Fond memories.

bikes everywhere
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On my arrival in Missoula, I met up with an old friend who showed me around town, got me oriented and settled in a hotel.  I had the afternoon to wash my laundry and my self and take my camera to a photo center- all of the little things that go un-done when you're on a bike. Then I found a movie in town I wanted to see and hopped on Bess, naked without her panniers, and rode toward the river.

How do you make new memories and embrace the world fully when you have a memory as good as mine?  I was in Missoula 5 or 6 years ago and I find myself able to retrace every step and just as eager to do so.  As I approached the river, I began to recognize it all.  The theater I was headed for was the same one we went to back then.  I knew the street and saw the record store right where I predicted it as I rolled by. I spent the next afternoon visiting the thrift stores and boutiques I'd been to.  Having ice cream at the same place.  I found the house my friend lived in briefly, right by the bakery like I knew it would be.  The good Indian food restaurant had moved, but it still has the best chai in the country- and don't call me on this one, if anyone knows, I know.  It was on the whole a good day.  I like following my nose in this way and reveling in my fabulous sense of direction, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was shorting myself and living in the past.  I love my memories, but shouldn't I try to shake them on a trip like this?

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Luckily for my adventure-conscience, Missoula is full of things to experience and I could in no way avoid them.  There was a festival in the park- just your average Missoula Thursday with music and a selection of local beers- that I enjoyed before the film.  The film: Becoming Jane- pretty good, McAvoy I love, Hathaway I didn't hate, but why did the costumers have to make it look like Jane Austen invented the empire waist?  I found a neat little coffee shop to read the local entertainment paper.  I found a brilliant book in a dusty book shop- Archy and Mehitabel. I went to see the AdventureCycling people, (who made the maps I am sometimes following,) they took a polaroid of me and tacked it on the wall with the other travelers.  And as the evening drew on, I found the carousel. And I rode the carousel and took lots of pictures of children on the carousel.  Nothing to be disappointed about at all.  Quite the contrary.  Next time I am in town, I will be following my nose to the carousel.