Bozeman and Lewis & Clark Caverns

[Part one, two, three and four]

We drove straight through from Livingston to Bozeman, the first of two college towns on our way through Montana. It’s not a long drive by any means, but equally as beautiful all of Montana had been so far. Big Sky country took my breath away. We were entering the Airbnb phase of the trip. The house we stayed in, a little bungalow made cozy with natural materials and within walking distance of downtown, was still being cleaned when we arrived. Paul’s mom was inside cleaning up from the prior people who stayed, but she let us stay and chat with her while finished. That is one of the highlights of the whole Airbnb style of traveling — meeting locals without even trying. We would have never have met this woman otherwise. We immediately got a taste of what Bozeman was about and what it had to offer. Sure it’s only one person’s take, but it’s not a hotel’s take. That can be huge in exposing you to something a little off the beaten path. She told us about her son [a famous musician!], gave us a couple of his CDs, and told us a lot about Bozeman and the surrounding area. She was a great introduction to the next few days.

The downtown core area is essentially a long strip of shops and restaurants. The college is on the other side of town nestled in what looks like suburbia. If it weren’t for the mountains in the background, I could have been anywhere once you got out of the main area.

The highlights of Bozeman were two-fold for me — the food and the museums. Again with the food. There is an abundance of locally sourced food in the area, plus the added bonus of the spectrum of income levels. College kids and actors/musicians. We found great eats nearly everywhere. Stand outs included Roost for their fried chicken that was light and full of flavor, Granny’s Gourmet Donuts for the all the donuts coffee cream filled donut, Bagelworks for a deliciously cheap ham and cheese bagel sandwich, and Blackbird for their beautiful space and wood-fired pizza. Bagelworks puts their deli sliced ham on the griddle. That speaks to me in a way that I can’t explain. It crisps up the edges just so. Blackbird had a seasonal burrata special with a pile of fresh rhubarb compote. Rhubarb! These are the reasons why we didn’t backtrack into Livingston. Too much good food to eat everywhere.

The two museums we went to, the American Computer Museum and Museum of the Rockies, were some of the best ones I’ve been to [next to the Idaho Potato Museum of course]. The American Computer Museum had not only the history of American computers, but of the human brain, the space program, and electronics/robotics in general. It’s in the most nondescript building, but the collection of items is astounding. Many of the modern day geniuses that were responsible or used many of the items in the building had been by in some fashion so there were plenty of photos and signed items for authenticity. They had 2,200 year old computers, original Apple 1s, original NASA hardware, and brains! There was free admission, and it was a self led tour that ended in a video. It was really neat. Consider me geeked out. The Museum of the Rockies has a set of regular exhibits, a rotating one, and a planetarium. The one that stood out the most for me was one of their regular exhibits, the Siebel Dinosaur Complex. They work with the Montana State University and have one of the largest displays of dinosaur bones with the help of Dr. Jack Horner of Jurassic Park fame. I haven’t seen such complete skeletons in person before. It was incredible, and several hours were spent reading every last detail. The rotating exhibit was one about chocolate, which sounded [and smelled!] good in theory, but by the end of it all I craved was chocolate because of the smell and there wasn’t any to be had. There was also a living history farm on site. They moved a regional house to the museum’s grounds and set everything up to period. The ladies running the exhibit were part of the history and they let us wander around despite the museum closing soon.

We made a day trip to a couple of the natural and historic areas surrounding Bozeman. It’s not all eating and drinking, I swear. First up was Lewis and Clark Caverns. There, you hike up a short hill to the mouth of a cave. A park ranger leads you into the cave and all the way to the bottom. The whole thing is about two miles, but the elevation you cover is pretty stunning. It had been really sunny and warm that day, so to step inside the cool, darkness of the cave was a welcome change. As someone who hasn’t really climbed around in caves except for once when she was a lot younger and doesn’t remember it, I was also completely geeked out about this. A common theme. We reached a point early on where the park ranger tells you that if you’re afraid of dark, cramped spaces that you better speak now because once we went farther, the only way out was to keep going. You see we were about to approach a slide! You seriously sat onto your butt and slid. It wasn’t nearly as long as I was hoping it’d be, but still fun. I’m glad I wore workout leggings to make sliding extra fun. Several other places involved nearly crawling or at least ducking so you didn’t bash your head. Seeing the work of millions of years before your eyes is really stunning. The stalactites and stalagmites reminded me something out of The Labyrinth or The Goonies. Like I said, I was geeking out. The whole thing is nearly idiot proof, meaning lots of light, handrails, and carved out stairs, but it didn’t take away from the fact we were IN A CAVE! My kind of spelunking. At one point, near the end, we reached a point where the guide could safely turn off the lights so we could see just what it was like when people were in here during the torch days and they blew out. Pitch black has a whole new meaning.

From there we took the scenic route to Virginia City, a town founded back in the mid 1800s. The entire town is on the National Historic Register. It ultimately became a ghost town that is now restored as an open-air museum. Nearly every other building is as it was the late 1800s. Others are inhabited by the town’s 200-300 inhabitants or modernized. It was my first experience with a ghost town, and definitely of an open-air museum. We took our time wandering the main street, popping into the restored buildings and looking at the displays, and ultimately stopping at the little saloon for a beer to cool off from the consistent nagging of the heat. The drive back was gorgeous. There were many pullouts for views of the rolling mountains and foothills in the area. At one point we stopped off and just sat outside and enjoyed the view as the sun started dipping into the horizon. We headed back to Bozeman in time to walk to Blackbird for dinner.

The rest of the time was spent sampling beer and coffee and driving/walking around the city. We were chastised by a grocery store worker for traveling “all that way” just to pick up beer and hang out in our Airbnb. We stayed a total of two nights in Bozeman before heading over to Missoula to experience what their other college town had to offer.