For the frugally obsessed, is there anything better than free bikes on vacation? I think not. With the weather chilly (mid50s) and rain threatening, we opt for an afternoon of bike riding, complete with our ever-present green ponchos in early June western Montana. Calling local bike shops, we learn that we can get a mountain bike for $25/day or a road bike for $45/day. Neither suits our need for comfort. Clunky mountain bike tires are slow and ponderous on the roads while my posture is bad enough without the sloping handlebars of the road bikes contributing to my slouching even further. Hannah and I hesitate whether to rent at all, when the bike shop guy says there is a program that just might suit you two; it’s one that hardly anybody takes advantage of, the free bikes program at the Recreation Department.
With trails that straddle the banks of the Clark Fork River, Missoula, has a program underwritten by Dasani Purified Water and Trek Bikes (http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/index.aspx?NID=1096) to provide free one-speed blue bikes for all who venture to Missoula. Just over the bridge from the downtown on Higgins Avenue, there is the Currents Aquatic Complex surrounded by ball fields and a fishing pond where, when we were there, a ten-year-old boy caught a rainbow trout, and then promptly threw it back. With a credit card, we are able to get two bikes, helmets, and bike locks; we adjust the seats for full leg extension. Stored in mini-metal sheds just outside the Complex, they are an untapped resource for Missoulians and non-Missoulians alike.
Side by side we pedal south for easy conversation on a trail system along the Clark Fork River that skirts the campus of the University of Montana. Dan returns the conversation to, would we want to move here? Really? It is a college town? That’s a plus since the university vibe is appealing. It has an active life culture? That’s D and H to their core. But Montana is light years from our families and twenty-nine years of roots in York, Maine? True, yet there is a certain freedom with distance. Winters have got to be brutal? How tough can they be after the aforementioned 29 years that we’ve lived in subarctic Maine? But what about for a year as a visiting instructor and a visiting hairdresser? Hmmmm. It’s nice to dream. Ah, the dreams born in the freedom when on vacation.
The paved trail is 12-15 feet wide near the campus and then turns into gravel for the next few miles heading south. Returning towards town, and then veering off towards the U of Montana, we find summer session a quiet time on campus as we idly ride the neighborhood streets. On this Wednesday and every summer Wednesday, Missoula has a lunchtime concert in the downtown. Our nephew David would fit right into this music scene. Today Zoo City, a little too funky for my tastes, was laying down the beat. (You’d be mistaken if the hip lingo in that last sentence makes you think I was once a music critic. I was not.) Ethnic food stands, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Italian among them, are there for the tasting. We are taken with the elixir of a Rocky Mountain vacation.
The following day we drive out to the Smoke Jumpers complex on the outskirts of town. Eighty of the 400 nation-wide smoke jumpers are based in Missoula. A mere 30 are picked out of the hundreds that apply. Free 30-40 minute tours are available where we learn about their making of their own parachutes; and how important that is since the smoke jumpers are fully prepared for landing in trees. Yeah, that makes sense since trees are where the fires would be. http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/missoula/. Women make up 10% of the smoke jumpers. One needs to be at least 5 feet tall or no more than 6’5” while weighing between 120 - 200 pounds. You must be able to do at least 7 pull-ups, 45 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 11 minutes.
We dig Missoula, and a seed has been planted. Stay tuned.
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