MONTANA!

From the top of Lolo pass it was all downhill–all the way to Missoula.  The only catch was that my hands cramped from gripping the brakes tightly all day long.  This fast, thrilling downhill float through ranch lands gave us our first taste of “big sky” country.  It was true–the sky did look bigger here.  The fluffy clouds seemed to stretch forever, like the stars at night.

Missoula was a peppy, colorful college town with plenty of bike and outdoor stores, a river with pedestrian and bike bridges stretching over it, and grunge music playing in the local grocery store.

Butte struck us as a huge old west ghost town that was actually lived in.  The pace was delightfully slow, breakfast was $2.50 at the 100 year old M & M café, and weekly rent at the 50's kitchy City Center motel was a mere $100 bucks.  Cultural attractions included the Copper King’s mansion, complete with copper roof and Titanic-like sculptured grand staircase, and the Dumas house, an 1800s house of prostitution that was a veritable warren of windows and doors.  We vowed to come back, especially after making friends with Bob, the City Center Motel’s proprietor, who’d spent many years hitching across the country.

A word about wildlife: Montana’s state animal ought to be the groundhog.  We kept hearing chirping noises close to the ground and assumed they were birds.  It turned out huge colonies of groundhogs ran rampant over Montana, and the cautious rodents chirped warnings to their fellows right before darting into their burrows.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands of groundhogs would stand tall on their hind legs from a safe distance and watch us as we rode by.

Hang in there, lots more Montana soon!