August 7th, 2018
Missoula, MT

Little to report this long ten-hour day of driving. As the spaces get more wide open on the high plains, the curious roadside attractions get fewer and farther between. The Ramada I stayed at in Dickinson was a big place that was set up as a convention center. They had a sit-down restaurant where there was supposed to be a free hot breakfast. Well, “hot” was a generous term this measly buffet. Unless you are happy with standard poor motel breakfast, eat out if you ever stay at the Dickinson Ramada.

I was on the road by 6:30 a.m., however, and the first stop was just 100 miles down the road in Glendive. Glendive is a nice small place surrounded by attractive buttes. One of the things I missed about the west is elevation. Not absolute elevation, but relative elevation. Things jutting up in the air, sometimes dramatically. Everything in the east just seems so flat. Not so in Montana. At a very pleasant tiny park I found my goal: Glendasaurus, a 1997 stature of a triceratops.

The next, and last, roadside curiosity of the entire trip was near Miles City, MT.  The location given was a little sketchy, so I started keeping my eyes open (no more naps!) about ten miles out.  I needn’t have worried.    Driving westbound on I-90 it is simple impossible to miss Creepy Crawler, a giant baby crawling after a life-sized buffalo, rhino, and velociraptor.  What’s was the point?  None whatsoever.  That’s what’s great about some of these things – there just isn’t any point to them at all.  It just doesn’t get much weirder than that, so a fitting end to my trip’s roadside attractions.

I had lunch in Billings at the Montana Brewing Company.  I recognized the logo as I have been there before.  The Amber Stout was good, but the smoked beef brisket sangie was simply rockin’!  Damn.

On this the fifth consecutive day of driving all day long I was starting to get horse-to-barn syndrome.  My original plan had called for staying in Livingston, MT.  But that seemed like a wimpy day, so I had decided the previous night to press on to Butte.  Getting such an early start and having few oddities to chase down this day, It would have only been about 3 p.m. if I stopped in Butte, so decided to drive through to Missoula.  Missoula being only 200 miles from Spokane, I briefly toyed with just pressing all the way through, but it was 5:30 when I got to Missoula and I had been driving for ten hours, so I called it quits.

I’ve stayed in Missoula before.  Twenty-one years ago, Mike and I went on a week long camping trip in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.  We tried mostly to camp, but also to find campgrounds that allowed for easy access to a good place to eat dinner and, ideally, a brewpub.  I guess I haven’t changed that much since my mid-thirties, except that now I prefer motels.  (Particularly snarky persons might point out that my hair had very little gray back then, something that most definitely has changed, but such persons should keep their comments to themselves.)  The camping  trip was a blast, but Missoula impressed as a very otherworldly place.  Everything about it seemed a little odd.  

In 1997, we had a beer in a dive bar called The Rhinoceros (motto “Dip In and Get Your Horn Wet.”)  Sitting next to me was a highly odiferous young guy who kind of rocked back and forth grabbing his crotch as if he had both physical and emotional crabs.  Sitting next to Mike was a chatty Indian smoking an upside-down pipe who referred to Mike as “Shotgun.”  And this bar was not out of place in Missoula.  Before going back to the campground we watched a movie just out in the theaters, Men in Black.  The idea that maybe aliens lived among us in human form seemed to explain a lot about Missoula.

And it really isn’t much different now.  It’s a very pretty place, but still has that somewhat otherworldly feel to it.  It is a college town, but seems to have a bit of a Berkeley vibe.  As I got in late and had little choice, I stayed in an expensive but very nice Holiday Inn right downtown.  There was a storefront Peace Center a short walk away.  Granted it was hot, but numerous young guys were walking around shirtless.  Except the guy in the hoodie, hood up, on a 94-degree evening.  If only I could have listened to the Revolution Gospel Hour on KPFA, I would have sworn I was walking down Telegraph Avenue near UCB in the 1980s.  Granted, my impression of the place is a based entirely on the area near the campus, so perhaps a bit skewed. 

While the Rhinoceros still remains, I’m sorry to report that a quick check on the Internet reveals the iconic Bison Brewery (“Transferring Power to Man”) in Berkeley has closed.  The beer was crap, but the place was certainly something to be experienced.

And of course seeing the Rhinoceros brought back memories of that 1997 camping trip.  On the last night of which, on the Fourth of July in Twin Falls, Mike and I placed folding chairs in a small park near the motel and prepared to watch fireworks.  Mike, who I now know cannot be trusted with any form of pyrotechnic device, lit some large sparklers and waved them over me, ignore my cries of pain as they burned my legs.  He laughed at my cries of pain and I do believe actually enjoyed seeing me burnt.  Later the legs actually got small blisters.  To this day I cannot view fireworks without phantom pain in my legs.  The physical wounds have healed over time, but the emotional scars remain.

But back to Missoula.  A Wakeboard Wit at the Tamarack Brewing Company was light and refreshing.  Recommended.  Dinner at Ciao Mambo was uninspiring and lacking in flavor.  I should have eaten at Tamarack, instead.

Tomorrow on to Spokane, my new home.