The Road Goes Ever On

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Three Weeks In Missoula, 2

Continuing our three weeks in Missoula...

Early Saturday morning at the old Farmers' Market

Huckleberry season...5 lbs for $90

I didn't even ask what the Morrells were going for

At The Break cafe, one of Missoula's many institutions

At the craft market...no crap

Interesting approach to camouflage...drop several grand wrapping
your truck, then plaster it with bumper stickers...

Storage in Missoula is neither temp nor humidity controlled, and, over
the past two years, the Hellgate winds (through Hellgate Canyon) blew
plenty of dust and grit into our unit; we spent much of our time simply
cleaning off the scores of boxes, bins, furniture, and other things

At length, after a couple days, our luggage arrived, intact; in the
meantime we had acquainted ourselves with the Montreal Convention, and
modestly availed ourselves of some of its considerable benefits

Walking around East Missoula

You haven't been to Missoula if you haven't been to Rockin' Rudy's

The magnet and bumper sticker departments are a good hour's
reading; and laughter

Canned Sasquatch

Not so funny sticker in the parking lot at Bretz RV

The last week we house- and car-sat for friends Kim and Dave while
they were in Scotland walking the West Highland Way, Glasgow to Fort
William...and hopefully imbibing some Islay and Dark Island on the way;
I also tended their considerable garden, learning how and when to harvest
zucchini; above, some of the neighborhood deer, a block from their
house

Three Weeks In Missoula, 1

As readers of this blog will recall, our next stop after Paris/Frankfurt/London/Denver was Missoula, Montana, from which we retired in 2008. Interim update #1,279 will bring you up to date. We were in Missoula three weeks, coping first with the lack of luggage arriving with us, then with the weather, then with going through as much of our stuff as circumstances permitted, then with packing up the U-Haul truck for another cross-country road-trip. When not coping, we did get to see a number of new and old friends and to visit a number of favorite places. We lived in Missoula for 13 years before our retirement travels and still think of it as the best place in which we lived and worked.

At CDG July 4th, our checked items disappearing into
the checked luggage void, not to be seen again for a few
days...reports were that it spent a couple nights in Frankfurt...

Yet another rental car to get us here and there and back again

Approaching Missoula, the Hub of Five Valleys

We always visit our old home, five wooded acres on Horseback
Ridge, overlooking the city and the Missions...Blue Pine Lodge we
called it*; as it looked in the early 00s

The "Cow Store," aka Dale's Dairy, closest business establishment
to where we lived, only a couple miles away, up the Bitterroot, across the
(one-lane) McClay bridge and onto the Flats; seriously upscaled and
gentrified now...I hope Dale and Betty Jo have had as good a retirement
as we have