After our arrival on the 19th, it was dark by the time we reached our hotel in Syndey, MT, a small town graced by a few new stoplights since my last visit in 2007 (and a new grocery store or two as well). One of the best things about Sydney is Sunny's Restaurant, a charming and excellent breakfast/lunch place on one of the main corners in town. We ate there four times during our stay -- one day when my hubby was feeling crappy, they graciously served him oatmeal for lunch, while I chowed down on the absolute best hot roast beef sandwich I've ever had...with a side of real mashed potatoes. They are only open until 2 or 3, so you gotta get there early. Every waitress we had was pleasant and friendly, and the food was delicious. They were always hopping too.
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| Steam rising from the sugar beet processing factory in Sydney, MT |
One of the side-effects of the Bakken boom is that many local businesses keep more limited hours and find it difficult to keep help. If you can go out and find a job on an oil rig operation, you'll make way more money. (Much more dangerous and cold too.) In our adventures in eating, on Saturday night, we made our way back to Sydney about 6:30 to get some dinner and hole up in the hotel room for the night. Hubby tells me about the great KFC location, so we head there. All is dark. They are closed for the night. Ok, plan two....McDonald's. Also dark. They closed at 5 p.m. (I mean, really? 5 p.m.) The Pizza Hut was doing a booming business, but we'd just had pizza the previous night at a local place -- Panini's Pizzeria -- pretty good....so we didn't really want pizza again. Plan three. Taco John's, a regional chain with good Mexican fast food. It's snowing pretty hard and we pull into the parking area at 6:59....just as they close and lock the door. Sorry, drive through only. Well, shit. So we trundle next door to the Pizza House -- a local institution that puts out great pizza -- and eat cheese burgers for dinner. But I did get to play a game of Ms. Pac Man, so the night was not a total loss.
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| What movie is playing, you ask? Why, _Frozen_ of course. |
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| Photographic proof...and this was not the coldest it was during our stay. |
We pay a visit to the Berry Ranch, visit with hubby's cousins, conduct the exciting business that we came all this way for, drive around a bit and see the changes that time and oil shale development has wrought, and then we are once again boarding the train, this time only to Minneapolis to spend Christmas with my dad and the mid-west branch of my little family.
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| Hills outside Sydney, MT |
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| Fence and sky, MT |
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| The Berry Ranch outhouse. Brrrrrrrr. |
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| Ft. Union Trading Post, a reconstruction of the 1830s era trading post...not too far from the Berry Ranch. |
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