I’ve been invited to be the Maid of Honor in an old friend’s wedding in September. (My buddy since 7th grade!) She lives in Livingston, Montana (between Bozeman and Billings). I plan to fly out there from Florida one week prior to help her with wedding preparations and stuff. In the event that we have spare time, does anybody know of cool places to go, things to see and do that I should check out? Good restaurants? Bizarre kitschy tourist traps?
BTW, I do not ski, so thanks anyway if you were going to suggest some great ski resort. I suspect I will be spending most of my time hanging out in the woods, looking for militia groups to poke fun at.
Also, what type of weather should I expect around Labor Day weekend? Should this Floridian take a coat?
Skiing in September??? No fear – it’s not that cold around here.
I second Bare’s suggestions – go to Yellowstone Park. It should be open through Labor Day (late September) unless the weather really sucks. To get to Yellowstone from Livingston, you go through the Paradise Valley and the little town of Gardiner – truly some of the most beautiful country in the entire state, and that’s saying something. There’s tons of hiking, outside of Livingston and in the park (of course), some excellent fly-fishing spots, white water rafting (though it might be a little chilly for that) – in short, outdoor stuff.
The train depot in Livingston has recently been remodeled and has some really fine murals by a very well-known Montana artist named Russell Chatham. There’s great places to eat in Bozeman (about 30 miles away), including John Bozeman’s Bistro (now just called the Bistro), MacKenzie River Pizza Company, and Boodles. There’s some pretty fun bars in Bozeman, too (like the Rocking R), but the crowds tend to be mostly college kids, since Bozeman is one of the two major university towns in Montana. (Don’t know if crowds of college kids is good or bad for you, since I don’t know how old you are. )
But the bottom line is that Livingston is a pretty small town. It’s a beautiful place and the people are nice, but it’s a small town. There’s going to be a limit to how much stuff there is to do . . . no clubs, no coffee bars, not a ton of shopping . . . so just enjoy the opportunity to be with your friend and don’t expect too much. It’s not Florida, but then we like that it’s not. Hope you have fun.
I did. I didn’t get any “yellow” but I met a bunch of charming, chatty Montanans – and froze my ankles off in the process. (Also got my name in the NY Times – a freelance writer friend who was with me wrote a piece about our panning adventure).
There is one (probably more) public panning sites that anyone can use. I’ll dig out more info if you’re interested.
Skiiing in Sept: I dunno, it’s up high in the mountains. Don’t mountains ALWAYS have snow? (This is like people asking me if you can see the ocean from Orlando…)
I’m up for hiking/camping/trotting through the woods.
College kids: that could be tolerable. I’m about 10 years past college age, so drinking and clubbing is no longer a priority for me.
“It’s not Florida…” Hey now, I live in “The Real Florida”. Translation: one of the few places not Disney-fied yet. I don’t have much more to do than: go to bars full of college students, hike in the woods, play at Apalachicola National Forest… No clubs, no coffee bars, not a lot of shopping… WAIT A MINUTE! The only difference will be no beach, but mountains instead! ::extracting tongue from cheek::
In the category of “goofy tourist stuff that is nevertheless deadly serious for some people”, I can do no better than to recommend the The International Fly Fishing Center and Fly Fishing Museum. More than you really wanted to know about fly fishing. (The Yellowstone River right there is internationally famous for dry fly trout fishing, no kidding. And it’s such an ordinary-looking little river, too.) http://www.livingstonmt.com/access/cultural/intfly.html http://www.ycsi.net/users/museum/fish/FishDiscoverUs.asp
If you get a chance to go to Bozeman, the Museum of the Rockies is nifty, especially if you borrow a couple of kids age 8 to 12 and take them along with you. That way you don’t feel so self-conscious gawping at things.
If you go to Yellowstone, I hereby give you permission to skip Old Faithful and the Mammoth Hot Springs, both of which I thought were overrated (unless you’re the sort of person who just likes to be able to say, "Hey, I was there.) But there’s a nifty museum at the north entrance, the Albright Visitor Center, so as long as you’re there, you might as well go over and look at the Mammoth Hot Springs. Then when you get home, you can “tsk tsk” over the way they’ve deteriorated. (Wear comfortable walking shoes–it’s a lot of walking, on boardwalks.)
My pick would be the Firehole River, and stop off at any mudpots that take your fancy. Don’t try to tow a trailer along those roads–the traffic is terrible. Be aware that Yellowstone is a HUGE place, lots of driving, on 30 mph blacktop potholed roads.
Take a day trip to Alberta if you have the time. Calgary is about 3 hours from the border, Lethbridge about 1…not much to do in Lethbridge though, other than well, look at the big train bridge.
If you can make it up to Great Falls, I suggest visiting… I grew up there, and I always love going back.
Also, if you can make it up a little further, I recommend hitting Glacier Park… even if you only drive up Going to the Sun Road, it’s worth it. I’ve been to Yosimite, and camped in several places in the Sierra Mt’s, and nothing… NOTHING compares to Glacier.
If you do get to Bozeman, and if you get to the Molly Brown, ask for the girl that drinks the Vodka Seven’s with Lime and tell her Ray said Hi… you’ll get a great reaction (assuming she doesn’t freak out… hehehe).
With all due respect to TRISTAN, who is a native, I would go nine hundred different places before I would go to Great Falls. It is not in my top five favorite largish Montana towns, and there ain’t many more than five. Yes, it has the Charlie Russell museum, but it is – IMO – a not particularly exciting, not particularly attractive town. Plus the wind blows all the time. (Okay, TRISTAN, now feel free to dis Helena, my home town.)
If I was road-tripping places besides the park, I’d go to Billings. The Moss mansion is worth seeing, and there is as much shopping in Billings as anywhere in Montana. Mind you, Billings isn’t one of my favorite places, either, but it’s way better than Great Falls.
Glacier Park is to hell and gone from Livingston. I wouldn’t plan a trip there unless you really, really like riding in the car.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff there even if you aren’t a tech person. It’s actually more of a computING museum that an computER museum. They start with early numbering systems and the development of mathematics and formal logic and they show how that’s influenced what we think of as computing today. </sales pitch>
Ok Jodi, you sort of got me… I must admit that unless you are really into Western Art (the CMR museum) and small town life, there isn’t a whole lot to do in Great Falls…
however…
I always used to like visiting Giant Springs Park, one of the largest fish Hatcheries in the West. Sprawling park right alongside the Missouri river…
The Afformentioned CMR museum and house.
Gibson park, with it’s very large and cool Duck Pond. I used to go about everyother weekend… very fun.
Picnics at Broadwater Bay, another spot right along the river that we used to do picnics at…
Pishkin Buffalo Jump, outside town (actually outside Ulm, but it’s the same thing).
The historic wreck that is my uncle…
Helena is also good, don’t get me wrong… you guys have a lovely Cathedral and I love Old Helena (or whatever it’s called) and if you visit, you must visit Parrots… if it’s still around, I haven’t been in around 15 years…
Just a ton of things to do in Montana… you just have to look.
um, it’s The Parrot, and only go there if you want some really good candy, or want to visit the soda fountain.
Who, me? Nope. Never go there. Unless I’m walking by…
