Day 69

Sorry mom!

Today is our fourth and final full day in Missoula, and to tell you the truth I don't really want to leave.

I've found so much in this city; diverse and wonderful people, a rich music scene and bicycle community, interesting doors to potential career paths, and even a promising grad school choice. Missoula is the city I've been waiting this entire tour to see and I didn't even know it until I got here.

Yesterday we all got our matching tour tats at a shop called Bound by Glory. Afterwards I split off in search of the local bike polo club. I asked a random cyclist on the road about it and he sent me to Free Cycles, Missoula's impressive community bike shop. A volunteer, Bob, then directed me to the screen printing shop down the road where two polo guys worked. I got hooked up with Jeremy and Corey and they arranged a spare polo bike and mallet for me.

Later that evening, I rode Jeremy's (rather nice) loaner bike to the university garage where I was greeted by a handful of Missoula's bike polo club members. The rest of the guys came by as well and cheered us on as we played several pickup games. I found that, despite only having played polo for a few months, I was able to hold my own and show the locals a little Tallahassee polo flavor (shouts out to everyone in Tally Polo who have helped me get better at the game). We had fun playing polo, drinking beers, and getting to know each othet as newfound friends for hours well after the sun had gone down.

Today we are taking it easy. And by that I mean biking around the town finding even more fun things to do. Missoula has several street pianos scattered about downtown. This morning we jammed with a guy playing one by a bike shop. Before lunch we jammed on a painted piano in front of an office building. After lunch we passed by a street performer and jammed with him too!

Missoula has so much to offer. I wish we had kayaks to paddle the river that goes through town. I wish we had mountain bikes to shred Missoula's surrounding trails. I wish I had more time to visit every odd boutique shop, brewpub, music venue, bike shop, and meet all the people there. It's going to be so hard to leave tomorrow. I'll surely have to come back--perhaps even to live here for a while.

Until then I'll just have to enjoy the 17 hours we have left in this amazing city.

- Chris