Day 36: Bozeman, MT : Early Day 37: (J's Version)

Good morning!! I'm writing to you from City Steam Coffee in Bozeman, MT. City Steam is a coffee chain in Montana that is similar to a Starbucks. You get that corporate, overly friendly feel; however, the layout of their business is much better than SB. There's a variety of places to sit.

Pretty cool fire pit! 

Love my cubby AND plug

High top tables. At the counter. Low tables. Stand alone comfy chairs. My personal favorite is the semi private cubby that i'm stationed in now! Oh, and there are outlets everywhere.  (Unless you frequent coffee shops to do work on your numerous technology toys, the location of electrical outlets probably never came across your mind. It's kind of like finding treasure until you have to fight with the neighbor next to you to juice up your equipment.)

View from our hotel

Today's route to Butte, MT is only 85 miles, which for us is a "shorter ride" compared to the 100+ that G has been doing more consistently. We were excited because, we thought it would be an earlier day today since he would be finishing around 3, but we slept in an extra 2 hours which cancels out the end time. haha Most likely, he'll be done around 5ish. The extra sleep was needed though, and he made it on the road at 8. Tomorrow, to Missoula, MT is 119 miles. Yuck. Hopefully, the wind will be in his favor. I believe that will be the last super long ride of the trip.

Bozeman Mural

Yesterday, after I blogged, I did walk around Bozeman while G continued writing. I LOVE Bozeman. I love the feel of the town. The atmosphere. The people. There's so many little shops and restaurants that I want to try. The town is super bike friendly as well. Score! There's people on bikes everywhere just getting from one area to the next. Numerous bike lock up stations. Also, I felt extremely safe walking around, which always a plus. The whole downtown area is probably about 7-8 blocks equip with side streets with attractions. There are a few colorful murals depicting the history of Bozeman. No real downtown city is cool unless there are musicians playing on the street. Typically, back East at least whenever you see someone playing an instrument (or even just a plastic container) the people are homeless and you feel bad. In Bozeman, we passed two people who didn't seem to look homeless, playing a banjo and a violin on the street! It was beautiful.

After about an hour of exploration, I went back to Wild's Joe's and since G was still in the zone, I started reading Jeanette Walls' Silver Star. I definitely enjoyed it! She has three books (The Glass

 Castle is her most famous), but Half-broke Horses is still my favorite of the three. You may be thinking, "You finished the entire novel in one sitting??? Speed demon!"

Keep in mind, we were at Wild Joe's a total of 6 hours and 15 min!!! We got there around 10 and left a little after 4. Towards the end I felt slightly awkward because our coffee and food ran out hours ago, so I made G buy something else. Hopefully, everyone caught up with G's entries because he posted at least 4 yesterday.

Super Serious G

After we left, we explored two different restaurants. Several months ago I read an article titled something like, "New date ideas." One of the ideas was to go to an area with numerous restaurants and go to a bunch of them and just order an appetizer from each one, so you get a variety of places and food. We tried that out in New Haven a few months ago, and it was so much fun and tasty. Sweet Chili was our first place in Bozeman. We ordered two sushi rolls. The man behind the sushi counter was Cory. His sushi rolls were great, but there was something on my mind I just had to say. I couldn't think of a way to say it without sounding either racist or too judgmental, but I was still curious, so I basically prefaced my question like I did just now.

Sushi Master

In all of our sushi outings back east, we've never see anyone other than of Asian descent (sometimes Hispanic) behind the sushi counter. Cory was super cool about it and laughed. G told him he makes great sushi for a white guy. Cory is a self taught sushi artist, and said he actually gets told that a lot, and the norm around there is a sushi place typically has white sushi chefs. Then, we told him about our trip, and it turns out he's a cyclist himself! It's really neat all the interesting things you learn about a person if you just talk. Last summer, he and his brother took a 19 day cycling trip from Seattle, WA to Tijuana! (A very popular north to south route along the west coast) Also, he told us that he recently bought a Sony Action cam for when he rides and climbs rocks, and it's so easy to use and really cool. I'm SURE that "voice" in G's head was yelling, "Go to Best Buy! Go to Best Buy!"

Then, we went to a place called, "Pho Real." GET IT? hehe We've never been to a Pho place like this before. It's Americanized and basically a Pho Subway style! You get to choose your protein, your broth, AND you get choose what toppings you want in your soup!!! It tasted great!!! No bean sprouts for me! I took a more traditional route for my Pho, but G put in lima beans and other stuff. Their trays had holes cut out of them, so the bowls won't slide off. Way cool.

G went for the non-traditional fixings (lima beans/carrots/mushrooms)

Genius!

Pick and choose

Choose your own toppings

Have a great day!!