Cold Mountain water,
The jade merchant’s daughter.
Mountains of the Moon,
Electra,
Bow and bend
To me.
~Robert Hunter
Tracey:
As Dave mentioned in an earlier entry, Yellowstone is sprawling, so we spent our first two days in the park on the lower loop. This morning as we left the Park we were able to drive through half of the upper loop and the scenery was even better, less plains and more mountains. Saw a good-sized black bear en route, then stopped by Mammoth Hot Springs to see the geothermal features known as travertine terraces. Very trippy and lunar…
The jade merchant’s daughter.
Mountains of the Moon,
Electra,
Bow and bend
To me.
~Robert Hunter
Tracey:
As Dave mentioned in an earlier entry, Yellowstone is sprawling, so we spent our first two days in the park on the lower loop. This morning as we left the Park we were able to drive through half of the upper loop and the scenery was even better, less plains and more mountains. Saw a good-sized black bear en route, then stopped by Mammoth Hot Springs to see the geothermal features known as travertine terraces. Very trippy and lunar…
Then we drove 6 hours north to the land of Big Sky. Colorado and Montana are the two states we were most looking forward to seeing and the ones we’re spending the most time in. Unfortunately it’s still wildfire season in this part of the world and the risk is currently listed as extreme. Fires in Idaho are sending their smoke this way and the visibility was minimal much of our way, but we’ll be heading back through the state when we’re done in Glacier and hopefully the smoke will have cleared by then.
We’re spending the night in Missoula, home of the U of M and one of Montana’s larger cities at close to 60,000. It’s definitely a college town, apparently famous for its love of festivals (this weekend alone there was a Hemp Fest, German Fest, and Roots Music Fest), so folks here know how to have a good time. Even the nearby county gets into the act - we passed a billboard for the Testicle Festival (“Come and Have a Ball”) where they feast on those down-home favorites, the Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Missoula also has a decent number of bars and restaurants; the guide book we have mentioned two that sounded great, but they’d already gone out of business. So we ended up at one we probably wouldn’t have chosen otherwise and it was one of those lucky twists of fate. Tipu’s Tiger is the only vegetarian Indian restaurant in Montana and it was the best Indian food Dave’s had since spending time in India. Very liberal use of chiles, excellent homemade chutneys and unusual dishes, with cardamom pineapple coffeecake for dessert that was so good that we’re considering writing the owner and seeing if he’ll part with the recipe.
