We'll miss you, Missoula

On the second day in Missoula, I began searching for glimpses of the snowy mountains as we strolled through downtown again on our way to the University of Montana campus. Lots of people on bicycles, mainly students, passed us. Missoula has lots of bike lanes and bike rakes, surprising in a wintry climate. We stopped by the Adventure Bicycling Association—looks like a group of people seriously interesting in biking who haven’t lost their sense of fun. They have bicycle handlebars for door handles and one of the members” vintage 60s Huffy girl’s bike on display. It’s “secret” compartment in the frame and well-dented metal basket brought back memories.


As bike friendly as they are, Missoulians are somewhat erratic interacting with pedestrians. They tend to creep out into intersections so you don’t know whether to wait or run. In general, people turning left into intersections seem to think they have the right of way, but if there’s a zebra crossing and a person on foot, the whole world stops. One poor guy stalled his car slamming on his brakes to let us pass. The U of M campus is a nice mixture of old and new. The clock tower was prickly with scaffolding and we could see people zigzagging up the switchback path to visit the hallowed “M” up on the side of the mountain.

We took the Mountain Line back to town and transferred to another bus to get to the car rental place. It cost $1 which seemed sort of steep for a town that size, but we got special service. The driver stopped right in the middle of the block on a busy highway to let us off never the rental office and we scampered over. After picking up our bags, we stopped at the Uptown Diner for melts (tuna and burger) and a chocolate shake. Good food, lots of kitschy decorations and a squad of sassy waitresses set it apart from your average burger place. We took a wrong turn on the way to I-90 and saw a little more of this pretty and prosperous little burg. A nice jumping off place into the wilderness.