A Missoulian Birthday

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! We were fortunate enough to ride into the happenin’ city of Missoula, MT just in time for my birthday. Well, actually we paraded into town with birthday facepaint, of course. I think our celebratory entry into Missoula really set the tone for our stay, and it proved to be a great spot to celebrate the big 23!

When we first arrived, we went straight to the Adventure Cycling Association offices. Headquartered in Missoula, this is the non-profit that works to promote bicycle travel and who made the maps we are using for our trip. Everyone we have met on our route (who are usually pretty into the ACA and touring culture) told us that we had to stop in and say hello. It was difficult, but we ate the free ice cream they gave us and drank free cold soda . . . rough right? We also went through the touring cyclist right of passage and had our photo taken and added to their wall of cyclists. You can see some of the photos on there website here: http://www.adventurecycling.org/

After our ACA visit, we lived it up in the big city! In just two days we attended a free Thursday night outdoor concert while enjoying freshly fried mini donuts, danced ourselves sweaty at a packed DJ night at the Badlander (a college bar/club,) ate late night biscuits and gravy at the Oxford 24hr resturaunt (and casino . . . yep,) gawked at The Good Food Store’s impressive bulk food section, ate great local food at Biga Pizza and homemade ice cream at Big Dipper, and almost stayed a third day roaming around the many produce and craft markets in the city on Saturday morning. Oh, it was hard to leave Missoula, but we had to make into our sixth state . . . WHAT!