More Family Time in Fort Bidwell

When our granddaughter Christabel first decided to open a café, in their new hometown of Fort Bidwell, I told her that we’d give her a weekend of work. That we’d wash dishes, cook or do what was needed. That would not include tickets to Europe with cooking lessons, or other travel.

For those who don’t know, Bel has opened her own Café, although Nate, Bekki, and Elias also provide help. She is open on Sat-Sun from 6am-noon. They bake various items and offer a breakfast special. The café is located in the Ft. Bidwell Hotel. The hotel has a commercial kitchen with a dining room that has 6 tables. There is a parlor which can be used for a catered meal.

We drove to Fort Bidwell on Tuesday. What should have been a 6-hour drive turned into an 8+ hour drive. We’d been concerned about ice on the road as a storm was hitting. I checked the road conditions several times. In the morning the Cedar Pass, Hwy-299 was snowed over, but by afternoon, the road webcam showed the road as clear. We drove on our merry way.

We reached the 299 and sent a text to Nate & Bekki that we were on our way over the pass as there would be no service for most of the remainder of the drive. The pass was clear and we were sailing along until we went over the summit. The highway on the other side of the summit, where there was no webcam, was ice, completely iced over. The RV started sliding, yikes! Dale and I about dropped our stomachs. Dale was driving and slowed down to a crawl, maybe 5MPH. We inched down the mountain and made it to Nate’s, lots later than planned.

Fort Bidwell in the morning

The old Bank Vault on the left and store on the right

We had Wed, Thurs and Fri to help kids, cook, shop for food and babysit. Bel had a dinner she was catering on Sat evening, her 1^st catering job. We did what we could to help prep for that.

Elias and I walked on Friday, Sat and Sun mornings early. I shot photos and we talked. He showed me his favorite places for views. We drove up to the cemetery on morning and shot photos there as well. We did a little research on-line and found info on the early Fort. Then we walked trying to find the location of sites.

Bekki took me one afternoon to the other side of the valley where I shot photos of the late afternoon views.

Dale did give Bel lots of kitchen time, his specialty is cooking bacon just perfectly. Bel was more than happy for him to cook the bacon. I figured out how to work their espresso maker and trained Elias to be a barista.

Baked breakfast goods

Sunday afternoon arrived and it was time for us to leave. We’d cooked and cleaned and babysat. We were ready to move on down the road.