Montana: part the first

This trip was all about driving, Big Sky, how in love Mom and Chris are, and food. There are plenty of cowboy pictures to come, too, because they were everywhere. I loved it.

Day #1 consisted of departing Gig Harbor in the evening to pick me up where I was, watching three of the cutest girls to have ever existed for the weekend, and then to Pullman to say a quick hello! to the brother figure before rushing off to the great land of Moscow (pronounced Mos-CO.), ID, where we stayed in a nice little hotel for the night, even though they forgot about our second room and I had to squish between two brothers in a bed before giving up and moving to the floor at approximately 2:30 in the AM and sleeping happily until 5:45 when we got our cute little butts out the door for more driving (I hope everyone loves run-on complainy sentences as much as I do!).

Day #2 was Monday. We drove for about four hours (for some reason writing those last four words was really confusing) along this incredibly beautiful but twisty road alone the river, which everyone but the parental units were feeling quite sick. So we stopped where the rivers met and enjoyed some fresh air and guh-orgeous scenery, which frankly I didn't know existed in Idaho.

Also, we didn't actually drive all that much every day. We took our sweet time the entire week (partly because Chris had to stop at every hospital for work). And yes, I was tired of being in the car by the next week. TOO. MUCH. CAR. TIME. But I definitely enjoyed 95% of the trip.

Anyway.

Day #2 - Continued... We stopped in Missoula for lunch at this awesome place called Catalyst, which serves breakfast all day (though no French Toast?!) and caters to Gluten Intolerant folk, which my mom was quick happy about. Nathan and I ate these open-facing sandwiches with pork (not pulled) was piled on top in a coffee BBQ sauce, and then finished with a zesty and tangy dill col slaw. It was SO GOOD. Nathan ordered the whole sandwich though, which covered his entire plate, and ended up being sick the next day (poor kid). Moral of the story: DON'T EAT TOO MUCH MEAT IN ONE SITTING.

Later we stopped in Helena, MT, (where we eventually slept for the night) and tried to find some beauty in that city. We failed. So instead we looked for food, and then we ran into the most beautiful thing there (please refer to photo numero 5 from the top), followed by the state capitol which was also beautiful (not pictured), though surrounded by the ghetto. It was not a great city, I'm going to be honest. Even the cute Italian restaurant that looked so promising ended up disappointing (though Mom and Chris didn't seem to notice much as they were busy staring into each others eyes, and when Chris was loving up his wine). But whatever, because we got back to our nice hotel, the kidlets swam, and I watched the season finale of The Bachlorette (two days late! gasp!).  Moral of this story: DRIVE THROUGH HELENA, DON'T STOP.

Ahem. My profoundest apologies if you live there.

Day #3 was the day Chris finally relinquished his hold on the steering wheel. So I drove us to Bozeman where we ate at this awesome spot on the main drag called Ted's Montana Grill, where I devoured a $16 Bison burger (black angus was an option) and the best grilled asparagus of my life. (I wasn't kidding when I said this trip was about food.) So if you ever find yourself in Bozeman, stop there. Also, stop down the road a few blocks at The CO-OP. It was probably the greatest natural foods market I've ever been to, and everyone was so friendly. Here at home we've been feasting on these delightful Celtic Salt Caramels, so we were SO excited to see them there, and even more excited when we realized that the caramels are actually made IN BOZEMAN. Needless to say, we ate those caramels just about every day. Moral of the Bozeman story: good food is everywhere, it's picturesque, and large enough to satisfy my city needs (mostly - but we'll come back to Bozeman in a few days).

I'm sorry, I could write/talk about food all day long. I'm out of control.

So after lunch (because that entire last paragraph came from about an hour of being in the city), we drove to Livingston and found another great place (Rick's On Main) to get some dessert that night. Cowboys were across the room dining (and we're talking fine dining, people), so naturally I took a picture to document. Dessert was good, though not good enough to post pictures over. It was over-priced and lacking in depth. I could have made it better (I'm full of myself, I know!). Except Chris did enjoy fried wontons filled with chocolate ganache, so that was it's saving grace. Otherwise it was a cool place, but probably the only good restaurant there. That town was small and almost dead at about 8pm, which is so weird. But cool.

So at the end of Day #3 we were probably 3lbs heavier and happily enjoying the Big Sky Country.

This could possibly be the longest post about Montana, so if you made it this long I'll be most amazed. I'll most likely talk about food some more, and there will definitely be more pictures of the big sky, but the rest of the week we actually stayed in Red Lodge and Bozeman for a couple of days each, so it was far less all-over-the-board-crazy-roadtrip-craze. Also, I took about 270 photos and it's probably the hardest thing ever to decide which ones to post. I'm telling you, guys, that place was gorgeous. I'd like to go up with some friends, or on a romantic getaway (ya know, with my significant other that I totally have). Not sure if I'd really want to live there... the jury is still out. But I liked it. I liked it a lot.