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The best place we ate, by far, was a place called Rain in Abingdon, VA.; it was also the most $. Abingdon is on I-81 about 20 miles north of the TN line. SO had crab cakes, I had a steak, and she said they were the best she ever had. Of course she had two glasses of wine too.

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SO had stuffed shrimp at Montana's Rib and Chop House in Billings and it was very good, shrimp were cooked just right. Waitress was great.

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A friend recommended La Cueva, on E. Colfax Ave in Aurora for Mexican food and it was better than your average place.

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Also had a really good lunch at the Log Cabin Café in Silver Gate, MT just outside of the NE entrance to Yellowstone.

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I had a ham & cheese sandwich which came with chili and she had a salmon wrap. It was way more food then we could eat but it would be our last good meal until we went to the town of West Yellowstone for lunch a few days later.

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The best meal we had in Yellowstone was the charcuterie plate at the bar in the hotel. The restaurant was booked until about 9:30 and we didn't want to eat that late.

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We learned about Cinnamon's Bakery in Estes Park from the Travel Board so naturally we had to got there. We were waiting when they opened and there were only a few folks in front of us but some regulars said the line is out to the road sometimes; about 30 yards I would guess.

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We were headed to RMNP to hike so we got two cinnamon rolls and a pecan roll. Very good.

BBQ
I like to check out BBQ places when we travel. In Kansas City we stopped at Joe's on the way and at Arthur Bryant's when we were coming home.

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We ordered a lot of food but we were not just getting lunch, we were sampling and we had leftovers in the hotel that night.
Ribs were good, brisket was ok but I'm not a fan of the thin slice and did not care for their chicken nor their potato salad. The brisket was better as a leftover with their spicy bbq sauce.
They open at 11:00, we got there ~ 11:30 and it was already very crowded. Some folks had obviously come there directly from the airport; got out of a taxi with a roller suitcase.

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At Arthur Bryant's she got the burnt ends sandwich w/ sauce (I think it would have been better w/o the sauce) & I got the brisket sandwich. It was good but again it was thinly sliced. She went to the restroom after eating, it was not very clean, and if she would have gone there before eating I would have dined alone.

Animal photos:

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Saw this fawn as we were driving on Iron Mt. Road to Mt. Rushmore for the evening lighting ceremony.

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He was grazing next to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel; I was going to the convenience store ~ 1/2 mile away from the hotel and he was in my path as I came around the corner.

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This is in Yellowstone near the Hayden Valley. I'm not sure what this ranger was doing, directing traffic I guess. We drove by and cars in the left lane were stopped. The bison, especially the old males, would frequently stand or walk in the road.

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A woodchuck, he/she was sitting next to the path to the Upper Falls at Yellowstone Grand Canyon.

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Coyote on the hunt in Lamar Valley.

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We missed seeing a grizzly bear eating a bison carcass, a pack of wolves and some big horn sheep from this spot on the side of the road in the Lamar Valley. There was a large crowd on the side of the road looking at this hill side. By the time we got parked he had left and someone told us about the bear and the other animals he had seen earlier that morning from that spot. We had been on a remote side road thinking we might see a bear there. Bad choice.

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The wildest animal of them all.

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Sundown at our last night in Colorado before we headed home early due to Hurricane Dorian, which was a non-event in NC unless you were on the OBX.

This post was edited on 10/6/19 at 10:04 pm