Butte and Missoula

This was my first time visiting Butte, Montana, and I was pleasantly surprised. I had no idea it was an old mining town (which I LOVE) and that it was like a mini San Francisco with steep hills, awesome Victorian and Gothic architecture and a rich history. I wouldn't make Butte your destination -- we stayed there as a halfway point between Idaho and Glacier National Park -- because there's not a lot to do once you've driven up and down the streets, visited the toxic copper pit and checked out Our Lady of the Rockies (a really bizarre giant statue of the Virgin Mary that overlooks Butte). And there is basically NOWHERE to eat (that we could find, anyway) -- although my co-worker, Trish, recommended her sister's coffee shop, Wetona's, there and I had the best peach Italian soda of my life. Seriously. It was so good.

From Butte, we went on to Missoula, which is one of my favorite places in Montana. When my parents were attending the University of Idaho in northern Idaho when I was little, they stopped in Missoula frequently on their way home to visit family -- and it's still a really cool town and just as pretty as I remember it. Think college town + outdoorsy culture + mountain village. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's a bigger city that still feels really small. Also, they have the most incredible fish tacos, about three times the size of the (now) puny ones I get at Del Taco. I'm already craving them -- which is why there are two photos of deliciousness below. YUM.

That's all for Butte and Missoula! Photos of Big Fork and then Glacier National Park are up next.