6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 7
Missoula, Montana | June 28-29, 2024
Written by John Martinson
We departed from Toad Hall Manor for Missoula after breakfast, briefly stopping at the Butte Supercharger (we left a Tesla cache at this location), just a mile away. The drive was extraordinary with mountains on both sides through farms and fields and goat ranches to our Missoula stay at the Best Western Plus Grant Creek, which had a convenient Tesla Supercharger in the parking lot. After checking in, we drove to Missoula’s downtown city center, which also serves as the home of the University of Montana, a research university. Missoula, we discovered, is a lively, young, and welcoming community, public art is everywhere on the sides of buildings and on street corners, and a sense of community abounds.
We ate lunch at Five on Black, a yummy Brazilian street-food restaurant, and walked the historic downtown looking at an eclectic variety of shops. I even bought an original record album (Cream’s Disraeli Gears – one of the very first albums I owned) and we enjoyed an afternoon snack and great cup of coffee and pastry at Butterfly Herbs, a 57-year-old tea and herb wholesaler from whom we (China Mist) purchased wholesale teas in the early days of our company.
Later, after returning briefly to our hotel, we returned to downtown and dined at Plonk Wine Missoula, an extraordinary, hip restaurant where we enjoyed wonderful wines and amazing food on a rooftop dining area. The wine, the food, the desserts, the service, the ambiance, and, of course, with my love as my dining partner, everything was perfect, and I don’t think I have said that about any restaurant anywhere, ever. We had a wonderful chef’s cheese board with 6 well-chosen artisanal cheeses with fresh, perfectly ripened figs, thin-sliced apple and fresh-baked sliced baguette, roasted buffalo cauliflower with a blue cheese aioli, and Massaman curry of crispy sushi rice, confit potatoes, local mushrooms, gold lentil tempering spice, pineapple sambal, Japanese eggplant, fresh market vegetables, with tofu. For dessert, we chose light and fluffy beignets with chocolate & hazelnut, cinnamon & sugar and ice cream. Wines were a Costers Dels Olivers Carignan blend from Priotat, Spain, a 2012 Chateau Andy Bordeaux blend, and a Les Ailles Bourgogne Rouge Burgandy – all excellent.
Needless to say, we love Missoula.
