Things started out well in Bozeman and kept getting better. Our arrival at the Sunrise Campground was met by one of the owners, Mary, who welcomed us with questions about the baby, invitations to borrow from the wall of current DVD’s and books and instructions to follow her husband, Marty, on the ATV to our site. The campground itself was not much more than several gravel rows with small patches of grass between them, but somehow it felt like a nice community.
Soon after getting set up, we drove the mile and a half to the downtown and walked around. This won’t be a point-by-point Missoula vs. Bozeman comparison, but one of the things that turned us off about the former was that there was no one out on the streets walking around, even on a Sunday where the streets were closed to traffic. It looked like a ghost town. In contrast, the streets of Bozeman were nicely bustling on a Tuesday evening with folks enjoying a conversation and a cup of coffee at a sidewalk café table, young mothers pushing jogging strollers, sharply-dressed retirees poking into chic-but-casual bistros and potential Prana/Patagonia models likely on their way to or from a trail run. Bike racks were full from people who had cycled in from the neighborhoods just north or south of Main St. and signs advertised “Bike to Eat Days” when downtown restaurants would offer a 15% discount on an entrée when you showed your bike helmet. Parking was easy but not too easy. Bozeman seemed like the kind of town where you’d be just as comfortable driving a Subaru wagon as you would a Ford F150.
At dinner with the friendliest waitress in the world – this is important when you bring a toddler to a restaurant – I did a quick Google search to see if there was a bluegrass jam in town, having heard some variation of the acoustic music that had been such a large part of my life for the past 15 years in every store we’d walked into. Someone must have just wanted us to like Bozeman ‘cause there was a jam, that night, at an Irish pub right across the street from where we sat.
Ann put Wynne to sleep in the trailer as I slid my mandolin in its hard case from beneath the bed where it rested below the shelf I’d built to support my acoustic guitar. I pulled my bike down from the top of the Sequoia, slung the mando across my back and rode into town, arriving just as the jam was getting started. A friendly guy saw the case and came over to give me the scoop on how things worked. “This is a really supportive jam. Don’t feel nervous. If someone looks at you and asks for a song, you just play your favorite, best song. The one you feel most comfortable on. If you’d rather not, just shake your head, and we’ll come back around to you.” It was strange, I’d given a version of this little pep talk to countless newcomers at jams over the years and led multi-week classes on jam etiquette and how to fit in with a group. Still, I appreciated the thought and thanked him for the rundown. After a few songs, I joined the group on stage, mostly members of a regular band plus a few others like me, and ended up having a pretty good time playing for a couple hours to an appreciative group of people hanging out in the booths on either side of the bar. The subtle “Hey, not bad” nods from the other guys were all I needed at the end of the night, and I rode home in the dark thinking, so this is what it might be like to live here…
The next morning’s breakfast at the Western Café (“the last best diner”) was shared with ranchers, bikers, hikers and Montana State students enjoying a free meal on their visiting parents. A nice mix of people and a great egg, cheese and bacon sandwich on a fresh homemade biscuit. As we walked outside to our bikes and strapped Wynne into her CoPilot seat secured to my rear rack, I found myself thinking we should come back on the next “Bike to Eat Day.” We’d get our next breakfast for 15% off. So this is what it might be like to live here…
We rode to a playground we’d seen up a side street and pushed Wynne on a swing along with a few other groups of parents and kids. The moms made the usual conversation – How old is she? What’s her name? – while the dads sat on benches and took pictures on their phones. I pulled mine out and did a quick search on Trulia for nearby homes for sale. No, we’re not in the market, but if you haven’t figured it out yet, we like to get a feel for what it might be like to live somewhere… ;~) I was surprised at the home prices, higher than I might have expected. Pretty much in line with our home town in desirable Northern California. Of course, Bozeman is about the same size as our town (roughly 40-50K people), has a historic downtown and is in a beautiful setting. Sounds pretty desirable to me, and the housing market seemed to agree.
We’d stopped into a toy store the day before and, at her insistence (ON! ON! ON!), put Wynne on a few small tricycles they had in the back. She’s still just too small to reach the pedals, even with the adjustable seat in the closest position, but loved being pushed around on one of the models with a long pole extending from the back for parents seeking to save their backs. I’m a cheap bastard environmentalist, so I pulled out my phone and found the exact same $125 tricycle for sale used on Bozeman Craigslist for $40 and subtly suggested to Ann that maybe we should hold off on the purchase. In the afternoon, we went out to pick it up. So this is what it might be like to live here…
As we drove about 10 minutes outside of town, the properties became bigger, surrounded by pastures with a few sheep and horses, and we commented that they reminded us of where our Farmlet is just outside the city limits of our town. We pulled down a side road about 1/2 mile, same as we would at home, and then through a gate into a nice courtyard/driveway – yep, you guessed it – a lot like ours. As we pulled in, Ann noticed the for sale sign, and I started worrying that we wouldn’t be able to leave with just the tricycle.
The couple and their four girls ranging from around 5 to 2-year-old twins were planning on moving even farther out of town up to a larger property they owned in the hills. I don’t even need to tell you that their current place was about 4 acres, just like ours. The woman told us that the house had been in contract, but the deal just fell through. This is *not* good. We need to buy this tricycle and get out of here like NOW. Safely exiting the driveway with the new toy piled on top of Wynne’s other modes of transportation (the Bob, the baby backpack and the bike seat), Ann pulled up Trulia just to check the price, you know, out of curiosity. It was almost exactly what we’d paid in Northern CA. So this is what it might be like to live here…
Despite our limited space, the tricycle has been a huge bonus. No longer does it take us 40 minutes to walk the 40 feet from the trailer to the campground office to grab two more DVD’s to rip onto the hard drive. No longer does the morning walk around the campground while the other of us sleeps in take until lunchtime. Wynne can’t wait to hop on, rest her little feet on the fenders like we showed her so they don’t get caught in the spinning pedals and ride in style.
It’s working so well, we’re exploring other uses for it…
The last evening in Bozeman, we stopped into the downtown co-op. Smaller than the one under a mile or so to the west, it still had all the brands we sometimes have a hard time finding while on the road. We filled ceramic bowls with a delicious smelling assortment of selections from their hot bar, grabbed a packet of grass-fed ground bison for tacos later in the week, stocked up on our favorite chocolate bars with the chimpanzee on the font and just the right amount of cacao (72%, no more, no less). Sitting down at a table to look over calendars of events in the local free papers we thought… well… you know what I’m going to say next…
Bozeman was a town we could see ourselves living in. That being said, we were there at the end of summer, not December when the average high temperature hovers about 2 degrees over freezing. Plus, we’re not really actually looking for anywhere else to live! Still, the idea of coming back sometime to spend a winter season came up a few times. You know, just to see what it might be like to live there…
