THE QUINTESSENTIAL KOA CABIN
We went to a great talk about the adventure of Lewis and Clark a couple of nights ago. I found it absolutely incredible to learn that they entered Montana in the northeast corner and exited the southwest corner (I don’t know how many miles that is…but it’s a lot. This is a BIG state we’re talking about here) some months later without seeing another human being…outside of each other of course. Can you imagine?
Word was that Missoula is a must see with a really good beer scene…and Kaila’s birthday was nearly on us…and she wanted to go to the movies. So…interests aligned…we pointed our craft NW towards Missoula. The route took us through Butte. It looked to be a rather interesting place and it was almost lunch time…so it appeared a stop was in order. In just a couple of minutes we were cruising up the massive…and mostly devoid of cars…main street in historic “Uptown” Butte.
The road raises up a few hundred feet in the one or two miles that it takes you to get to Uptown from the freeway and…looking back gave us a classic view from an old western town. But…why in the heck are these streets so wide? We stopped into a used book store in a very cool old brick building. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the store, but it’s the large store on the right as you head up Main. We’ve gotten in the habit of stopping at what look to be promising used book stores for the kids…and occasionally us…to swap out our books. The knowledge of the people who work these stores never ceases to amaze me and this place was no exception. It was HUGE and the person working there knew her store from top to bottom and front to back. In fact, her knowledge of the store was so thorough we figured that she’d be the one to ask about the town. Jackpot. Restaurants? Not so much. Beer scene? Not really. But if we wanted to check out some beautifully classic brick architecture? We were in the right place.
We threw a couple of so-so sandwiches at our appetites and spent the next three hours walking the streets and checking out the buildings. They’re spectacular. I’ll tell you one thing…those copper Barons really knew how to rub it in. You walk up a street of old brick apartments…where the workers lived…and BAM there’s a row of spreads that look like museums (some actually are now) but are single family homes…of giant proportion…home of the Jefe’s.
JUST YOUR RUN O THE MILL FAMILY DWELLING
The Rocky Mountain region as a whole has a BIG problem with abandoned mines and their toxic run-off. As illustrated by the snafu in Durango that fouled the Animas River. In Montana alone there are something in the order of 20,000 abandoned mines and there’s essentially no one left to clean them up. In Butte that problem becomes even more evident because here some of the extraction of copper took place in the towns residential areas. The Anaconda mine company was apparently NOT on the cutting edge of environmental mining practices.
One thing that’s become VERY obvious to us in our travels is this just how many “boom towns” there are…and how much gets wasted in the cycle of boom to bust. Take Butte for example. A little under one-hundred years ago there were one hundred thousand people living there. That’s why the roads are so big! Now there’s roughly thirty thousand…and falling…living in a small city with the roads, and housing, and general infrastructure for many, many more…that’s just going to rot. It sure seems like a terrible waste.
EVEN THE THEATER’S FOR SALE
Butte definitely has it’s charms though, and if you find yourself in the area…we think it’s worth a look. Honestly, if we could have found any decent beer we might have stayed another day. But the brew scene of Missoula was calling and only (if memory serves) a little over a hundred miles away…so we were off.
It being nearly Kaila’s birthday and all…the kids decided…much to my dismay…that a stay at a KOA was in order. So…there we went…and WOW. First of all it’s located just off of an enormous street that would be right at home in the busiest of cities which seems to be constantly in a state of congestion. One of the things we wanted to do…for the first part of our travels anyway…was to give the kids a BIG dose of vitamin N (nature) by seeking out the remote and wild places. It had been awhile since we’d been in a city the size of Missoula (which is actually not THAT big…this road just made it seem that way), and the joke in our family is that I start to freak when I see a two story building. So you can imagine how I was handling being on a jam packed eight lane road.
We pulled into the KOA and it was…WORSE. There were literally hundreds of sites, all packed within five feet of each other. We went inside to inquire about a site and the receptionist gave me that serious…sort of disappointed look and drawled, “Awwwww Honey, y’all don’t have a reservation? I think we’re all full tonight.” I looked outside at the sea of sites…”How could this place EVER be full? Long story short, there was a site, we shoehorned our way in, and after a quick setup, we were off in search of beer.
COOL LITTLE MISSOULA DINNER THEATER
Heading out via that same ginormous nightmare of a road I began to question the allure of Missoula. But ten minutes later as we turned into the historic district I could see it. Energy, what looked to be planned growth (which is very un-Montana like…here people think they should have the right to do whatever the hell they want with their land), new buildings with a nod to the old…not dwarfing them, mixed residential and commercial, it had a really good, happy feel to it.
KETTLE HOUSE BREWING
The beer scene was off this planet. There are at least a dozen really good small brewers in the area. Some with food…all with a three 12oz pour limit…or a four 8oz pour limit (it varies from place to place). I thought it might be a carryover from the Montana’s fishing limits, you know ensuring there’s some for the next guy (I’m kidding). Someone told me that it was a hold over from prohibition…but honestly I couldn’t get a the same answer twice as to the origins of the rule…so I’ll just leave it at that. Our favorites: Kettle House – the double haul was even better on tap. Bayern – Dump Truck. Tmarack – Hat Trick IPA. And our SUPER Duper favorite…ImagineNation – He doesn’t bottle or sell anywhere outside of the pub. They have a VERY good IPA called Freedom Fighter and a neat outdoor patio where we were able to sit with the dogs, order a pizza, and enjoy an afternoon…with only our limit of three 12oz beers…of course.
Perhaps it not too surprising because it was smack in the middle of consumption central but our KOA was about a block away from an REI…handy for us because we needed to make a coupe of exchanges. And in the Yogurt mall directly across from REI we discovered a very good little restaurant called Romaine. As you may have already guessed they specialize in salads and for about seven bucks you can get a really nice salad that’s a satisfying meal (eight bucks with the protein of your choice). Needless to say we visited more than once. And so…after one seventh birthday, several mighty fine beers, two good movies, multiple meals at Romaines, one very good pizza, and three days in the crazy, congested, but kid friendly KOA we bid adieu to Missoula and were on our way to Glacier.