone hut that cave men might have created at that time. This isn't a museum where everything is under glass and kids can only look but not touch. Lots of hands on, touchable things here!

We really enjoyed ourselves-and I'm sure you would too.

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Lava Tubes, Bend Oregon

One of the stops along our road trip last year was to the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, and the Lava River Cave. If you have kids who are interested in geology and enjoy hiking, this is an interesting experience.

Located just outside of Bend, Oregon, you can easily explore the tubes by a rough dirt path. It's really dark, so make sure to pick up a lantern for about $3. For kids, I'd recommend getting them a good flashlight each-as it's hard to see where you are going unless you are carrying the lantern, which is propane fueled and gets good and hot.

There are no cave formations inside the lava tube, and the walk is over a mile long, but we found it interesting. The tubes are not wheelchair or stroller accessible.

If you have little ones who are scared of the dark, don't go too far. We ran into a family with 2 little girls in flip flops who obviously weren't having any fun. Both girls were crying that the dark was scary, their feet hurt, and they just wanted to go NOW because monsters were likely to jump out of the corners any second and eat them.

Wear runners. I don't know why people do the cave thing in flip flops, that's just asking for foot pain. It's dark, rocky, and your toes will thank you. Bring a sweater too, because it's cold in there. There was an ice patch when we went. ICE! In July!

These little guys are everywhere. If you sit long enough on the benches around the parking lot, you are sure to see one come close enough to get a good picture. It might even be an idea to bring a few peanuts in the shell to entice one to sit still for a minute to snap a good picture. Jake was totally enthralled with these guys and loved to just sit and watch them.

Another part of the monument is some hiking trails. You can take a jaunt through the obsidian flows-very cool. It's sort of surreal, really. One thing we found as we took a short walk around was that if it's a hot, sunny, day you end up feeling like you are baking among the rock. Bring some drinks.

More obsidian flow. Weird, hey?

You can also drive up to Paulina Peak, which offers amazing views of the Oregon Cascades and the High Desert. The road is very steep and curvy (don't recommend you go with trailers). You can walk up a very steep, paved path to a viewing area-which is where I took this picture. The walk was too much for Hub's lungs so he stayed at the bottom, but he still got a good look at the amazing view.

By the time we were finished, we were hot and thirsty so we hit the local Black Bear Diner to re-fuel!

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