Mountaina

Montana

As I left Yellowstone National Park, I entered the town of West Yellowstone, Montana. It was a small little town that gets money because people like me leave Yellowstone park. They had an IMAX there. Crazy! Wasn't expecting to see one of those in Montana.

I was headed for Big Sky, which isn't far from West Yellowstone. The road from West Yellowstone to Big Sky was amazing. It was this two way traffic road with a 70 mph speed limit with a very steep grade the whole way to Big Sky. I could have easily done that road at like 150 mph. It was insane. It goes down through the Spanish Mountain chain. It was beautiful.

I got to Big Sky, it was very quaint. The architecture was pretty unique there, and pretty much the same throughout the town which sort of gave it a development planned neighborhood kind of feel... I don't know. It was pretty cool though. Hot some waves from friendly townspeople, probably for my VT plate. There's a view of a mountain from Big Sky, called lone peak. There was a brewery in Big Sky called Lone Peak Brewery, it was okay. Nothing incredibly memorable, but a good brewpub, they served food. It was also average. Not bad, not great.

I left Big Sky, it being the case that there wasn't much to do there. I was headed for Bozeman. The drive from Big Sky to Bozeman was short and different. Large bluff between me and some HUGE mountains. It was pretty cool.

I eventually arrived in Bozeman. It was another one of those Burlington-y cities. It was pretty small, predominant college population surrounding the downtown area. It was pretty.

I got advice from an old high school friend, Pat, he told me to find the Molly Brown. Great call, Pat. The Molly Brown was awesomely cheap, and they had a lot of beer there. A lot of good beer. I gave the bartender my card to start a tab and she told me there was a $10 minimum. I though “no big deal, couple of good beers and I'm out.” Wrong. Craft drafts $2.75. Amazing. I had to get 4, so I was there a bit longer than I thought I would be. Some cool people and some sketchballs there. Some guy drinking next to me was telling me all about his gang tattoos. Impressive :rolleyes:, he had some compensatory issues, but I'm sure I would too if I were raised by a gang in MONTANA. Sigh. Oh well, some of the other people there were a little less ridiculous. I had a good time.

After a few hours there slowly trudging through my 4 craft beers at an amazingly low price, I headed to The Bozeman Brewing Company. They were good, but a little overpriced for the area. Normal beer prices in a town where most beers are about $3. Their website is under construction, and their old site has the three beers I didn't try. One of the beers I did try was heavy, a 6 oz pour, it was delicious, but the bartender have me a bad pour, which colored my experience here negatively. They had a band playing, they were pretty good. I don't know. You can only get 3 beers there (which was fine for my situation), but I'd still recommend going. It was pretty good.

I found my way to a Montana State rest area just outside town and slept a bit, and made my way to Missoula. Missoula was okay. I went to a couple breweries. One of which was Big Sky (not in big sky) Brewing company. They brew Moose Drool, which is a really head retentive brown. Very thick body, very good beer. Someone told me to try this beer in Savannah, GA. Good call, random dude who is totally not reading this blog!

The city of Missoula was kind of unflattering. I didn't spend a lot of time there. I had just slept in my car and it was early, I wasn't in any mood to waste time in a city that wasn't seeming all that sweet. Maybe if I end up in the area I'll give it a better shot, but as far as the trip's been, it wasn't that cool. Neither was Butte, I only stopped there for like 5 minutes. City was ugly and gross.

I headed north to Kalispell, which was also kind of boring. I was told it was a very scenic city, but that wasn't true, so I was sort of let down. I got outta there and headed for a little city called Whitefish.

The drive from Kalispell to Whitefish was mostly boring, but out of nowhere I turned a corner and was approaching the town of Polson, MT. It was beautiful to drive through. It was on a lake and on the other side (not too far away) was Glacier national park, basically just a huge chain of massive mountains.

Whitefish was awesome. Whitefish was another ski town full of ski bums, good folk, great for bar conversing, I'm coming to realize. I was looking for the Black Star brewing company/Great Northern brewing company (one place). Funny, there is a bar on the same street as the brewery called Great Northern, the bar was sweet. They had a lot of good beer, and I drank a couple of them and met a man and woman and talked to them about my travels. They informed me of the location of the brewery I was looking for, and they told me a few places to try to check out in Glacier National Park for the following day. They took off, and I went across the street to the brewery. It was fantastic. They had an EXCELLENT pale ale. Very complex hop character. They use very, very fresh hops for it, and they use different hops all the time. The bartender was very friendly and knowledgeable. It was good talking to him. He asked about my travels, and was happy to hear I had so much fun in Georgia, as he was from there. He reminded me of the bartender at one of the bars I went to in Athens, GA. Cool guy.

I went to a local wal-mart supercenter to sleep, as there was no legitimate campsites or rest areas were near. No big deal.

I woke up early and headed into Glacier. The roads into glacier were unpaved. Pretty pot-holey. It was unpleasent. There were some beautiful sites, despite very, very shitty weather. So shitty, in fact, that I had to cancel my sightseeing in Montana. I couldn't get through the park, and went around it, headed through butte down to Idaho Falls, ID, and then over to Pocatello. Here's the pics I got while inside glacier:

The drive from Glacier to Idaho was kind of crazy. Huge, Montana craziness. I drank a (ONE) beer behind the wheel of this drive. I did this solely because it is legal in the state of Montana (seriously, look it up). The people I talked to in whitefish also told me that the whole area is one big county the size of Connecticut, and anyplace that isn't a settled area is only policed by the one sheriff of the whole county, who, according to these people, wouldn't be anywhere near glacier. People drive VERY fast on these roads that hug the southern part of Glacier. It was a 70 mph zone and I had a truck pushing me to accelerate when I was going 85 mph (This was before the beer, for the record). It was kind interesting. There were also areas that were beautiful on this route:

Oh Montana, where you can crank beers in your car, leave the empties laying around, get pulled over and not have a problem. As long as you're not drunk. You can't drive drunk, but you can drink and drive. Makes sense to me!

Anyways, that was neat. I made my way through butte, and left quickly. I headed for Idaho, and it was sweet. I was pretty much driving into a postcard for about 1 hour.

Idaho's next! Check back, see you on the road and all that.

-Skwar