A Valentine for a Wide Spot
February, 2023
A couple of years ago, we penned “An Ode to a Road”, a missive about Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. It only seems fitting we follow that up with a dedication to a nearby wide spot in the road.
Wide spot in the road (def): A very small and insignificant town or village. (Wiktionary)
No doubt the term “wide spot” might be viewed as an uncomplimentary term when describing a place. Which just goes to show how special something is when the phrase is used as a true term of endearment.
To be sure, we like cities and towns of all sizes. But this love letter is to their very unique sibling that graces our country with the same rare frequency as a freshly-baked, mouth-watering, huckleberry-filled bear claw: the unforgettable wide spot in the road. These are hamlets so tiny they may not even need a stop sign.
Maybe a junky signpost is all that is required. As soon as you arrive, you quickly see the place to go for a drink or the best food around. No need to open an app. Just look for where the people and cars are congregating outside the door.
Thanks to our new-found friend, Jerry, we purposely drove the 25 miles north from our campsite in Glacier National Park to a town with no cell service, no Wi-Fi, and no pay phone. You can borrow their landline in emergencies. The town is Polebridge, Montana (pop. 26). We met Jerry in the Tetons of Wyoming, but when we told him we were headed to Glacier in northern Montana and would need to visit the best bakery in the area, he knew right where to direct us. Polebridge is closer to the Canadian border than it was to our campsite, has no electrical service separate from what it generates itself, and it lived up to Jerry’s praise.
As best we could tell, the retail district in Polebridge consists of the Mercantile, with its bakery, the Polebridge Produce Company fruit stand around back, the Northern Lights Saloon next door and the Sasquatch Grill on wheels wedged in between. The road out front was a combination of gravel and dirt and was where a few visitors could park. Google Maps says these establishments reside on the Polebridge Loop, not to be confused with the Loop in Chicago, but just as satisfying in its own way. Business was brisk, with the crowd funneling in and out of the “Merc” first.
We Found Our Huckleberry
The Merc serves as a general store and base camp/outfitter for the area and importantly for us, it houses a bakery. But this was no mere store front bakery, selling from the front door what it received in the back door. The store’s covered front porch was crowded on a hot afternoon, so we found an unused wooden bench in the shade against the side of the building. As we each ate a freshly baked chocolate-chip cookie, we watched several workers unload sack after sack of flour out of a van and pile them into a wheelbarrow to roll into the back of the store. This activity went on for some time. We wondered, but didn’t ask, how long it would take for them to transform all that flour into something delicious. From the looks of the steady stream of visitors walking through the front door, probably less time than we could imagine. If we had known at the time that the Merc is off the grid, powering its lights and ovens with solar panels and a diesel engine, we would have been astonished even more.
We left Polebridge with a couple of huckleberry-filled bear claws that were the best doughnuts we have ever had. The sweet, melt-in-your-mouth dough was interrupted only by the splurge of a splendiferous wild berry filling. Overly dramatic you say? Our taste buds beg to differ and craved more – a lot more. But our brains told us we needed to get plenty of exercise before returning for seconds. Sadly, we didn’t make it back to the Merc, even though we eventually hiked off the calories.
For those unfamiliar with huckleberries, they range from red to purplish-blue in color and grow abundantly in and around Glacier (and much of western Montana). If you visit Glacier, you are allowed to pick huckleberries along the trails. Just stay on the trails and look out for competing harvesters – the bears. They love these little sweet-tart berries.
Not all magical wide spots have as their crown jewel a bakery, although we wouldn’t object if they did. Harmony, California’s special place is its amazing Harmony Glassworks studio and gallery. The talent of the studio’s glassblowers is self-evident. It’s hard to leave the store empty-handed.
Downtown Harmony also includes the Harmony Valley Creamery and Harmony Pottery Studio, both situated across the street from the Glassworks. All are located on Old Creamery Road, named after the kind of business that put this wide spot located next to Highway 1 on the map in the early 1900s.
Then there’s Cheyenne Crossing, South Dakota (pop. unknown), which as we can best recall, was a single building at the junction of two roads in the Black Hills. After having breakfast there one morning many years ago, our then young children were no longer satisfied with the cereal and pop-tarts we had been feeding them. Apparently, it was at this breakfast they discovered hot chocolate topped with a small mountain of whipped cream could be served with eggs, pancakes, hash browns, and bacon. And of course, the food had that distinctive local diner taste. For every remaining day of the two-week road trip, the first item on our children’s to-do list was for us to find another suitable eatery for breakfast. And not a fast food chain. We didn’t argue.
You often have to intentionally want to go to a wide spot in order to get there. On the off chance you randomly drive by one, you may still have to keep your eyes peeled in order to stop. Word-of-mouth is the best source of generating the desire to go. Jerry sent us to Polebridge. Our son Patrick first showed Harmony to Bob on a father-son trip. And Cheyenne Crossing was recommended to us by Stacie, our friend and a former colleague of Bob’s.
Simple Things Hit the Spot
The most distinct spots make magic out of thin air, or more accurately, a tiny plot of land and a lot of persistence. The magic is really creating a lasting, but unexpected memory. Unexpected because how often do any of us anticipate something truly memorable coming from a wide spot in the road? That presumption is certainly erroneous though. A special wide spot provides a good reminder that brains, talent, and hard work are found everywhere.
The raw material for these memories can be anything – a perfect pastry enjoyed next to a mountain lake, a beautiful glass piece brought home, or a mug of hot chocolate that changed how a family travels. And usually the wonderful conversations had with the persistent inhabitants of these tiny places.
You could argue each one of these is an example of an unremarkable occurrence. And you would be right. Yet, each one left us with an indelible memory and a strong desire to return some day. We can’t say that about all of our stops along the road, small, big or otherwise.
Here’s to the unexpected magic of the wide spot in the road.
Cheers,
Bob and Julia
Ps: if you have any special wide spots you have discovered, let us know and we will pass it along to everyone – with the instruction don’t everybody show up at the same time!
Header photo: Harmony Glassworks. The building was constructed in 1908 and originally housed the Diamond Creamery.
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