Kelly in Kansas

The end point of my travels west was Helena, Montana, where has a condo. She is a native of eastern Montana and wrote her dissertation on the redlight district of Helena. She shared lots of interesting stories about the area and the state museum was quite interesting - especially the recent food supply.
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She treated me to a great dinner at the Silver Star. And I highly recommend the Great Northern Hotel. Don't let the Best Western affiliation throw you - it was by far the nicest of all of the pet-friendly accommodations I've stayed in during this trip. Too bad it was the one in which I spent the least amount of time.

After a few days in Helena, I drove back toward Bozeman to spend the night. The only miscalculation was that the Montana State University Bookstore would be closed on a Saturday and Sunday since school isn't in session. It was an interesting drive through the campus, however.

Labels: Archiva, Bozeman, Helena, Montana, vacation

Spending a day in Butte, Montana, was an interesting comparison to the mining landscapes I see all around me at home. The Rocky Mountains in Montana are definitely bigger and more spread out than those in Colorado (with which I am more familiar given the geographical relationship to Kansas). There was gold, silver, and copper mining here and the state university's technology campus is here. Go Diggers!

Had some interesting food and the people are indeed very nice.

More on Montana later. Now it's time to drive again.

Labels: Butte, copper, gold, mining, Montana, silver, vacation

I spent a night in Billings, Montana - it's clearly the "Pittsburgh" of Montana. I had a good family style Italian meal and stayed in a Holiday Inn - the part that hadn't been remodeled.

But, Big Sky Country and the views are great! I'm just not sure that Billings will be on any future lists except that I did enjoy the Western Heritage Center and had some good Thai food for lunch.

Labels: Billings, industrial cities, Montana, Pittsburgh, Western Heritage Center

I spent two days in Cheyenne Wyoming. I found a great place for homemade Mexican - The Tortilla Factory. Walking around downtown was interesting. Frontier Days was just last week or so and you can almost feel the town winding down a bit. There was a great view from the hotel and some great sidewalk walking areas to get some exercise each morning.

An interesting pair of boots was among my purchases here. The scenery was great on the drive. Still not quite mentally on vacation but that finally happened when I made it to Montana and Big Sky Country.

Labels: Big Sky, Montana, Tortilla Factory, vacation, Wyoming

There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. And, lucky for me, I woke up just in time to be up and ready for the world when the roofers arrived.

Had a great research trip with Paul and did some early fall shopping on my way home on the KC Country Club Plaza to try to wait out the traffic standstill in the Grandview Triangle. Found a few things to ease into the fall season and, for the FIRST time, received good service at the Eddie Bauer store there. I've not had good luck in the past and usually end up ordering online from the catalog phone because no one has noticed I want to buy clothes. Sometimes it takes one personnel change to improve things and I know it's increasingly difficult to find good workers who want more than just a job and actually want to work while they are at work. I worked retail in a previous life - both big department store and specialty women's retailer . .. much more fun to wait on customers - means you don't have to fold as much and do as much inventory - although I did absolutely love unpacking the new boxes of clothes as they came in.

I'll try to get everything that has to be done around here before I head out for vacation. I'm hoping to spend the night at the farm and leave from there but only time will tell. Am probably going to climb up to Nebraska first but need to check out what is going on with the Montana wildfires so that I don't end up in the wrong spot-especially given that the "next road over" is usually quite a ways over in a state like Montana.

I'm definitely ready for the break and will get back just in time for school to start. Being in the wide open sky out West will do wonders - it really gives you perspective on things.

Labels: Kansas City, Montana, research, vacation