Missoula is a small city of about 53,000 people at the foot of the Rockies and at the mouth of Hellgate Canyon in Western Montana. The city straddles the Clark Ford River as it passes through town thus- A River Runs Through It. Along the river there are many beautiful restored buildings from the turn the century. Missoula is also a college town being the home of the University of Montana. It is also the home of the Medical Center which is fifth in the nation for safety. This makes this city an important part of this region. Of course the book, A River Runs through It by Norman Mclean and the film with Brad Pitt helped put Missoula on the map.
This lovely area was the home of the Shoshone Indians before they were moved to a reservation. It is rich in game and fish with lots of flora and fauna to sustain the Shoshone well. Now the main revenue for the reservation is gambling. Any place that has a slot machine calls itself a casino. We went into one and it was full of slot machines as well as poker machines and they only served liquor. We took one look and got out.
We drove into the city hoping to see some historical sights, but it looked like any modern city with all the latest stores, Target, Best Buy, and Hooters… John saw it first and said we must go in and check out the Hooter Girls. So we went in and had lunch. It was a typical sports bar with lots of TVs and sports posters all over the place and lots of pretty Hooter girls. Our waitress was called "Tuesday" and she wrote it on a napkin so we would not forget. John asked her if she was called Wednesday on Wednesdays. She got a laugh out of that one. John, being a Hooter guru, proceeded to tell her about how Hooters starter in Clearwater, Florida and how Coach John Gruden used to be a chef there before he became the Tampa Bay Buc's head coach. Tuesday was really impressed by all this as she showed interest and rolled her eyes. Finally, John asked her if he could have his picture taken with her to put into the blog. She said, "Sure" and posed with a winning smile.
We had to go into the outskirts of the city to find our campsite, so we turned to the Garmin Girl to help us find the Beaver Tail State Park. We were given a spot right next to the fast running river and the rapids sounded like a rumble. We had no electricity at our side so we used the electric outlet close to us and blew up our matrasses and carried them back to our campsite. After setting up our camp we went for a run down the path that circled the camp. By the looks of the marshes on both sides of the trail it was plain that there were plenty of mosquitos. Sure enough by the end of our run we were running for our lives with mosquitos all over our shirts. Help!;;;;;;
We went back to our tent and sprayed bug spray all around and that took care of them for a while. We were not going to take any chances though. The next day we packed up in record time and we were on the road by seven thirty on our way to Bozeman.
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