@bjesien I always found Burlington, VT overrated. There are a lot of college towns that are though. Also. I always wondered why rural America, while so scenic with breathtaking nature is so depressing, abandoned and hopeless, etc. Nothing like central and Western Europe where tourism thrives in these areas. |
@grislybutter , well, I escaped Montana shortly before my 19th birthday in 1978 and I haven’t really been back for any extended periods of time, so my own analysis may not be completely on point. I do remember that a while after I got out of the Air Force I was back for maybe 6 months (December ’84 through June ’85) and once I was in a barber shop for a hair cut and there was a rancher/farmer bitching to another one about the laws protecting endangered species (I believe he was discussing grizzly bears at the time, and I am not typing that just because this is your thread). Anyway I remember him saying something about how he and his kids had never seen a dinosaur, but it didn’t bother him that they (dinosaurs) were extinct. But it is a beautiful and relatively sparsely populated state. If I remember from our Montana History class in HS, Montana is a Spanish word for mountainous, which seems to me to be a bit misleading as a large percentage of the state is what I consider to be plains/prairie.
@bjesien , my Dad used to grouch and grump about that. My Mom was from Kalispell (my Dad was from Billings) and I have fond memories of our trips up across the Mountains in the summer (my Dad was a teacher, so he was off) to spend time with Grandma. Anyway, as time passed and both my Mom and my Grandmother had died and I’d take a vacation or two each year to visit my Dad, I’d always say to him that if he moved to Kalispell (which at one time when my Mom was alive they had thought about) I’d find a way to visit more often. I always said that in a half jokingly but half serious way. But he’s always reply that "The Californians had ruined Kalispell." He didn’t like making big life changing decisions (I am like him in that regrad, although I can list a couple I should not have made) so even if "the Californians had not ruined Kalispell", I doubt he would have ever packed up and moved anyway.
@grannyring , Bozeman is Southeast of Missoula on I-90 (which is a fun drive if you like driving, as I used to) and a bit Northwest of Billings. I am reciting that without the benefit of a map, so if the map in my head (I’ve made that drive a few times) is off, I apologize. I’ve only passed through, never spent any time there, but it looks to me like beautiful country. "The foothills" is how my Dad described it. He (my Dad) had a teacher buddy who retired a while after he did he did, and my Dad’s teacher buddy was a huge outdoors man (fishing and hunting) and Bozeman (actually a "cabin" in the vicinity) was where he retired to. That was back in ’15, about the time my Dad died. Anyway, Bozeman is another college town, MSU, and I kind of get the impression that it may be a bit more progressive/liberal than most of the rest of mainstream Montana, but I do not know that for sure. I do not remember it having the same reputation as Missoula. If you have ever watched that series Yellowstone (which I will not watch anymore and absolutely cannot stand), every once in a while, when they are tossing names about to try to add "realism" to that farce, they would refer to Bozeman. |
thanks @immatthewj I thought you still lived there. My neighbor left about 30 years ago but still goes back once a year or so. I heard that about Californians in southern Oregon. "those bastards drive up the housing prices". And in Utah. And Idaho. And probably everywhere in the West. Except for Texas. Btw I can't watch Yellowstone either.
|
| Post removed |
