Missoula Montana Travel - Trans-Americas Journey

Day 94 of our Journey

Missoula, Montana is a cool combination of a cowboy town and a college town.

Quirky downtown Missoula, Montana.

We love live music, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen any, so we were thrilled to read that the Dirty Dozen Brass Band was playing at a Missoula club called The Other Room while we were in town.

A cowboy bar gets some cool in Missoula.

While in Missoula Eric was in dire need of a haircut and that need go satisfied as well when he paid a visit to a barber he’d spotted in downtown Missoula. When he got there, the blinds were down and the sign in the window said closed. Since that seemed unlikely at 2 pm, Eric pushed on the door and found Steve the barber relaxing inside his sports memorabilia-filled shop. He was open, he just likes to use the blinds and the sign to deter anyone who’s not serious about getting a haircut.

Even once you’re inside, there’s no guarantee that Steve the Barber will cut your hair, especially if you’re a scruffy college kid who hasn’t bothered with a trim all year but is now suddenly desperate to get cleaned up before heading home for the holidays (you know who you are). Luckily, Eric was absolutely serious about getting a haircut and was absolutely not a scruffy college student (at least not recently), so he emerged with his first haircut of the Journey.

Here’s what we got when our parking meter ran out in Missoula.

Oh, and don’t worry too much about parking laws in Missoula. Eric spent so long chatting with Steve that our parking meter ran out, but insead of a ticket he found a cheery yellow note card from the Missoula Parking Commission on the windshield, proclaiming that “You Have Been Forgiven” and insisting that Missoula welcomes its out of town visitors.