"I would like to have seen Montana" lamented someone once before his untimely demise. Indeed, Big Sky Country is as beautiful as the wide open landscapes that are everywhere.
After leaving Washington State, I passed through a slice of Idaho where I stopped in the picturesque town of Coeur D'Alene before crossing into Montana.
The Interstate meandered through the Rocky Mountains where the speed limit was an impressive 80 mph (129 km/h)! My first stop was the city of Missoula, which despite being located over 100 miles from the state border, took me less than 1.5 hours to reach. Missoula is home to the University of Montana, as well as some microbreweries.
Like many towns in the American West, there is a giant letter of the alphabet on a hill above, usually for the school in town. Since the University of Montana is located here, they have a giant "M", and there is a trail so you can hike to it. Not only did I see the large concrete "M" up close, but from high up I was able to see the entire university and much of the city of Missoula below.
The giant "M" up close Missoula and the Univ. of Montana from the "M"
I could have looked for a campsite for my evening in Missoula, but I was feeling a bit lazy. Given that this was a college town, I looked to see if my college fraternity had a chapter at the University of Montana. Lo and behold they did, and they had a house, too! It was summer so I wasn't sure if anyone would be home, but I showed up around 10pm and knocked on the door. Someone answered, and after introducing myself, they agreed to let me spend the night on their living room couch. We made good conversation, and they gave me advise on a couple places to visit in Montana. In the morning, they also introduced me to the Canadian TV show "Trailer Park Boys"...)
I continued on I-90 deeper into Montana and stopped next in the town of Butte. This town has a fascinating history. Did you know that at one point, Butte was the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco? It's true! Below the town are miles and miles of tunnels, as mining transformed the fortunes of thousands who came through here. (It also killed quite a few men - in 1917 the deadliest mine disaster took place here.) The World Museum of Mining shows how the mines worked. Above ground, I also visited the Berkeley Pit (see photo) - a large open pit mining site that eventually filled with water so acidic that alarms shoo birds away because they'll die if they land there (and many have). The water is so laden with minerals that they actually mine minerals from the water! So this "lake" is actually toxic waste.
A recreation of early Butte and demonstration of mining process at the World Museum of Mining
But the town itself also has some noteworthy buildings of its own.
Believe it or not, but Butte is home to the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the United States: Pekin Noodle Parlor. This restaurant has been serving food since 1911, and each table is located in its own stall with walls surrounding it. Patrons dining there cannot see anyone else. It's located upstairs; downstairs was a gambling den and the building possibly had a whorehouse too. Speaking of which, behind another building is passageway connecting it to another building not seen from the street. This allowed patrons to slip over to the "house of ill repute" and visit a prostitute without being seen outside the street.
(Left) The private stalls of Pekin Noodle Parlor. (Right) "Secret" passageway to the whorehouse. Patrons enter from the street to the business on the left, then sneak over to the building on the right to have their fun.
At night, I camped out in the mountains southeast of Butte. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one at the campsite. Around midnight a group of at least 20 people gathered, light a bonfire and were talking loudly, not far from my tent. After about an hour of not being able to sleep I went over there and learned that they were celebrating an upcoming wedding and were planning on roasting some food in the middle of the night! I realized that they were not going to let me sleep in peace, so in frustration I dragged my tent about 1,000 feet away so I could sleep. (I ended up damaging the tent because I should have emptied it first, but I was tired and only wanted to sleep. Fortunately it still worked well enough and it was a cheap tent.)
In the morning I continued through beautiful countryside to the town of Ennis. This was recommended to me by the fraternity brothers in Missoula because it's home to a distillery that makes some delicious honey bourbon whiskey. The town itself looked like an old frontier town, and had a large gun store to boot. I was disappointed that the distillery - Willie's Distillery - didn't have free samples and limited how much you could sample - but the "honey moonshine" was indeed delicious and I ended up buying a bottle. If I ever make it back to the area, you can bet I'll be picking up some more!
The frontier-looking town of Ennis, Montana
Scenery near Ennis, Montana