Boise, Spokane and Missoula

I'm in Bozeman now and don't have a lot of time here so this may be brief. I also haven't gotten any pictures off the camera so I will have to add them later.

Boise is definitely a town I could live in. It reminds me a lot of Greenville. I couchsurfed within 1/2 mile of downtown and spent a lot of time wandering around. The downtown seems relatively new, much like Greenville. It does have a section of new upscale chain stores and restaraunts, but is mostly local things. There are bike lanes everywhere and a lot of people getting around on bikes. There is also a great greenway along the river that apparently runs for longer than I can run. My first night there I spent some time at a pizza and beer place called Reef. They only had about 12 taps, but all were quality and they had a beer engine with a firkin of a local IPA. I was able to have some local harvest ales while I was there. The bartender really knew his beer which I can't say is generally the case. I talked to a few locals there who all had great things to say about Boise. There are a couple of drawbacks. There is a large Mormon population there, which doesn't seem to be a problem now but it's a concern. They also have some air and water quality issues, although I couldn't tell. It's also pretty isolated.

The drive from Boise to Spokane was pretty, but not like it was driving through CO and eastern UT. I did stop in a very strange town in Oregon, but that's a long story.

Spokane was originally going to be a 2 day stop, but it got shortened to one day for a few reasons. I didn't get a great response from the couch surfing population in Spokane so I wound up in a hotel on the river. I did meet up with a couple of CSers for dinner and a beer (in Spokane the CSers apparently hang out with each other, but don't actually host anyone). Before that I dropped in the best beer bar according to beeradvocate where I talked with the owner for a while. He had moved around the country before settling in Spokane and had been there a long time. He said it was a great city for someone my age, but as I looked around the restaurant I didn't see anyone under the age of 50. The median age for Spokane is 34, but that's because of all the colleges there. It's really a town with a bunch of old people and college kids. There were also a lot of homeless people and I was told there was quite a meth problem. They also have a system of trails along the river which I ran along in the afternoon. At one point I stopped to watch these guys who were floating some kind of instrument down the river with ropes and someone walking by asked if "they were pulling another body out of the river." Welcome to Spokane. I'm not sure if Spokane really got a fair evaluation from me, but at this point it's not a contender.

I left Spokane for Missoula where I added the extra day from Spokane. The drive from Spokane to Missoula was incredible. I went through Coeur D'Alene which was on my list orginally before I found out how expensive it was. The lake there is unbelievably beautiful. I took a lot of pictures from the car on this drive and I will try to post them soon.

Since planning this trip the more I learned about Missoula the more I liked it. My CS host sent me on a hike when I first got into town. I went to the Pattee Canyon trailhead, whcih is a great system of trails for hiking and mtn biking right outside of town. One of the trails goes up Mt. Sentinel which overlooks the city. There was also a slightly higher mountain (these are not mtns in the CO sense, but more so in the NC sense) next to it that I went up since it was there. I think they were both in the upper 5000 ft range and Missoula is around 3200 ft. I looked at guide to the trails around Missoula and what I saw seems to be the norm and not the exception. I was really wishing I had my mtn bike while I was out hiking. I think I uploaded something to Facebook from my phone, but there are a lot of pictures to come.

That night we went out, walked around and hit a few bars, then went back and had a few beers on the back porch. The mix of people in the bars was interesting. I'm used to a bar having a certain type of people in it with very little intermixing, but just about everywhere we went had the entire cross section of the town. We also went to a really cool place called the Oxford that was part bar, part diner and part casino. The beer in MT is unusally inexpensive, and everywhere had a selection of local stuff. The south seems to be well-represented in Missoula. I met a girl who graduated from Clemson in 2005 and moved to Missoula, a girl from Sylva, NC, a girl from Johnson City, TN (who also shares my birthday) and also met up with Andrea's friend Michel from Greenville a former Barley's employee.

Saturday we went to a UMT Grizzlies football game. They don't seem to start tailgating as early as in the south, but otherwise it seemed much the same just on a smaller scale. It was nice going to a football game and seeing the home team win. Afterwards was more walking around, a couple more bars and lots of conversations.

I saw a sticker in Missoula that said "Keep Missoula Weird" which I think was a good summary of Missoula. I really enjoyed the time I spent there. I met a lot of great people in Missoula and it's a very serious contender. My host and her boyfriend were also really great people. Very easy going and generous and always an interesting conversation. CS continues to restore my faith in people.

I got an early start out of Missoula for Bozeman. Another beautiful drive and a gorgeous town surrounded by snow covered peaks. So far Bozeman strikes me a like a new Boulder. It seems like the rich hippies have found the place and started moving in. I am leaving here early tomorrow to spend the day in Yellowstone on the way to Jackson, WY. I will be in Jackson for two nights and will spend part of Tuesday working and part hiking in Grand Teton. I'm meeting up with two CSers other than the one I'm staying with so I'm looking forward to meeting people there before heading back to CO (Ft. Collins is coming PRJ).