The Missoula Marathon & other sights

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Our 7th floor apartment (in Montana, that's high rise livin', man!) has a wonderful view of the Clark Fork River, Brennan's Wave (more in the next post) and the mountains.  Below us is Caras Park, the center of all city summer events.  This is marathon weekend in Missoula, warming up with a 5K this morning.

The forecast for today is 90°, very hot for MT, delightful for us.  But mercifully, the morning began cloudy & cool.  Not so good for the pic.

The starting line was off to the left outside our view, but we heard the crack of the starter pistol.  And there they go!!!

Backing up to dinner last night, we tried a new place just a block from home, called Red Bird, check the website:  RED BIRD  The food was wonderful as was the waiter.  Adam has worked here 17 years, took such good care for us, suggesting menu items and making adjustments for Susanne's avoidance of raw onion in any form.  We talked about Cold Smoke scotch ale (brewed here in Missoula)  He told us about one of the original scotch ales, brewed in Scotland, Skull Splitter.  At the end of the meal, he presented us with a bottle of Splitter, 8.5% ABV, yikes!

Here's a vid of the view from our apartment.

My favorite building in downtown Missoula is the Hotel Florence although it no longer functions as one.  It's my favorite because it has a glass brick theme which immediately dates it to the 1940's & 1950's.  It was completed in 1941.

Here it is in 1945:

 And in 2018:

Note a clock still stands on the sidewalk although it's been moved around and replaced several times, most recently in 1997 when it foolishly jumped in front of a truck.

In your travels, have you noticed any buildings incorporating glass brick?  The trend didn't last very long, probably because broken bricks are difficult to replace.

We did a quick tour of the Montana Museum of Natural History, tiny compared with the New York City version.

The griz had only a passing interest in Susanne since dinner was at hand, I mean...paw.

Susanne's very Montana shirt says "My sky is BIGGER than your sky". 

We were impressed that the rib cage on this bat looked very close to the human version.

All the subjects graciously agreed to hold still while I took the pic.

A couple of notable signs...the first one a sign of the times...teaching film photography???  So...last century!

And the second, our G-rating temporarily suspended:

PBR = Pabst Blue Ribbon.

We're leaving for Bozeman early tomorrow morning so I'm going to post this.  I'll catch the rest of the Missoula post in a couple of days.