Missoula

It’s hard to believe we are halfway through summer, but thank goodness we are because it feels like we’ve been trying to escape the 90 degree temps since February. I’m not exaggerating much. Last summer we bought a few temperature/humidity devices so we could track the temperatures in various places in this home-on-wheels. We placed one in the bedroom, one the main room, one in the fridge, one in the freezer, and one outside on the hitch. One thing I was excited about by these Govee temperature gauges was that they would allow us to look back at our temperatures. Unfortunately I just tried to download data from January and ended up with pretty spotty data. I realize you can’t actually read anything from the graph below, but it’s showing all temp data we have for the bedroom sensor (x-axis is January through July and y-axis is temps between 40-100). Not sure why it didn’t give me data for January or March through June as I know it was registering temps then. Maybe something in my settings? Unclear. My original point was supported however, as we did log temperatures over 90 as early as February 14.

This summer has been a journey of us looking for a place we would like to live longer term, somewhere between Oregon (for the Duck) and Colorado (for me), ideally with mountains and trees like those found in the Cascades or the Rockies. After getting our repairs done in Tucson, we set out for Utah, then Idaho, and now Montana. We were exploring properties but after not really finding anything in the price range we were aiming for (less than $150K), we have postponed the search. We now know the areas we like but we are taking a break to reassess what we are really looking for from this purchase. Originally we thought it would be unimproved land and we would use it as a summer landing spot, but not until after we were done visiting all the national parks. Which meant we wouldn’t really be using it for the next three years at least (maybe longer if we extend our plans to Alaska). So we weren’t in a rush for this (Summer) spot like we were for the Texas (Winter) landing spot. Most of these summer places we’ve liked have been three season access unless you have a snowmobile as most have been off of dirt roads that aren’t plowed year round. And some of those dirt roads were a little sketchy even in the dry heat of summer. We were charmed by Missoula and while we were staying about 25 minutes outside of Missoula, the whole area was the forest vibe we were going for. But it was hot. And there were forest fires. None really threatening us, but close enough that we were getting the hazy red sun/sky in the middle of the day from all the smoke in the air. We decided to not visit any of the properties we had identified and instead enjoy being among the trees again.

While we were close to Missoula I was finally able to visit a museum I had worked with at Maker Ed (sorry dear reader, I did not take any photos). spectrUM Discovery Area is a science center associated with the University of Montana (UM) and in 2020 (when I started working with them) were in the middle of moving into a new space within the Missoula Public Library. We were treated to a private tour by my friend/colleague Nick (thanks Nick!) and let me tell you, I’ve been to some cool libraries but this one is special. It won the “World’s Best Public Library” in 2022 from the International Federation of Library Associations, the first library in the United States to win the award. I’m assuming part of the reason it won that award is because it was designed with community in mind and several organizations share the space which brings access to the public in a way that just makes sense. spectrUM has a dedicated exhibit space, some movable exhibits in the library collections, a classroom they use for camps, and a workshop space they use to build their exhibits. The library also features a makerspace, so they have access to 3D printers. I could talk all day about the exhibits/collabs we saw and conversations we had but I’m sure that will bore most of you. It was amazing to be able to visit their space and feel the sense of community they’ve woven (Nick had just hung up a community tapestry that was constructed by all the sites they visited during their Making Across Montana efforts). I recommend those interested check out their Science on Wheels page and their EmPower Place collaboration.

This post is long already so I’ll just end by saying we are heading out soon for Devils Tower. This weekend Scott told me the reason we are going to Devils Tower is because of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When he learned I didn’t really know the movie, we watched it. It’s a Spielberg directed film (his third), which came out in 1977. It features Devils Tower prominently. I’m not sure we will see any UFOs while there but who knows!

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