4 ] The Lovell Chronicle I June 26, 2014
CHRONICLE
Welcome to Mustang Days!
It's always great during this week to see everyone who
"comes back home" for the big celebration and tell them
about the latest and greatest things taking place in our com-
munity.
What visitors will notice immediately is the construction.
The final phase of the Lovell water and sewer project is tying
in with a Wyoming Dept. of Transportation street repair proj-
ect to wrap up several years of infrastructure work in Lovell.
People will be glad to be rid of the inconvenience and the
dust when it's done, but the benefits will be enjoyed for de-
cades to come.
It was wise of the Town of Lovell and WyDOT to suspend
the project for Mustang Days, and we appreciate their do-
ing so for the benefit of Saturday's parade and myriad other
activities. The project will ramp up again next week, with the
traffic detours on Main beginning about the middle of July.
Also under way this summer is the final push of the re-
modeling project at Lovell High School. This innovative proj-
ect has kept the high school building intact but modernized
and remodeled. Rather than building a new school that must
be shrunk down to fit state guidelines, remodeling the cur-
rent facility allows the school district to maintain its square
footage, which is a boon to the vocational education pro-
grams. The new commons area will be spectacular.
Also in the works are changes to the bus pickup and
drop-off patterns and the parking at the high school and
gym/pool complex, partly to enhance parking and traffic flow
but mostly for safety. That's a good thing, and a lot of work
has gone into studying the best way to make the bus route
changes. There are also improvements to the athletic com-
plex and a new, heated sidewalk to avoid ice buildup in front
of the gym, a great addition to the north-facing entrance.
Check out, also, the new businesses in downtown Lovell
like the new Queen Bee Gardens storefront, the new Co-
deRed Tactical store on Nevada and the new dentist office
on Main Street..B er,-.BodyFitne'4.,s ..has, also been sold and
sprucedup.. • ....... '- .... : ' .........
While you're in tOWil'i'stop by tl e 'l'ovell Inc,/Grow Big
Horn County business incubator and co-work space across
the street from the post office and the North Big Horn Coun-
ty Museum and Historical Center mini-museum at the Lovell
Area Chamber of Commerce downtown information center.
There's a lot going on in our small community.
We hope everybody reads this week's story about re-
source protection in the Horseshoe Bend area in the wake
of off-road parking problems for the Mustang Days fireworks
show in recent years.
Apparently, folks have been going off road to find park-
ing for the fireworks lately, so the National Park Service has
taken steps to protect the desert resource. The result is
about 300 fewer parking spots for the fireworks, meaning
that folks will have to plan ahead and go to the lake early
to avoid running the risk of missing out on a parking spot or
having to walk a long, long way to reach the viewing spots.
Folks also apparently lee trash strewn around the area of
the swim beach and marina last year, creating a huge work-
load for the park staff.
We've done it to ourselves, folks, and we're facing the
consequences.
- David Peck
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e
There are a lot of things I enjoy doing
in life. I have a couple of hobbies, such
as collecting coins and guitar pins from
Hard Rock Cafes around the world, but
there is nothing more enjoyable than a
good meal.
As a kid growing up in Byron, I was
treated to some excellent culinary plea-
sures from my parents, one of which was
my mother's homemade tomato soup. My
dad had one of the best gardens in town,
and during the summer months, his
sweet corn could be a meal all by itself.
There is a lot of good food available
in Texas. There is nothing better than a
thick, juicy Texas-style steak. In fact, in Amarillo,
the Big Texan boasts a free 72-ounce steak if you
can eat it and all the trimmings in an hour. I've
never had the nerve to try, but they do offer a fine
steak dinner.
I read the other day where a young lady from
Nebraska not only downed that steak, potato, sal-
ad, shrimp cocktail and whatever else they offered
in less than five minutes, but proceeded to down
the second meal in less than 15 minutes. As with
many things today, her meal eating adventure is
on YouTube. I watched the entire event, though I
wasn't hungry afterwards.
Suffice to say, I do love a good steak dinner, but
my favorite is really good Mexican food. There is a
ton of good Mexican food in the Dallas area, and a
lot of good Tex-Mex around here as well. There's
nothing better than good Mexican food, but noth-
ing worse than bad Mexican food.
My second favorite meal would have to be
Chinese.
The funny thing about Mexican and Chinese
food is that it seems better in the United States
than in the respective countries. I've had Mexican
Ralph C. Jensen
Guest column
food in Mexico City, and it didn't seem
quite right. The same goes for Chinese
food in Taiwan and even the Republic of
China. It just didn't taste the same.
Recently, I returned from Hungary.
My goal in going wasn't to do a food test,
but since I was already there, it didn't
hurt to fit that into my schedule. With
a little prompting, I tried goulash. I've
known goulash as all the leftovers in
the refrigerator dumped into one pot. I
would never eat it, but since I was in Bu-
dapest, why not give it a try?
What do you know? Goulash is actu-
ally a soup! I love most soups, and now
goulash is very close to being my favorite soup; it
still hasn't surpassed French onion, though it's a
close race.
To make perfect goulash, the carrots must be
tender, but not soft, and the beef must be tender
and juicy. To make perfect French onion soup,
there must be good cheese, but not too much bread.
The broth should be dark and the onions sweet.
Light brown broth just doesn't work.
About two weeks ago, I was in Budapest (again)
and Paris, for work, of course. In the back of my
mind, it was a showdown between goulash and
versions of French onion soups. I ordered goulash
twice, and both times the scores were a perfect 10.
While in Paris, I ordered French onion soup three
times. The first order was a perfect 10, while the
other two were slightly above average.
Of course, mom's homemade tomato soup is the
best, but I won't be getting any of that any time
soon. Oh, and just for the record, don't order Rock-
fish soup in Paris. It is supposed to be a treat for
the pallet from the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea, near Marseilles, France. I guess my taste buds
just aren't ready for that kind of treat.
The longest U.
S. highway in America bisects
Lusk to Yellowstone
During a recent road trip through
nine states, I stumbled on to an interest-
ing factoid: the longest highway in Ameri-
ca bisects Wyoming.
It is Historic US 20, which is 3,365
miles in length. We drove on that road a
lot during our trip and it was well worth
it.
In Wyoming, the highway enters
the state east of Lusk on a truly crappy
stretch of highway and continues to Orin
Junction, where it joins 1-25 and then
heads north to Douglas and Glenrock. It
continues to Casper and then heads west
to Shoshoni. My late father always complained that
long stretch from Casper to Shoshoni, was "96 miles
of nuthin.'"
From Shoshoni the highway heads north next
to Boysen Reservoir and through glorious Wind Riv-
er Canyon to Thermopolis. It continues to Worland,
Basin and Greybull before turning west to Cody and
Wapiti Valley where it enters Yellowstone as the
east gate. Along the way Historic US 20 picks up
and joins U. S. highways 14 and 18 at times, before
exiting the state.
An effort that started in Ohio is under way to
provide more recognition to Historic US 20, both as
a tourism corridor and also a tourist destination in
its own right.
I have some experience with foreign visitors, es-
pecially the Brits and the Germans. They love to vis-
it out-of-the way towns like Lusk, Shoshoni, Ther-
mopolis, Worland, Basin and Greybull. Europeans
average five weeks of paid vacation each year, so
they can afford to take leisurely trips along the back
roads of America.
They are going to love visiting Historic US 20.
Folks in Wyoming along US 20 who want to get in-
volved in this national promotional effort should
contact Bryan Farr, who wrote a book a few years
ago about the famous highway. More information is
at www.historicUS20.com.
Our trip saw us travel by car through all these
states as we headed to a wedding in Kansas and
ended up in Northeast Iowa at my 50th high school
reunion.
Roads were generally good in all states, although
the wife of my best high school friend Everett Row-
land, who is a county supervisor in Fayette County,
Iowa, claimed that Iowa has the worst roads in the
country and the third worst bridges.
Bill Sniffin
That state's "governor for life," Terry
Branstad, was all over the TV bragging
about Iowa being considered the "second
best managed state" in the country. Who
is first? Wyoming, of course.
Branstand is running again as the
state's official tightwad and if elected he
will have served 24 years in that post.
Amazing.
When you are in the Midwest this
time of year the big news is the weather.
Torrential rainfalls that occasionally
topped five inches in a single storm pro-
vided flooding and hazardous driving con-
ditions all over my home area of Northeast Iowa.
Our planned visit to my favorite childhood state
park, Backbone, will have to occur at another time
since it was closed because of high water.
Earlier, while in western Iowa at my wife Nan-
cy's hometown of Harlan, we were concerned about
tornadoes heading our way that had ripped through
Pilger, Neb. If you catch the images, it was extraor-
dinary. Dual monsters, a mile apart, tore up parallel
courses through that part of the Cornhusker State.
Although Wyoming is officially the windiest
state in the union, Iowa has turned into a constant
hurricane, according to folks who live there. They
all believe some kind of climate change is occurring.
It was easy to believe that one day when I tried to
play golf in 50 mph winds with my brother-in-law
Roger Thomsen.
My sister Marybeth and her husband Steve
hosted us in Dundee, Iowa, where I was able to
spend time with four of my 10 siblings.
I had earlier joked with friends that I was "go-
ing to visit some old folks" at my class reunion,
which was held later that week at a riverboat casino
in Marquette, Iowa. Actually, most of them looked
pretty good.
Over half the room was filled with folks who had
been together more than 45 years. The majority had
gotten married at the ages of 18 and 19. Nancy and
I were 19 and 20 when we got married. I always told
my kids that "it was true love, so why wait?" But
according to many of my classmates, it was also be-
cause of something called the draft and the Vietnam
War, which made us want to grow up pretty darned
fast.
Check out Bill Sniffin's columns at www.
billsniffin.com. He is a longtime Wyoming jour-
nalist from Lander.
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David Peck, Editor and Publisher
LOVELL
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Editor ........................................ , ........................................ DavidPeck
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