Oh, Montana, how we did love thee. … Let me count some ways:

1. The people are so friendly! Everyone we ran into — if they found out we were from out of town — would step back and open their palms and say, “Well, welcome to Montana!” No joke.

2. It’s so beautiful there. Really, all the land, the green, the rivers, the trees. … It was like being in a movie set every day.

3. It stays light there until almost 10 p.m. in the summer! I couldn’t get used to it. But I loved it. It was so weird that 9:30 felt like dinner time. (But we were told that, in the winter, it gets dark at 4:30 p.m., so there’s a flip side to that!)

Sunset at 9:30 p.m.

4. Downtown Missoula is adorable. It’s got the historical thing going on, but is mixed with a youthfulness from the college and sort of a bohemian feel. One of their ads is “Missoula: We’re like Montana, only with green tea.” …

5. It’s got that small-town vibe where all the neighbors know each other, and no one locks their car or house.

6. The weather changes quickly (rain clouds rolled in one morning, were out by that afternoon), but it doesn’t stop anyone from doing what they want to do.

7. No sales tax!

8. The University of Montana is gorgeous.

9. Missoula is such a university town. Everyone is SO into Griz football, from the haircutting salon to the local bars to the nearby Dairy Queen. Apparently everyone gathers somewhere to watch the game — from a local bar to friends’ houses. And home games get a collection of viewers on the Missoula “M” (in the picture above — the stadium is just to the left). Everyone has Go Griz license plates, tail lights, flags, T-shirts. It seemed that restaurants all had some menu item named after the Grizzlies or the mascot Monte. Even our hotel had Griz mints!

I’m not remotedly a spontaneous person. I don’t like to be surprised by changes of plans; I don’t like to have dinner plans switched on me; I rarely veer away from my basic planned lunches all week.

So it was with a bit of hesitancy that I swapped out the Redwoods vacation I’d been looking forward to this year with, instead, a road trip to Montana.

We always save up a little vacation money and take one 1-week vacation per year as a family. But it’s not a lot of money. I have to be creative. We usually opt for drivable places like Lake Tahoe or Yosemite (our two favorites), but we’ve done the Grand Canyon, San Diego, Carmel/Monterey, and some other really fun trips. I’m partial to state and national parks, and have a long list of ones I want to see. I plan these out like a travel agent on speed, and make sure every detail is covered. And I’ve had my Redwoods maps spread out across my den for some time, mapping the drive, looking for kid-friendly hotels, and pegging some Bigfoot museums for Nathan.

But ever since Ricky’s decision to become a University of Montana Grizzly (around May), I realized I might have to change things around. Continue reading →

After the hectic pace of the last few months — all the college craziness and graduation readiness and party planning and trip preparation — a road trip was the perfect thing. Since Montana was our 1600-mile-away destination, we had plenty of time to unwind in the car, turn off all thoughts and worries, and just watch the landscape go by. …

There was the desert of Arizona:

The deserty cliffs of southern Utah:

The meadows and mountain ranges of northern Utah, which got more and more snow-tipped the higher north we went:

The farmland of Idaho:

The greens and blues of Idaho:

The snow-topped mountains of Montana:

And the peaceful pine trees of mid-Montana:

The drive is truly one of the best parts. …