Missoula, Montana is probably my favorite city right now. And possibly forever.
It's one of the coolest places I have every visited. Of course the scenery is beautiful, and there's lots of hiking and camping and fishing to be done, but the actual downtown area is worth exploring as well. Big Dipper Homemade Ice Cream, Rockin' Rudy's, and Liquid Planet were my favorite places in Missoula proper that we visited.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures at Liquid Planet (I was too busy stuffing myself with fruit croissants and slurping chai lattes), but it's a beautiful place. It's part coffee shop, part wine and beer shop, and they have a really cool selection of locally made sodas.
Big Dipper was my favorite. I made us go there at least three times because there were so many ice cream flavors I wanted to try. My favorite had to be the huckleberry (there is huckleberry flavored EVERYTHING in Montana), but cardamom was close behind. I also loved that it was walk-up service - it felt so summery and made it easy to get your ice cream fix before walking around downtown.
Rockin' Rudy's is a really cool music/everything else store downtown. They have another, smaller shop that is just records, but we didn't make it. I plan to go next time we're there! I spent entirely too much money on everything from vinyl to jewelry to my new favorite sweatshirt there.
Have I convinced you all to go to Montana yet?
