Snapadia – One snapshot a day, everyday.

First Day back in Missoula, no lack of excitement!

I finally made it back to Missoula after a year of being away. I’ve been taking summer classes all summer long so this is gonna be a nice break from all the papers and presentations. I had an amazing time last summer and I have to admit, I was a little worried before coming out here that everything would be different now that a year had passed. I’m not in a summer long photography class, and most of my friends I had made are spread out across the country and world by now. Well my first 5-6 hours in Missoula made me think that my fears were about to come true.

I landed around 12:00 pm mountain time, I had zero sleep in me thanks to the last term paper I had just finished up before packing to come out here. I had no ride from the airport but I bugged a couple I had met earlier for a ride and I think they felt bad for me because they took me along. I had them drop me off where I thought my room was but I was off by about 30 min. on foot. Not a bad walk but I was pretty soaked in sweat compliments of the hot Montana sun by the time I finally made it to the place. That’s where the fun really began.

I noticed on my journey to the house that the area around me was getting dodgier by the block, well I was only paying 11 bucks a night so I figured it sounded about right. So I got to the apartment and walked in, it was a tiney 3 room apartment that only looked even smaller by all of the junk everywhere.Oh, and by the 2 huge mean looking dogs and some number of cats running around. (I think I counted 5 but I can’t be sure.) Oh and the dogs may have looked mean but my new roommate (Her name is Bena, she is in a metal band, was an army brat, worked as an animal trainer for a circus, and is a witch. No really, she is.) assured me that they were perfectly safe. She told me that they do fight every so often but as long as when you are breaking them apart, you don’t stick your arm in their mouth to stop them from biting each other, you should be OK. Then she lifted up her arm to show me the holes in her arm below some bandages, apparently she learned the hard way. She then spent the next hour or two giving me an idea what it’d be like to live here, it went something like this.

“The rent is gonna be $132 for the 2 weeks but don’t pay our landlady in cash, get a money order and keep your receipt, she likes to pretend she never got your money.” “The garbage gets emptied at the bottom of the stairs, its overflowing right now because our landlady hasn’t gotten around to paying the waste disposal service. Oh and all of that trash rotting outside of our house has attracted a ton of bees so you might wan’t to be careful about that.” The landlady also hasn’t paid the cable company so we have no tv or Internet, hope that’s not a problem. While were talking about our landlady, just to let you know, if you ever need to talk to her, she will be the crazy white trash lady yelling like she’s on the Jerry Springer Show. She’s not too pleasant of a lady so you might actually want to just avoid her all together.” “So there is a local gang in the neighborhood. Not to worry though they’re mostly just a bunch of 10+11 year olds. They aren’t too dangerous, they may throw some rocks at you but if that happens all you have to do is pick that rock back up and throw it right back at them. They shouldn’t mess with you after that. Oh, they also have been known to vandalize, well, just about anything and sometimes they’ll steal anything of value from your house. The good thing is that most of the kids are afraid of this house because they are afraid of the crazy metal head/witches that live there.” (Phew, I was almost worried for a second!) “Oh and seeing as we are right behind the train tracks it can get pretty loud at times. The trains link up right behind us, so if you hear a deafening boom at any point of the night or day that sounds like a plane crash or explosion, yea don’t worry, just the trains linking up.”

I’m not exaggerating or making any of this up either. I couldn’t if I tried. Oh and if Bena’s rundown of my living situation is starting to get long-winded by now, try doing it with no sleep and having just walked a couple of miles in sweltering heat with all your luggage. I was ready to fall over after the first hour of her rambling. But she had plenty more to say before I finally got her to show me my room. It was a small 15×15 space with nothing more than a carpet in it. Guess, I’d be sleeping on the floor for my 2 week stay, great. And then came the final straw. Bena informed me that the “locking” door that was advertised in the craigslisting was kind of a work in the process. I’m serious, after telling me all of these horrible stories about the vagrants in her neighborhood, she then showed me to my spartan room with no lock! 

This situation is crazy enough (at least I thought so!) but in actuality, Bena had soo much more to say about the room and the neighborhood. She really wasn’t the best saleswomen, she was practically holding up two big red flags and waving them in my face. She was giving more reasons to find some place else than I could think of, and thats just what I did.

I ran into town to get some food to fuel my tired head because I needed to think up a solution to this housing problem and quick! I posted an SOS on facebook, put up a desperate craigslisting, and called everyone I could think of that might be able to get me a room in town. (The good part of town that is!) I got all of that done and now all I could do is wait and hope for a reply. I still needed a way to get around so I headed to Free Cycles to get myself a bike. Free Cycles is a perfect example of why Missoula is such a cool town. People donate old, destroyed, and out of service bikes and parts to Free Cycles. They provide a good working space and tools for you to tune up, fix, or even build yourself a whole new bike from the parts of other bike. A Frankenstein bike. There are also some amazing people there that volunteer their time and bike building knowlege for people like me who have no clue how to fix a bike properly. 

I walked into free cycles and instantly saw a familiar face, Bob. He helped me with my always broken bike all last summer. He looked up from what he was doing, stared at me and said, “you’re back.” I can’t even tell you how nice it was for a familiar face to recognize me after a year. I was needing a bit of a boost in morale about then and that did just the trick. Bob helped my find a bike and fix it up enough to ride it for the next 2 weeks. 

I left with my newly built bike and headed downtown. I visited my old school and got to sneak into a class. It was pretty surreal looking at all of the students who would soon be finishing up their summer of photography school, just as I had one quick year ago. I was feeling pretty sentimental but I didn’t have any time to think about it too long, I still needed to find a room! On the way out of school I realized that I had missed a call, apparently an old teacher of mine had saw my facebook cry for help and gave me the number of a lady who might have a room for me. A called the number and the lady said she ad just gotten in from a backpacking trip and needed to get cleaned up but that I was more than welcome to crash at her place. I wasn’t going sleeping in my decrepit freak-show of a house for the night! Yes! You can’t imagine how relieved I felt.

I still had to get all my stuff from the old place to the new one which were on opposite sides of town, and I was on foot. It was a long walk and It was kinda awkward explaining to Bena that I couldn’t even take a night in her place and would be leaving. I thought she might get some of her friends to jump me but I made it out in a hurry and in one piece. I had an hour walk with all my luggage to get to my new room but it gave me a chance to reflect on the long day I just had. Term paper, packing, no sleep, flight, scary house, scarier housemates, scrambling for a new place, building  a bike and seeing a familiar face, seeing the new group of students experience what I had last summer, and finally, the relief of knowing that I had found a new and safe place to stay for my 2 weeks in town. I had to smile and laugh to myself, I was tired, sweaty, and drained but was having a pretty cool adventure. It was definitely a travel day if I’ve ever had one.

I finally made it to my new house and was welcomed by my new roommate Tarn. She’s pretty much the exact opposite of Bena and we got along right away. She showed me the place and I told her about my days adventures while we ate a nice backpackers dinner of cheese, bread, and jam I had picked up on the way. She could se I was about to fall over so she went off to bed but not before giving me a nice big hug good night despite the fact I was still all sweaty from my long trek there. I took a nice hot shower and collapsed in my nice new bed. 

So I guess I was wrong, Missoula hadn’t changed, its still full of friendly people more than happy to help a person out in need. I think its gonna be a good week.

Here it is, my original housing arangement. $11 bucks a night, what was I thinking!

Still not sure whats going down, just loved the sight of the old fat dude in the skooter coming to check out all the excitement.

Bob helping me with some tuning up.