Day 4: Missoula, MT to Bozeman, MT

Our plan was to drive to Glacier National Park today.  Our route was to take us north deeper into the Rockies and loop around to Great Falls.  We woke up pretty early and checked the forecast... snow in Missoula, snow everywhere in western Montana.  The road to Glacier goes up and up and up and up.  The super beautiful, smart, and cool-as-shit Amie, who's every suggestion only brought us joy while we were in Missoula, suggested that we head south and visit Butte.  She said the town was surrounded by mountains, full of abandoned buildings, cool bars, funky shops, and contains a bizarre super fund site.  So rather than risk closed roads, snow up to our arses, and flying off the side of the rockies because of an icy patch we decided to head south.  Butte is only about 90 miles from Missoula so we decided that we would head there and decide whether or not to stay there or keep moving when we got there.

We loaded up the car, hopped back on the beautiful American Highway 12 and headed towards Butte.  I didn't get any pictures of the beautiful stretch just outside of Missoula because it was snowing to beat the band. 

We pulled off the road at a little town called Drummond.  We were just gonna get a bite to eat or something to drink but as we pulled off the road we saw a sign that said "Pintler Veterans' Memorial Scenic Highway". We had a little lunch in Drummond and headed down our newly discovered path.  I love driving in Montana.  The speed limit is 75 on major highways and 70 on smaller highways.  I haven't seen a cop outside of cities since we arrived.  The roads are smooth, there are long straight-aways, and the curves are generally those wide sweeping curves. They are a ton of fun to drive on and this road was definitely not an exception.

We came across a cute little town called Philipsburg, where we were pelted by pea sized hail.

The hail was a sign of things to come.  The road was amazing.  The scenery was mountainous and beautiful.  But it was snowing so hard that even though I got out and braved the snow and the 28 degree weather, the pictures didn't turn out because it was snowing so damn hard.  There were rivers, huge waterfalls, one waterfall came out of a small opening in a granite cliff. It was so beautiful!!  There were giant frozen lakes. Ski runs were abundant.

We went through another town called Anaconda that was pretty cute but we had to go 25 MPH for so long before we got to the town, we wanted out so we didn't stop to take pictures.

As we came upon Butte we remembered what Amie had told us... check out Walkerville up on the hill (mountain?) above Butte.  Walkerville is closest to the breathtakingly horribe strip mine superfund site.  There is an immediate sense of awe and sadness that humans are capable of such massive destruction to such beautiful land.  Our short sightedness fueled by greed and incomprehensible ego is on display in spades here.  But there is also something beautiful about it.  The suffering and back breaking work expended largely by Irish immigrants that must have taken place here makes you hate the men that asked them to do it but respect those individuals who must have given so much of their physical self.   A single fire in one of the mines took 170 lives.  The stories that this town must hold within its dilapidated buildings and its largely empty streets. I thought about the suffering of the women and children who helped build this town. I thought about how little the mining company executives likely cared about the individual stories.  Human casualties, like the scarred earth were just the price of doing business here.  I tried to capture the vastness of the destruction with my camera but truthfully, I couldn't do it.  I got some pictures but none of them do what happened here justice so I am choosing to leave them out of any of my postings.

Stunned, we head down the hill to Butte.  Butte was surprisingly amazing.  As you probably know by now, Willow and I love architecture. We love how sky and light play off of the colors of buildings.  Downtown Butte is a playground for this.  I wish we would have had a day or more to spend here.  Every building is on the National Register of Historic Places.  The bars look uber cool.  The restaurants looked great.  We stayed for about 2 hours.  During that 2 hours Mother Nature gave us both 30 with snow and 53 with blue skies.  We drove and walked around the entire downtown area wishing we could get into the numerous abandoned buildings.  We dreamed of opening a restaurant/bar with our house above in some of the most amazing buildings we have ever seen.

   



We decided that in order to shorten our push on the 5th to Peru, NE to see Willow's dad we better move on.  That day is scheduled to be 12 hours and that is a very long day after days and days of driving.  So we got back in the car and headed southeast towards Bozeman.

Along the way we saw a sign for "Missouri Headwaters State Park".  The beginning of the Missouri river?  It's actually a confluence of three rivers that form the beginning of the great Missouri River.  It was interesting, pretty, and a nice way to stretch the legs and make us feel like we are not in a rush to get anywhere.

Our next stop was Bozeman, MT.  We didn't expect to like Bozeman.  We thought is was gonna be a little shit hole along the highway.  We were wrong.  It is adorable.  Great food.  Great bars.  Nice people.  Mountains everywhere!!



























We are trying our hardest to eat food that is regional. We want our meat and vegetables to be in season, organic if possible, and importantly local.  We want our chefs to understand the region and the people that they cook for.  We definitely found that for tonight's dinner.  We ate at Ted's Montana Grill.  We had buffalo with fresh local veggies.  It was an awesome dinner.



We walked our meal off a little. Talked about going to some of the great bars we spotted but ultimately decided to take the night off and get some rest.  So... here we are... In our hotel room early resting, writing about the days travels, and continuing to enjoy each others love and company.  Another day in paradise no matter where we are!

I am looking forward to discovering tomorrow's story!

Don't forget to check out my Smugmug gallery for even more pics!!

(SmugMug Lesson: Once that page loads you can use your arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through the pictures.  The first picture from day 2 will load, so you can use your right arrow key to scroll through that days pictures.  You can also use your mouse to click on the picture to open up the gallery and look at picture at will)