!i! Missoula, Montana !i!

As many of you know, AJ is in the process of applying to graduate school.  He has wanted to be a physical therapist for many years and, to be honest, I think the profession fits him perfectly!  We applied to 12 schools and are in the midst of hearing back.  We just recently returned from interviews at the University of Montana in Missoula.

Missoula is a small town about 8 hrs away.  With the winter season upon us, we decided to fly there.  As you can imagine, there are not many planes departing to Missoula, Montana, but we did find one.  Once they scanned our tickets, we walked down a long corridor and outside to board our small jet.  As I don't like flying, having to walk outside to board the small plane wracked my nerves a little.  Once seated, we were off!

A short hour flight and we were ready to land in Missoula!

We got off the plane and walked through the airport.  This was the smallest airport I had ever seen!  There were only a handful of people.  And I have never before seen dead, stuffed animals in an airport.  This was definitely a first!

 

 We got our car and drove around the University.  It was a very pretty campus.  We really  liked that it was a tobacco free campus.  We found the institute building and it was smaller than the seminary buildings we were used to at our high schools.  The building was very quiet and there was only one student inside.

We drove around the town.  We couldn't help but notice the small casinos on every corner.  Some looked like old closed down Red Lobsters or Denny's restaurants that had been turned into casinos.  Another thing we noticed was that there is no sales tax in Montana which makes having the exact change very easy!  Picking a radio station was different as well.  Almost every single radio station played country music:  current country, twangy country, classic country, pop country, etc. 

Once we were done exploring the town, we drove to the National Bison Reserve about 30 miles out of town.  There were supposed to be 500 bison on this reserve so we were bound to see some...so we thought!

This was the only sighting of the bison...black specks in the distance.

We did see some mule deer.  We see these outside our townhouse at home, but I took pictures anyway.  I had to have some proof of living wildlife on this trip to Montana!

Saturday, after a long day of interviewing, we decided to try a Bison burger.  It took us a few tries before we found somewhere that served buffalo burgers, but we finally found one Downtown. We went to James Bar and Grill and shared a buffalo burger with fries that were fried in Truffle oil.  Dinner was so delicious!  I was nervous about eating buffalo meat, but it tasted just like hamburger and it has fewer calories and fat than chicken!

The interesting thing about Missoula is that it is a very small town:  pop 67,000, but it has a lot of art and culture.  It has a downtown with bars and shops.  There is a pretty good sized mall with all my favorite stores.  There are a lot of outdoor things to do as well.  Hiking, biking, rafting, horseback riding, etc. but it was too cold to do those things this trip.  There is a big river that runs down the middle of the city with a running trail right next to it.  It is somewhere that I think I would enjoy living.

Sunday, we packed up and got ready to fly home.  We arrived at the airport 2 hours early.  We were the only people going through security and got undivided attention.  Once through security, we still had plenty of time before our flight.  We got to the terminal and realized that there was a plane headed to SLC to depart in 45 minutes.  We asked if we could switch to that flight.  I didn't think it would be possible, but we asked anyway and they were able to change our tickets!  Only in a small town, in a small airport would that be possible now days.

It was such a refreshing weekend.  We have a few more schools to hear back from before we make any decisions.  I am both excited and terrified, but we look forward to the upcoming adventure.