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.

I was going to try and do Montana in one big post, but there's way too much for that.  Here are some photos that we took at the National Bison Range, which is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been.

Something about summer makes me want to travel everywhere.  Road trips, weekend getaways, even day trips to Nashville seem like a great idea when it's warm and the sun is shining.

Here's to adventure planning in the next few weeks!