| Keuterville
has European visitors
Keuterville Pub & Grub was the lunch stop Wednesday, Sept. 21, for a tour bus full of European visitors touring Montana and Idaho. There were 45 people in the group with 36-37 of those being tourists from the United Kingdom (England), Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Italy and Austria. The tour was put together by Rocky Mountain International (RMI) a coop between the states of South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Nancy Richardson of Idaho Tourism said RMI sets up tours of two of those 4 states each year with RMI agents in Europe helping to coordinate. She said they call these kind of tours MegaFams, fam as in familiarity. She said most Europeans take 2 to 4 week vacations which helps them plan something like this kind of tour. Carola Kolmann, an RMI representative from Frankfurt, Germany, said these tours give Europeans the opportunity to see the rural side of the U.S. Most of those on the trip that had been to the U.S. before had been to places like New York City or California and wanted a chance to see what the rest of the country was like. Featured as part of the trip this time are some of the 30 scenic byways. Earlier the tour had been at Glacier National Park in Montana and worked their way down to Missoula. From there they followed Highway 12 over Lolo Pass over one of those aforementioned scenic byways and spent the night in Lewiston. They came up Highway 95 past the wooden trestles and visited Dog Bark Park in Cottonwood. Richardson said she had asked Frances Conklin of Dog Bark Park to suggest a lunch stop when setting things up and Conklin suggested Keuterville Pub & Grub. The tourists were fascinated with the rustic flavor of Keuterville, taking lots and lots of photos and got to partake of the famous Taco Bar featured during Keuterville Pub & Grub’s popular Taco Tuesdays. KP & G owner Linda Elliott made sure everyone signed her guest book and enjoyed visiting with most of the tourists. From Keuterville the tour bus headed for Riggins where they planned a stop at the Salmon Rapids Lodge and from there they will head to McCall where they will spend the night. On Friday they were headed for a jet boat tour of Hells Canyon. Richardson said there are a lot of couples and families on these tours. Most of this group looked to be in their 20’s and 30’s and a couple had to try on the beer mug birthday hat and get their picture taken. Kolmann said that as an RMI representative in Germany, she goes along on some of these trips so that she can make recommendations for future tours. When asked about some of the German names in Keuterville, she said they didn’t sound familiar but we may have Americanized some of them so that they sound different than they would in Germany. 
A tour bus of European vacationers made a lunch stop at Keuterville Pub & Grub last Wednesday, Sept. 21 where they enjoyed the famous taco bar. |
 |