Meet Me in Montana

Ok, hopefully you've never actually heard that song by Marie Osmond and Dan Seals. Its terrible, but Montana is definitely not! We had a fantastic time there this past week. Yes, we left our sweet baby girl home with Nanna. Leaving was hard, but we were like birds out of a cage when our flight left the ground in Columbia. One flight delay, one missed connection, and one day later than planned, we touched down in Missoula Montana - the Garden City. Which I find quite humorous. If you like dry, sagebrushy, rocky gardens, its perfect. :) No, Missoula was actually a lot of fun. We stopped there for lunch and wandered the Saturday Market.

Picking up our Subaru at the airport. This made up appear more like locals.


Heading into Missoula.


After enjoying ourselves in Missoula, we set out for Hamilton, which is about 45 min South. My good friend Lisa (Rucks) Moore is a Post Doc at the Rocky Mountain National Laboratories. Lisa put up with my insanity while I was finishing up my PhD at MUSC. The fact that she even agreed to hang out with me again says a lot about what a nice person she is. :) After arriving in Hamilton we wandered around town - its rather quaint - and rested before heading down to the highly recommended Broad Axe Lodge for dinner. We called ahead to make sure they would be open, since this place was a good 40 miles away, in the middle of nowhere, and just shy of the Idaho border. He suggested we make reservations, so we did. Good thing too. When we arrived, there was absolutely no one there. They had binoculars available in case we saw any wildlife in the hills around the lodge. We didn't see any, but the idea that we could have was exciting. The steak was delish, as was the raspberry meringue dessert. Yum!

There were several fires burning around Hamilton, as well as Helena. Here is a rather large one. I think this was attributed to a lightening strike.


The beautiful town of Hamilton.


Heading to the Broad Axe Lodge. Notice the trees on that mountain-side to the right have burned at some point.


At the turn-off to Broad Axe.


Crossed over this small stream to get there.


And here we are!


The next morning we played around the hotel a bit, did some trespassing, and watched the sun rise over the Sapphire Mountains.



Around 10:00 Lisa and her husband Dalen treated us to a tasty brunch at The Signal Cafe and then we headed out for a fabulous float down the Bitterroot River. Dalen is a flyfishing guide/ski instructor and all around nice guy. I'm most impressed that he was able to paddle us down that river in a raft and although it looked many times as if we were about to run aground, we did not , and continued smoothly on to the take-out.

The Raft.


Me and Lisa. Oh, did I mention that she's 7 months pregnant? :) Just in case you were wondering. Lisa has always been a tiny little thing, so to see her pregnant was fun! And that is Dalen in the background. Unfortunately this is the only picture I got of him.


A Westslope Cutthroat trout. This is about average for their size (I think). Dalen was an excellent teacher of fly fishing facts. VERY interesting. Seems a lot more fun and adventurous than just fishing in a lake.


Beautiful scenery. Wow. It was amazing. We did see a Bald Eagle. You know, just hanging out, flying around. No big horn sheep though. I was somewhat disappointed.


Us in the raft. Dalen behind the camera. Someone should petition for more tripods in the wilderness.


Took a ride up the Skalkaho Pass to see this waterfall. It was pretty cold up there, but a great ride. I chose to sit on the inside, where I couldn't see the crazy 1000 ft drop down the side of the mountain. If it tells you anything, they close the "Pass" during the winter and its listed online as a "primitive" road.

Yes, I'm a dork. I took a picture of a lab while on vacation. This is a pretty high-security place. I'm shocked that no one chased us down to confiscate my camera. Watch out Dalen, they probably have your license tag number on video now. :D


Wrapped up with some beers at the Bitterroot Brewery.


Lisa, of course, had water.


Our trip really could have ended right there. What a great time. But because I was actually in Montana for business, we had to move along. We spent the night in Missoula again before heading out to Helena the next day.

Don hanging off a sign at the rest stop.


Just before you head over the Continental Divide, you pass through the "land of 1o00 haystacks." Really, I'm not kidding, there's a sign. To me they look just like haystacks in little kids storybooks - with tiny fences surrounding them. I've only seen bales of hay, never haystacks, so it really stood out.


Here we are heading over the Continental Divide. The scenic pull-off was closed b/c of fires. There's no sign, by the way, to indicate that you just crossed the divide. At least I didn't see it. Here's the view from our car. It was pretty spectacular.


Helena is the capital of the state, and is about 2 hours from Missoula. It sits up on a hill, unlike Missoula and Hamilton, which rest in the Bitterroot valley. The story goes something like this (I think): The gold diggers were just about to give up looking for gold in Helena when they struck it rich. They, of course, hung around, and at one time Helena had the highest concentration of millionaires of any city in the US. So they say. Its pretty quiet now.


Dropped off our car at the airport, which looks like a lodge and has only 4 gates. Hard to get lost there.


Touring an old mining village.


The state capital building.


Don and I rented bikes the first day there and just wandered around town. He got serious on the second day. While I was in class, he rented this beast of a bike to ride in the surrounding mountains. See that cut on his knee? I think he was pretty proud to have a battle scar from Montana.


A view from the bike trails.


The rock that got Don's knee.


Can you spot Don in this photo? He took off up the mountain on his bike. I don't do hills well, much less mountains, so I stayed at the bottom to take pictures.


And there you have it! Quite a fun adventure. For Don's take on the whole thing, make sure to visit his website. The class I taught went well, and I hope that one day there will be another in an equally exciting location. Don headed back a day before me, so he and Kate met me at the airport when I returned. I swear she grew an inch or two while I was gone, and was wearing actual big kid shoes. We brought her a cute stuffed animal Australian Shephard dog, and I brought her a cold, I'm afraid. She spent today sniffling. Here she is, reading her book, wearing an outfit that doesn't match, but enjoying the company of her Ma Ma and Da.