Montana Part I: Missoula

Hi everyone! This is Jim (I figure I better introduce myself since this is only my 2nd time writing one of these things).  This past week I had the opportunity to go to Montana for work to present at a conference for the Montana Public Health Training & Communication Center.  I was invited out to give a day and a half workshop on how to apply Quality Improvement methodologies in county health departments (I won't bore you on all of the details now, but feel free to ask me about it later).  They had learned about our group at Purdue through the people we work with at the Indiana State Department of Health and they wanted us to help train their people like we have been doing in Indiana.

So, on Wednesday I left home and started my journey which took me to the Indy airport, then to the Chicago airport, and finally to the Missoula airport.

Nothing says "Welcome to Montana!" like a big stuffed bear!

Now, if any of you follow Andrea on either Facebook or Twitter, you probably have already learned that even though I arrived in Montana safe and sound, my bag unfortunately did not.  After telling the ladies behind the counter about my missing bag, they looked up my info and told me that somehow my bag was sent from Chicago to Washington DC but to have no worries, they were sure it was already on a flight from DC to Denver and would come in on to Missoula that night around midnight.

So I left the airport and headed out to find my hotel and explore Missoula.  After checking in I went to find the conference center I was going to be presenting at over the next two days.  The conference was being held on the University of Montana's campus so I took some time to explore.  I must say, it was a very beautiful campus.

Here is a picture of University Hall, their oldest building on campus.  Looks somewhat similar to Purdue's Univeristy Hall (except for the big clock and the giant hill back behind it).

I also managed to find the fooball stadium, home to the UM Grizzlies.

I spent a total of three days in Missoula (Wed. - Fri.) and everyday was great.  Missoula has a very active downtown area with lots of resturants, parks, and festivals and it was great to be in a city with an extensive trail system and lots of biking lanes for everyone to get around.  I was able to walk from my hotel to the campus across the river using the trail system each day.  One other thing about Montana...even though it was somewhat hot while I was out there (upper 80s or lower 90s) they have almost no humidity and the evenings still got down into the upper 40s.  Needless to say, with the summer we've been having it was absolutley wonderful!

The river that seperates the campus from downtown is the Clark Fork River (named after William Clark of Lewis & Clark).  There are trails running along both sides of the river as well as lots of parks and there was never a moment where I did not see someone enjoying the river by fishing, tubing, rafting, or swimming.  Too bad I can't say the same about the Wabash back home...

Getting back to my bag for a moment, it did not show up on Wednesday like I had been told earlier.  In fact, it seems that once the bag got to Washington DC it somehow disappeared and no one was able to find it.  So I was left to go find the nearest Target to try to buy some clothes for the next several days while hoping that my bag would finally show up at somepoint.  As a side note, if you ever have to call the United Delayed (Lost) Baggage hotline, you will find that the call center is in India and though they can not do anything to actually help you, they are very polite and are very willing to apoligize for everything.  They are however, very bad at calling you back as promised when they recieve new information about your bags.

Anyway, the workshop went off great and I had a lot of fun working with people from all over the state. After the conference ended Friday at noon, I headed back to the hotel and changed into some new clothes (shorts and a UM t-shirt) and headed out to explore more of Missoula and its trail system.  My walk eventually took me back to campus and up to the giant M (above campus in the earlier picture).

Here is the sign at the base of the hill:

And here is a view of the big M upclose....

And a view of campus and Missoula from above the big M

I had originally planned on following the trail up the mountain all the way to the top, but I had recieved a call while heading up from the United desk at the Missoula Airport (not the call center in India) to tell me my bag was currently scheduled to arrive at 5:30 on a flight from Denver and that they would be closing at 6 if I wanted to get it.  So, after getting to see the M, I headed back down the mountain, went back to the hotel to get my rental car, and then headed off to the airport to meet my long lost bag.

Friday, 5:45 pm in Missoula - my bag finally arrives!

In the next post, I'll share some pictures of my Saturday in Montana up at Glacier National Park.