I See Dead Animals

Today my mission was to drive in a big counter clockwise loop and visit Wyoming and Idaho. By visiting those two states I will have visited 49 states with Hawaii being the last state left. Originally I was planning on going clockwise with a stop at Eccles Dinosaur park in Ogden, Utah. The park has over 100 life-size replicas of the pre-historic creatures. Like many kids, I was always fascinated by dinosaurs and knew most of the major dinosaurs by species. And I am still waiting to grow up.

But while researching for something interesting to see, do, or eat in Idaho and Wyoming I came across the town of Evanston, Wyoming. This small city of 11,000 had a few museums and even had an exhibit on the small Chinese population they had at the turn of the century. Most of those Chinese were railroad workers but they were forced out by the early 20th century.

From a food standpoint there were 2 Chinese restaurants in town and one of them had some reviews on Yelp that I thought was quite intriguing. The restaurant was Hunan Garden and the reviews were terrible, but mostly it was about the service. The reviewers complained that the owner could not delegate the work and so people were left waiting for service and food despite there being other workers there. Normally I would see this as being a definite red flag to not go there. But no one really commented on the food, the reviewers got tired of waiting and walked out. Still, the restaurant has been around for years so it couldn't really be that bad...or could it?

I decided at the last minute to change my plans and go to Evanston first. This way I could go visit the town early and have enough time to visit the dinosaur park which closed at 7pm on the way back to the hotel.

I didn't realize it but the drive to Evanston was going to take me through the mountains and boy was it cold! Salt Lake City was around 70 degrees in the morning with the temperature to hit the 90's in the afternoon. I dressed according to that forecast and wore shorts and t-shirt. I did not bring my windbreaker. I didn't notice the weather change until I took a brief stop at a scenic turn-off. The view was breath taking but so was the cold weather. The car thermometer registered 50 degrees.


The drive to Evanston was pretty scenic but there were lots of dead animals on the highway. Animals of all kinds and sizes were littering the road from elks to badgers to carcasses unrecognizable.

When I got to Evanston, my first stop was the Uinta County Museum. I was met by a volunteer at the door who asked if I needed any help. I told her that I was interested in the Chinese joss house museum which was next door. Since the museum was locked she walked with me to the one room building and gave me my own personal tour.

Uinta County Museum

A joss house is a religious building, similar to a temple. When the Chinese were living in Evanston they built the structure in their section of Chinatown. The original building was destroyed by fire in 1922 but many artifacts from the joss house were saved and are now on display in this replica built in 1990.


After walking through the joss house, I was given a tour of the Evanston train depot. The depot is no longer used as a train station but it was refurbished and is now a historic landmark that is also used for events. They did a really nice job in fixing the place up. You feel like you are standing back in time. One thing that was kind of funny is that the original train station was segregated by sex. Men were on one side of the building and the women and children were on the other side, the side with the fireplace. But when they refurbished the building they put the men's room on the women's side of the building and the ladies' room on the men's side. So much for historical accuracy.


It was around lunch time and I decided on going to the Hunan Garden. I asked my tour guide and she said that her son went there quite often and liked it. The restaurant has been in town for years and they even donated money for some of the exhibits on Evanston's Chinatown. Not the greatest ringing endorsement but interesting enough to give it a try. But just my luck they were closed as they went on vacation starting today.

There was a steak restaurant that had gotten good reviews but I was kind of set on having Chinese food and eating some vegetables. I find that my diet lacks vegetables when I go on these road trips but I can usually get a couple of servings of veggies in a stir fry dish. Since this Chinese restaurant was closed the only other option was to try the other one in town which was a buffet, the Dragon Wall Buffet. The restaurant was in a small strip mall and there were a few people eating there. The selection was decent and the food was mediocre, but I was able to get my fill of green vegetables from broccoli, string beans, and peppers.

After lunch I headed over to Great Bear Lake in Idaho. The drive took over an hour and a half. The lake is rather huge looking on the map, but I was taken aback by the beauty of the lake when I got there. I found out that there is a lot of limestone in the area and that mineral gives the lake its color. From certain standpoints the water is a deep rich blue and at other sites the water is an aqua green that reminds one of the Carribean.


I drove to the town of Fish Haven and stopped at a little store called Gladys Place. I had noticed lots of signs touting the raspberries from the area. Unfortunately most of the places with these signs were now closed. At Gladys Place they said that the limestone in the area plus the weather was responsible for delicious local raspberries and currants but were now out of season. In fact most of the town's business were closed. And despite the nice weather that day the town was kind of like a ghost town. The lake is a resort area but after Labor Day the tourists all go home. They do come back when it snows to use the snowmobile trails.


The store did have some of the raspberries left in their refrigerator to be used to make milk shakes, so I ordered one. The clerk made it right in front of me. She used local ice cream and then took a few scoops of the raspberries and added them to a metal cup. She then spent about 3 minutes blending the ingredients in a milkshake mixer. I went outside and sat down to enjoy the shake. It was pretty tasty. The ice cream and the raspberries were a perfect combination of sweetness and just a little bit of tartness. It was a totally unexpected treat.


The drive back to Salt Lake City was pretty uneventful. Because I had spent more time than I planned in Evanston and in Fish Haven, it was too late to go see the dinosaurs. Besides I was pretty tired for all of the driving.

I got back to Salt Lake City around 8pm and using my GPS looked to see what the closest restaurant that I had loaded into my favorites. Greek Souvlaki 1 was the closest and was rated well for Greek food. The restaurant is more of a fast food place. It was started in 1972 and they claim that they introduced the gyro to Utah.


I am no stranger to Greek food and do love a good gyro, so I ordered the gyro platter. The platter comes with rice, french fries, and a Greek salad. I was kind of taken aback when they asked me whether I wanted red or white sauce. I figured that the white sauce was tzatziki (cucumber and yogurt) but had never heard of a red sauce. It turns out that the red sauce is their own special recipe which is tomato based. I probably should have ordered selected the red sauce to try it out but I wasn't feeling too adventurous at the time so I got the traditional tzatziki sauce. Being in Salt Lake City, they also gave me fry sauce with the french fries.

Even though it was a lot of food, I could not pass up on getting the spinach pie, spanokopita. I took my bundle of food back to my motel room and brewed up some Luzianne iced tea. It made for a nice dinner but wasn't worth writing to home about. The portions were pretty good and it was nice to eat some more vegetables today from the salad, but it was not better than most places on the east coast.