Screeeeeeeeeee...ch!That sound you hear may be us Stopping for a while....
We had been talking about getting serious about finding a place to alight. (or, as we tell folks, a "Place to be FROM")
Cathy likes to do some serious cooking occasionally, (and I like to eat, all the time) and the kitchen in the motor home has become more and more limiting. So we decided to take a serious look at some of our prospects.
When we left Yellowstone, we drove up to Bozeman, and were going to spend a couple of days there, but it was too much like the high desert we had left. So we kept going on to Butte, Montana. It, too, was a bit too arid, so after a visit to the Tourist Information kiosk at the Chamber of Commerce, and an overnight in a windy RV park, we went on to Missoula.
The closer we got to Missoula, the more grass and less sage dominated the hills. Then, of course, there were the mountains. We both felt very comfortable there, so we decided to spend some time looking the area and the real estate market over.
It turns out that Missoula has everything we have liked about the places on our short list to consider. (Well, everything but a large body of water. But the Clark Fork River runs right through it...and the Flat Head lake an hour away). The list of things that we liked include
- it's a college town. University of Montana, and a Technical College.
- Climate. It is in a valley, which forms a micro climate area, not as cold as the plains areas of Montana.
- Shopping. More specificity, a real complete market which specializes in fresh and organic foods. In Missoula it is call the Good Food Market.
- Outdoor Diversions. If you fish, this is supposed to be a great place! And lots of trail heads in town, near town, and within an hour of downtown!
- Railfan opportunity. The Montana Rail link is headquartered there, and the BNSF runs through as a relief route on the TransCon.
- Revitalized downtown, including a farmers market, Wednesday lunch outdoors at the river, and other cultural events
- an active green-ways program, including walking paths along both sides of the river in the downtown, and bike-paths through out the town
- Airport, with major hub city access (Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake, Denver). Plus, a Civil Air Patrol squadron.
At this point, the only major item missing from our list is a good Mexican Food restaurant. But we have high hopes!
So, after a lot of driving around we found a house that meets our needs. With any luck, we will be moving our stuff up from New Mexico sometime in late August. And, oh, yeah, we will be able to keep the motorhome at the house, just in case we want to get away quickly for a week or so..._
There is a link to a couple of pictures of the house on the previous posting...the house is simple, but the view is breath taking! The link for a google map is not exactly pointing to the house, but it's pretty close. If you're coming to visit us, we'll give you more precise directions.
