Missoula Top Tens

Ten Things we love about Missoula

1.       It’s biker/pedestrian friendly. Mostly this is true. There are bike lanes and paths almost everywhere. Riding along the river is beautiful. Riding on Orange St (the busy main road that we live on) is neither beautiful nor comfortable. People will stop on a dime if they see you’re trying to get into a turning lane, but on busy roads it’s easy to become invisible once you leave the bike lane.

2. It’s beautiful. It’s taken me awhile to say this because I was a little shocked to find how dry and yellow the landscape is here, but I’ve grown to appreciate this new landscape.  Lots of rivers and valleys and sheer mountains.

3. The river. The river really redeems the dry landscapes here. We’ve spent a good bit of time loving the river. Floating on tubes, swimming, and getting washed down river by the current are regular summer activities. We also enjoy romantic evening walks and chats riverside.

4.       It’s a city, but it feels like a community. People seem to rally together to appreciate art, music, and food quite often. Wednesday lunch and Thursday dinner we often picnic at Caras park while listening to local bands. The Farmers’ Markets here are huge in size and attendance. It definitely gives the city a familiar feel.

5. Hippy, earth friendly, indie loving, hipster residents. We regulary see hippy hipsters on their bikes toting backpacks brimming with veggies. We love that the market is a happening place for street performers (that look like they walked out of various classic novels). The indie population also attracts great music (gillian Welch, The Head and the Heart, Trampled by Turtles).

6. Good Foods. We get a lot of our food at the Farmers' market, which is delicious and great, but we also frequent The Good Food Store. Picture a high class health foods section the size of Kroger or Weis Market. One of our favorite things there is the goat cheese and olive selection.

7. The Friendly Factor. People seem to genuinely care. Cashiers asking about your day, followed by long pauses they expect you to fill, are a regular occurence. People also have unusually big smiles on their faces as they pass you on the street and on trails you talk in some way or another to everyone you pass.

8. Community awareness of social issues. Non-profits abound. Lots of people are intereseted in being educated about poverty and/or volunteering.  There are also regulars at the Farmer's Market picketing about oil drilling.

9. The wilderness is right next door. There is a unique coexistence of city and rugged wilderness here. We drove a full day in Montana without seeing more than a couple of towns.  It's also very wild and beautiful - we are always aware of the presence of wild animals, especially bear and mountain lion even though we have never seen one (and probably never will).  Just the other day we went to a friend's house for a potluck and there were some deer just hanging out across the street.

10. The weather thus far.  We love that it's dry enough that we're not suffocating and still hot enough to go swimming.  We definitely don't miss the humidity of Virginia even though our skin is already drying out.  It also gets pretty cool at night so that we don't have to sweat ourselves to sleep.

Ten Things we don’t love about Missoula

1.  It seems like everyone smokes, including the forest.  Recently it's been chokingly bad.  There have been wildfires in all directions around us and we can definitely tell.  Yesterday we went out at 8 pm and it was already dark like it was 9.  Also, I am reminded of Israel by how many people that smoke here.  Usually people are okay about smoking at public events, but anywhere else it's pretty annoying.

2. People like dogs.  Dogs Dogs Dogs, everywhere.  I have three general categories for dogs: Big, small, and ugly.  People mostly pick up after their dogs, so it's not too bad in that regard, but people love their pets too much.  Also, some things that make me sad are the amount of non-profits dedicated to pets - such as Animeals and their popularity.  There was also recently a "bone ball" that was all for pets and pet-owners - these events are not unusual.

3. Water Waste. People don't really seem to have any idea that there is a limited amount of fresh water on our planet.  People water their lawns all the time, even during the day when most of it is probably just evaporating.  Yesterday I was biking along and I saw five small (probably 1X3 feet) bands of grass that were in between the parking lot and the side-walk and sprinklers on each little plot - greenest grass in Missoula!

4. Lack of recycling.  For an environmentally conscious city, here is one thing that's lacking.  There are a few private recycling companies, but I think most people just throw their recyclables in the trash.  Target is pretty much the only place that takes and recycles glass.  The only place I've seen recycling done well is at public events.

5. Restaurants are either burger and beer style bars/breweries, food trucks, or high end pricey restaurants - not very good for economy dating!

6.  Seems to be a very spiritually polarized place.  It seems to be a mixture of watered down, wishy-washy spirituality and conservative Christianity.  It's hard to find people that are serious spiritually and also alive in the Spirit and working in the community as ambassadors for Christ in real ways.

7.   It's annoying to us that it's kind of a competition to see who can do the most extreme outdoor activities.  It's a pretty outdoorsy kind of crowd here.  Oh yeah, we only did a three-mile hike to the falls, that's nothing compared to your 10k triathalon training run/swim/bike uphill both ways...etc.

8.  The dryness can be a curse, too.  It's very dusty and yellow here and our skin gets very dry and itchy.  It's also easy to get dehydrated without knowing it.  Also, our apartment is brick and sometimes it takes a long time for it to cool off in the evenings.

9. There seems to be a pretty widespread never-grow-old mentality here.   Whether it manifests itself in doobeage or partying late into the night - seems to not be confined to students.

10. It's very difficult to get around direction-wise.  There are three main streets in Missoula: Broadway, Reserve, and Brooks.  These three make a huge triangle, so it's hard to get your bearing when the main streets are all diagonal to the rest of the streets.  Also it's confusing because some streets magically turn into other streets when you cross certain intersections.  For instance, our street, Orange/Old 93 turns in to Stephens.  Hmmmm...

Refer to blog below for the list that goes with these pictures

#1

We ended up buying these two (they gave us a $3 off coupon!)

http://forevercheese.com/products/abrigo/

http://forevercheese.com/products/cabra-romero/

#2 

Movie starring Ethan Hawke

#3

Obviously we could not take a camera in the river, but this is basically where we were (not our picture, near bridge is Higgins st. far bridge is Orange st. and if you would keep going to the left, you would find our apt.)

http://www.makeitmissoula.com/2012/07/missoula-news-fatalities-clark-fork-river/

#4

Food Prep

#5

I wonder what else is in the cooler? For the curious: Corn and black bean salad, salmon, midget gherkins, goat cheese, grapes and strawberries, crackers, tortilla chips, sourdough baguette, water, and diet coke.  I'm pretty sure we were the only ones there with a feast!

Yeah, definitely the weirdest film I've seen in a while

#6

This was our floor demo - they are now on the wall, not quite like this, but you get the picture :)

#7

The Wilma!  In addition to showing cool movies, they also are a music venue, hosting such great acts as Gillian Welch, The Head and the Heart, Trampled by Turtles, etc.

We sat in the balcony!

#8

'nuff said 

#9

Our couch, which we fit on the top of our subaru! sorry no pictures in-transit

#10

Sorry no picture

Ten things we did this last week...pictures to follow

1. Went to a goat cheese tasting

2. Finished Snow Falling on Cedars and then watched the movie

3. Walked up the river and let the current carry us down.

4. Used food stamps to buy fresh salmon. I slathered it in curry and coconut oil and wrapped it in Swiss Chard. We ate it with Roasted root veggies. So good.

5. Watched Labyrinth at an outdoor movie thing. David Bowie and the muppets...http://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=ViftZTfRSt8

6. Hung our photos on the wall.

7. Went to see Moon Rise Kingdom at an old antiquey theatre (the Wilma). Coolest movie I've seen in a long time.

8. Met and hung out with Kenworth T Ford. A homeless guy who made up that name (on the spot) after he saw a 

t-shirt with Kenworth on it.He smoked a bowl right in front of us at a Fridays on the Square equivalent. No biggie.

9. Bought a couch at Goodwill

10. Abigail finished the mock ups of the database she's creating for the YWCA.

My Job In All Of Its Glory

           Some of you have been inquiring about my new job, so I decided to put it all out there. This week was my first days at my job site. HOLY COW! I mean this is my first big girl job, but wow. Before my pre-service orientation, a week ago wenesday, Missoula was all dreamy swimming, decorating, eating, sewing, reading, etc. Then PSO was a reaaaallly LAME three days (24 hours!) of sitting while this old woman, that looked like Angela Lansbury, spouted out stereotypes about “battered women” and poor people who are poor “because they are unwilling or unable to be flexible thinkers!” Anyway, I drank a lot of coffee, drew a LOT of cartoons, and "argued" more than I ever have in my life. I came home from those three days READY for the weekend. We swam, had picnics, and read our book. We tried out this pretty alternative Catholic Church too (more on that another time). It was a really nice and relaxing weekend. And then my first week of work arrived.

My job is HARD! For the sake of honesty I will tell you that I cried Monday night, Tuesday night, AND Wednesday night. But then Thursday I didn’t. We’ll see about tonight. I felt completely overwhelmed and disappointed by my job. I mean most new things, especially jobs are hard the first day, right? Right. So, I keep reminding myself of that fact. Guess what my job is? Working heart to heart with women escaping domestic abuse? Nope. Doing their interviews and playing with their kids? Nope. My job is to build from scratch (the software) a database to record all of their personal information and the resources they used from the YWCA. There are three flavors of shelter that we offer…emergency shelter, a confidential hotel room for 55 days, and an 18 month home. Almost all of the women utilize at least two of these services. And do you know who is going to get them the funding to do that by building a database? Me. Yep, Abigail Ewing. Abigail Ewing who has trouble figuring out Gmail and saving photos from the web. Probably the kicker is that no one in the organization has ever used, or knows how to use the software that I’m using. Hilarious, right? I actually asked my supervisor why she hired me (with no background in computer stuff). She said no one else they interviewed knew either. BUT, then I watched six and a half hours of tutorials on youtube, read a TON of stuff online, and started e-mailing OCP Bill a bunch of questions. And you know what? I’m getting kind of excited. I think I maybe, possibly, could one day do this with Bill’s help. I mapped out a bunch of stuff, showed it to my supervisor, and she was shocked by my progress. So I’m ending the work week on a good note. Who knows for sure if I can do this, but I’ll try.

The rest of my job is awesome. I work with all women/men that dress like women. This is a nice change of pace. Also, no one here wears diapers(another newness). The YWCA is into this great thing called wellness. “Wellness?” You say, “Is that eating right and getting plenty of sleep.” Nope! It’s about coming to work 30 minutes late or leaving 30 minutes early every day! You can do either one of those and then use that time to do something that promotes well-being. So I bike home and take a nap! Awesome, right? Also, yesterday my job was to receive a bike tour of the city (sixish miles). It was so fun! This was mostly because it was led by my new work mate, Hattie who has lived here for a year. Our tour included a free pastry and ice cream cone!


I think I'm going to make it. I think I'll learn a ton in the process. 


Missing you guys.


Abigail

...Two weeks in...

Good Morning! (if you can't read the coffee, it says "Trout Slayer")

The newest addition to our bedroom 

Trying to break a lock :)

Nervous/excited about her first day of work!! Isn't she just lovely?

In other news, I have been looking for a job and have found a few leads.  The Missoulian (pictured above) is hiring people for delivery routes.  This would be fast, easy money.  The second is that I could get my CDL and drive school bus for the coming school year.  The benefit is that it would be a stable job and pay enough to get by on and they train, so I would have a CDL.  Another that I just found out about is at the Poverello Center.  It's basically like the OCP except they've been around for a while and they are well established as a shelter/food bank/soup kitchen/emergency clothing place.  They are hiring fill-in staff.  This would mean not stable hours, but perhaps up to 40 hours a week and at an awesome place.  So, you can pray and hope I get a job soon and can decide which would be the best option.  I have also found a pretty legitimate Ultimate Frisbee pickup group down by the river - they are pretty serious, so I'll have to step up my game.  Also, while Abigail was at her training last week, I was floating down the river with our friend, Ben Jackson.  We bought tubes, drove up the river 2 miles and got in.  So relaxing, so burny!  I got majorly burned, but it was still a good time.  We got out of the river in town and walked to our house so that we could drive back and get Ben's car.  Much fun!  On Saturday, we found out where all the markets in town are.  There are a few sizable markets that are bustling and lively.  The air is filled with chattering and aromas and music! We love the small-town feel.  That's about it for now...

Much Love,
Dietrich

Missoula!

Our family mascot...bony horse. And our plant, Clara, hanging in the window.

Our one established corner of our apartment.

The view from our front window... Sacajawea Park. 

Bathroom

Clara. We trimmed her stems down to the soil before we left. She was packed deep in the car. She emerged growing in the dark. Now she has blossoms!

This picture is for Sherry. Because she made that wrap around dress in the 60's and now we use it as an apron dress.

We live in Sacajawea's old house.

These were some of our first sights when we entered our building. The building handy man, Wes,  lives in the basement and he put up this lovely, welcoming, decor. 

I will also add that it smelled STRONGLY like a dairy barn where the cows smoke marijuana.

The gross Steps. I'll add that a good vacuuming and half a bottle of Febreze later the building was significantly better.

DOWTOWN! 

Notice the license plate in the windshield. 

I like the grizzly mural.

The "Hip Strip"

Fiestawarehouse!

The Missoula sport of leg hopping. People everywhere will be doing it in no time!

One of the great bike lanes.

The grocery store right next to our apartment. Notice anyone familiar?

Dietrich in awe.