The city of Missoula has really come into its own in the last ten years. I’m only five fingers, so I have to take it on faith and research (more the latter) and I’ve got to say, of all the places in Montana -- and they were all great cities -- Missoula is the best of all of them. Currents Aquatic Center might not be the best example of what’s great about Missoula, but it’s got to be easily in the top 2-3. Currents Aquatic Center is really fantastic.

I've never pretended I felt anything less than total love for Missoula. It's hands-down my favorite city in Montana, and maybe even my favorite city anywhere. They've got a killer carousel, the greatest public park I've ever seen, their public parks have squirty water features for summer play, and the people there are as kind as you'll find anywhere in the world. So let's add one more feather to that already-foppish cap; Splash Montana Water Park.

I’m not familiar with the country of Elk, but I’m not familiar with my own country either, no matter how much of it I’ve traveled, so I won’t try to make like I’m some geographical prodigy or anything. I’ll just tell you that we didn’t need passports to visit Elk Country, and the visitor’s center was worth ten times the suggested donation, and even that was only a suggestion.

It seems that once you hit the summer scorching states, a big percentage of them have water attractions designed to draw you in. Some are better than others, though, and others still soak you twice when it comes to price. We stayed at plenty, but our favorite by a good margin was the Wingate by Wyndam in Missoula. They’ve got the value, quality, convenience and good rooms too.

If you aren’t a Montana native, it would seem a bit unlikely you’d be traveling south away from Interstate-90 along the general Missoula-ish swath of the state. Maybe you’re passing by that way because you’re looking for adventure, or your taking a different route to find your way to stones yellow or jelly. I can’t speak to your motivation for driving in such directions, but I can give you advice once you commit to doing so.

If you're driving on Highway 93 in the area south of Missoula, Montana, there's a certain family fun center you just shouldn't miss. It's got a name as unique as the super-fun offerings they have inside, but maybe you don't have kids, you're in a big hurry, or just some sort of general fuddy-duddy. I can't speak to who you are or what made you that way, but I can tell you that if you're in the area and hungry, forget what you know about afterthought cafés, because Café Gelato is well worth the stop whatever your reason.

In 1988 a man had a vision. It wasn’t of sugar plums, as you might expect, but of an authentic, old-timey carousel ride in his hometown of Missoula, Montana. Spoiler alert: he made his vision big enough for a whole city and now they have A Carousel for Missoula, it's a carousel like none other in the world.

In the heart of the coolest part of Missoula, Montana, and I assure you such a place can and does exist, is a playground park like no other I’ve ever seen. When I say it’s the tallest playground ever, I am so beside myself I can’t possibly be expected to back it up with facts or figures.

Public parks are supposed to belong to public people, and I know few people more public than us. I’ve been in the spotlight since before I was even born, so I was prepared to be the expert I am on all such things. Seems the public here wants water at their parks, so water they do have.

If you’ve got some extra time in Missoula, Montana, or you want to learn the most about the natural history of the region, there are two great places in town to do it. One is the Elk County Visitor Center and the other is its less attractive cousin, the one that resides on the other side of the tracks, the Montana Natural History Center.

We first visited Staggering Ox in Helena, where they have an unbelievable flagship eatery, complete with acres of kitsch, an art museum full of some of the least likely “art,” and a staff that just can’t be beat… they also have great food, but once you’re there, it hardly seems like the point. We loved the food, so we decided to focus on it more specifically this time around.

If you live in a city with a wide selection of professional sports, you may think of minor league games as little more than events that make parking difficult at unpredictable times for no good reason, but in pro-sports deprived cities, it can be a lot of fun. Businesses get behind it to do promotions and giveaways and attendance is strong. The people are there for the fun of it, not because they’re obsessive about baseball, but they do cheer for well-turned plays.

Just west of Missoula, Montana, along the Interstate-90 corridor, drivers may notice signs for the Smokejumper Visitor Center. The name is a bit puzzling until you learn that it’s exactly what it sounds like – people jumping from planes into flames – and then the whole profession itself becomes the puzzle. I know Smokey says "Only you can prevent forest fires," but these people take that catch phrase WAY too seriously.

Since before time even began to exist* there has been this ubiquitous thing called The Children's Museum. These are often underfunded, though never underappreciated, and frequently enjoyed by all in attendance. The children's museum in Missoula is one such example, especially considering how hard they work to make their place so much fun.

If you’re looking for something between cheap and free to do with your kids, a real standout is the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. The museum is very cheap, but the historic collection around it is free and it’s got more fun stuff to play on than my parents could even endure.

It was a lazy summer day when we were driving back from having all kinds of assorted fun on the road when my driver noted the car was overheating. We were almost back to our hotel, so we managed to skate in without stopping on a wing, a prayer, and since we didn’t have either of those things on hand, sheer luck.

Billings was made a great destination on our trip for more reasons than I can safely try to express in just a single article, but there was one tourist feature that really helped us find fun and a love of the city like no other, and that was the small, private, family run business known as Montana Fun Adventure Tours. We didn't have time to really enjoy their full tours, but based on how amazing their short tours are, we're definitely going to try to catch a bigger one when we return.

Easily the single best experience we had in all of our many Montana adventures was the evening we spent just east of Billings in the fine company of Pappy and his family at the Western Romance Company Cowboy Dinner. It's a horse-drawn wagon ride, an evening of authentic cowboy cooking, and fellowship with the single best people we met on the whole of our trip to Montana.

West-coasters traveling through Montana may not get as far east as Billings, but if you do, there are a good many things there to see that you just shouldn't miss. One example is the Yellowstone Art Museum, and don't let the name fool you, it's not a bunch of geyser-themed artwork. No, it's a real museum. So if you're old enough to keep your hands off the exhibits, it's well worth the visit.

Billings, Montana is a really great city, and not just because every third hotel has a water slide, but because there's so much history stuffed into such a small area, really making Billings worth driving that far out for. One exceptional example is Moss Mansion, and not just because it's a really cool old house, but because of the man who built it and the family he raised to live there.

I’ve heard bad things about summer brother birthdays, and I believe all these no-guests--showing-up rumors because I have exactly such a brother in my own family. A couple years ago our parents sent out more than 2-dozen handwritten invitations before school let out asking parents to bring their youngster friends, and not one of them even had the decency to RSVP saying they weren’t going to come.* That’s probably why my parents take his summer birthday so seriously, and this was another really great gem for him.

We've made no qualms about the great times we've had in Billings, Montana, and no review series would be complete without a write-up of one of the best places in the area, the Western Heritage Museum. Sure, it's historic, and sure, it's fun and interesting, but more than any of that, did you know it's also Smithsonian accredited? Well it's that, and affordable too!

Our editorial board has seen zoos in Shanghai, San Francisco, Seattle, and probably other places for all I can be bothered to recall, so it takes a bit to impress us. The zoo in Billings, Montana did impress us, even if it didn’t knock our collective socks off. It’s a nice place, and a good value, but don’t get too giddy just yet

Chalk it up to me being young, but I couldn’t find any interest in the chalking up of the sandstone overhangs in Montana’s pictograph caves. Maybe I was disappointed because they weren’t caves, or because “they” was a singular, or maybe it was the fact that it was scorching hot outside. I can recommend this attraction, but only if you have a longer attention span than me, and I warn you, mine is better than it’s ever been before.

One of the funnest distractions we ever found in all our cowboy adventures was this new game I think they just invented called "Horseshoes". It works like this: you kindly explain to your horses that they're in a 'no shoe' pasture, ask them to kick them off, and then to be a wise Alec, you throw them as far as you possibly can. Ringer!

A town so far east we barely made it out there on our first trip is Billings. Once you're there, you're half way from the Pacific Ocean to Minneapolis, and with our schedule getting busier and busier with each passing day, we weren't even sure if we'd make it out there, but boy are we glad that we did.

Whether you live in Billings, Montana or you’re just passing through, this oversized funplex has something for kids of all ages. They’ve got a massive laser tag arena, crazy fast go-karts, putt-putt golf, a modern arcade, and even a mega-climbing zone for kids like me that just want to go into a maze of plastic tubes for an hour or so.

As a man of miniature stature myself, I'm always on the lookout for new things more me-sized than medium. Mostly my size-based pursuits lead to nothing (thanks a lot, jumbo shrimp!) but there is one thing sized to pint that's true to its name, and it is miniature golf. I discovered it, and I immediately learned to love it.

Most free museums feel like junk stores without price tags, but this place, as small and four miles away from where you probably want to be, wasn't just worth the trip, it was straight up awesome. Not only did we find a bunch of great cowboy stuff to buy our brother for his upcoming birthday at fine prices, but we also saw neat stuff, had great fun, and all on free admission.

We've run articles all over the world, as any of our most faithful readers has known as years have gone by and stories have unfolded, but it still comes to us as a great contribution when we pick up new syndicates, especially ones of notable merit. Such is the case with our latest syndication to MontanaWithKids.com.

There was a place we went to fairly early in our travels that struck us so singularly we just didn't know how to properly cover it short of spending three or four days writing it up. The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana has so much to see, experience and enjoy, it was a real struggle to figure out what to write up to truly pay them tribute. So after much deliberation, delay, and staff meetings we finally decided the single best feature of the place is everything.

As a reader on the web, it's pretty likely you've heard of computers, but did you know that computers came from somewhere and they have a history of their own? Apparently they don't just come from the store or the Fed-Ex guy, as I had previously believed, but there was a whole mega-tastic back-story behind this technology and this museum brings it all in to focus.

Montana was a trip like none other we’ve ever taken. The people and places we saw were so great that after almost three weeks in big sky country, we took a month back home, and just had to return for another three week. That doesn’t mean all of it was perfect though, and there were a few glaring exceptions… The Western Heritage Inn in Bozeman was one such bone in the smoked salmon fillet, and it deserves mention for it.

When you’re driving east from Bozeman, Montana, the first real attraction you’ll find along Interstate-90 is quite a grizzly encounter. I’m not passing judgment, that’s what it’s called, the Grizzly Encounter. They buy billboards by the boatload, but don’t tap into the state tourism web site, so it’s an easy one to miss if you don’t have eyes while driving, but it’s there nonetheless.

Of all the things we saw in Montana, this was one of the best, most interesting for all ages, and most memorable too. It's reasonably priced, has tons of stuff to check out and do, and even if you don't do the underground tour, you can easily spend a few hours there without seeing anything twice.

There’s a city in Montana called Butte, and I know what you’re thinking, it sounds like something else (specifically “cute,” -- which as far as cities go, it is -- but there’s a lot more to the place than just having a great name. Turns out it also has a great history, but I’m not going to spend any time on that either. I’m here to talk about the Berkeley Pit.

One of the easiest attractions to find in Butte, Montana, is the trolley tour offered by the chamber of commerce. Sure it's fun and a good value, but it's also expertly hosted and a great way to get a glimpse of all the other in-town attractions so you can decide for yourself what it is you want to see more of, and even where you might want to bed down for the night.

Butte Montana has a solid handful of things going for it. Not the least of which is that an easy majority of the buildings in town are built out of brick, which is odd all by itself, though odder still, you won’t find a brick museum. One of the less assuming attractions in Butte is the Piccadilly Transportation Memorabilia Museum, which is pretty sound, even without keeping the free admission in mind.

Just up the hill from the city of Butte is a little thing attraction they call the Mining Museum. It isn’t really a museum so much as a cubicle-half-height wall with a bunch of names and plaques on it, but it’s free as long as you can endure the dust and heat, and if you’re in the area anyhow, it’s honestly almost worth a visit.

On our first run through Montana, we drove right past the Mineral Museum on the university campus in Butte (on purpose) to head for the World Museum of Mining. I can’t pretend that the World Museum of Mining isn’t plain fantastic (worthy of recommendation to friends and strangers alike) but we didn’t just miss the Mineral Museum, we really missed out, and we didn’t know so until we swung back through our second time. It’s pretty darn good in fact.

Of all the hotels, motels, cabins and lodges that boast their goods across the Montana touristscape, few do so with as many claims to demi-fame as the Fairmont Hot Springs. It’s a historic site conveniently located along Interstate-90 (near Anaconda, with highway billboards for miles around), and it really is a historic hot springs. From there, however, don’t get your hopes up too high.

Throughout our 5-plus weeks in Montana, we’ve stayed everywhere from mountain top resorts to the lows you scrape a rung below the Motel 6, and no place left an impression on us quite like the 1880s Ranch in Anaconda, Montana. It wasn’t just a neat location, it was handily the best lodging experience in all of Montana.

The town of Anaconda in Montana has tarnished a bit since the close of the world class smelter operation some years back. The classic homes are still there, and its history is richer for the journey, but today tourists make up a good part of the city’s plan. That’s why they built the Copper Chute Slide, however, I can’t help but think, "Smelter? that’s a funny word."

As an ever-traveling tourist, it's easy to give up the easy "gimme" destinations in any given town. If you're in San Francisco, you need to check out the Golden Gate Bridge, or if you're in Shanghai you need to check out the Great Panda, but when you're in any town, you really should stop in the local visitors center, and Butte Montana has a great one.

If you have an occasion to go through Helena, Montana, and I can't see too many reasons why you would, but I'm not here to judge, only to help you make the most of your time, you should spend at least a few hours at the Exploration Works Museum. It's as great as any of its kind of place, far better than most, and the location just can't be beat.

We’ve seen so many carousels from coast to halfway-to-the-other-coast, and this one is as good as any, but better in a number of ways. Sure the one at the San Francisco zoo is the oldest, and the one in Missoula is the most unique, and the one at the roving carnie-fest was the scariest, but this one is unique for many of its own reasons, not the least of which is the ice cream parlor it hosts, and struggles to outshine.

If you’re ever in up-city Helena, Montana and think you might be lost, there’s a good chance you are, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good things to see. By “up-city” I really mean “up-hill” and I know because even though we found a cool little park to revive us, we were already worn down by our uphill trek.

Let’s pretend for a minute that this whole publication is more than just an exhibit in meta-journalism, and that we are in some modest ways permitted to actually make comments on the world in which we live, though by such tools most subtly or humorous we must employ. We’ve been critically lambasted for doing so in the past, but pretend for a second we have a message to send, and that we can do it within the confines of a review of Pixar’s new film Wall-e.

A decades-old fixture of Helena, the Staggering Ox was recently voted by MAXIM Magazine* as creating one of the top 3 sandwiches in the country (for “The Nuke".) Our little stop off proved more to us than that they know their way around the kitchen. We found they know the way around the whole experience of people dropping by for food, fun and an array of stimu-tainment ranging from musical to visual with many stops in between.

One of the must-see attractions in Montana is the Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine. Don’t take my word for it, they’ve been featured everywhere from National Geographic to the Discovery Channel, and those are tough customers to please. It’s a short drive from Helena, and worth your visit, even if you aren’t an aspiring prospector.

Historically, the train never made it all the way out to Virginia City, and it cost the settlers untold monies, whether they wanted to get goods or even just their mail (more than $1 over 100 years ago, if you can believe everything they tell you on your local tour), but that hasn’t stopped the local chamber of commerce from getting motive with their own chugga-chugga-short-line-choo-choo, and as a kid right in their demographic wheelhouse, I must admit it makes for great fun to ride.

If you're a good 100-miles off the beaten path in Montana, you may find yourself in a place like Virginia City, the near-sibling to Nevada City, both of which are historic and interesting. More than that, the drive out there from Bozeman (which is much shorter than you might think) is really beautiful. If you do find yourself in Virginia City, and you're looking for an ounce of fun, you should check out the Virginia City Players.

If ever you make your way to the historic segments of Virginia/Nevada Cities of Montana, there are a few things you have to do. You have to make like a cowboy, you have to buy some candy, and you simply must get your picture taken in finest old-timey fashion in the oldest, best novelty photo shop in the west (or anywhere else).

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like I keep getting the worst assignments on the trip. Fine, fair enough, I’m the junior editor so I’ll write it up. Virginia City, Montana, is nothing but a tourist trap, and one that felt a pretty hard hit from the high gas costs this summer, what with being basically in the middle of nowhere. So this nowhere tour of nothing got hit hardest, and the real victim wasn’t the operator, who owns everything outright, but us poor tourists.

I’m not sure what sort of impression we’re trying to leave you guys with about Nevada City, but in my mind it was a lot of fun, even if a bit out of the way. Though there were some real tourist leeches in town, it’s a city hit hard by the exploding (combusting?) gas prices over the summer, and it really is a town well worth your visit… that is, if you can handle the haunted piano hall.

Right in the heart of Virginia City, you might be surprised to find a museum that allows all to enter for free. That’s right, at no cost at all. What might surprise you less is that it’s actually just a junk shop full of thousands of touristy trinkets for sale, along with a couple arguably interesting historical relics. Kind of depends what you’re into, but I love touristy stuff, so without admission charge, it works for me.

There was an episode of South Park making fun of guys like this, the steadfast historical re-enactors that refuse to break character, but if you’ve never met with their kind, they really are every bit as annoying as that clever bit of off-color satire I've suggested. They really can’t take a joke.

On the morning of our last departure from our favorite sleepover spot in Montana (the 1880s Ranch we’ve spoken so highly of before) we got an unexpected visit from a mangy fellow we couldn’t help but love. Maybe it was because it was such a surprise or maybe because he was our height, but I think it was because he showed unabashed affection in ways only us juniors seem capable of.

Any traveler of the Interstate-90 corridor through Montana will surely see signs for the Deer Lodge Prison Museum Complex, assuming they have eyes in their heads and some amount of brain connected to it. Personally I can’t read, but I have people who do that for me so I was keenly aware these billboards existed from the time I hit the state line, and so I count myself in the know. The complex is much more than that, but the Prison Museum is the heart, and if you miss it, you’re really missing it.

Throughout our 5-plus weeks in Montana, we’ve stayed everywhere from mountain top resorts to the lows you scrape a rung below the Motel 6, and no place left an impression on us quite like the 1880s Ranch in Anaconda, Montana. It wasn’t just a neat location, it was handily the best lodging experience in all of Montana.

If you’re ever taking the time to wander the mainest of main drag in the sleepy town of Deer Lodge, Montana, and you’re looking for another (not so) quick thing to occupy your juniors, it would seem that fate has taken the time to smile all over you, whatever it that means. In addition to the Prison Museum, Car Museum, and everything else they have going for them, there is also the (im)modest suburb of Cottonwood City. It’s so perfect you’d almost suspect it was built only recently by volunteers to appease junior folk such as us.

We've been running Montana articles with painfully few interruptions since we first headed east to the Old West last summer, and we know it's tiring for those of our readers not looking explicitly for that sort of info, but there's good news, one might assume. We're closing out the Montana stories, more or less, effectively now.

To clarify, a dirt devil tour is similar to a whirlwind tour, except a little smaller and a whole lot dustier. We saddled up our four-door pony and headed east towards the famous gold-chocked westerly hills of “them thar” fame. We were bound for Montana and as soon as we crossed the border we found us a town of decent size for our first stop.

Montana has a real surplus of a few things. They've got more sky than they know what to do with (a "big sky" if you will), empty stretches of well-maintained roads, and they've also got more ghost towns than any state should ever have need for, especially on a per capita basis. But if you like ghost towns, and I sure as heck do, the best one in Montana is easily Bannack State Park.

Of all the dozens of museums we saw in Montana, easily the most unassuming of all would be the Museum of the North Great Plains. It’s not a super catchy name, and it doesn’t tell you much about what it does. Parking out front, all you can see is that it looks like it used to be a warehouse or maybe a furniture store… once inside, however, you better be holding on to your socks, because they’re about to get knocked off.

When we set out for the second time to spend a few weeks in Montana, we pledged to ourselves to hit all the big hotspots we missed the first time around. That means we’d hit Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Great Falls, Kalispell and even get up to Havre… but there are just so many things to see, it didn’t happen. From that whole list, the only place we got to was Great Falls, and it was well worth the trip.

If you’re driving through Montana and you want to see something interesting, the first thing you have to do is pull off the highway. If that doesn’t satiate your appetite, you may need to stay off the highway and start cutting around the state, as we did. That isn’t exactly how we found the historic city of Seeley Lake, but it was a fair enough excuse to be so far off the beaten path that we ourselves needed to beat.

During our wonderful stay at Big Sky Resort over the quiet summer season, we had an opportunity to jump on the chair lift so we could really look down on our fellow man. We weren’t sure we’d do it because brother Patrick, being autistic, is overly fearful of things more than anyone else might be. We spent a good two days warming him up to the idea, so when it came to go-time, he wasn’t just ready, he was eager.

If you find yourself short on gas or long on appetite and don’t know which town you’re about to pull in to, you just might be heading into Three Forks, Montana. That’s especially true if you’re just west of Bozeman, but it’s almost equally likely that you have no idea where you are. Three Forks has got food, gas and lodging sure, but they’ve also got the Headwaters Museum, which is, you know, pretty good.

When I was younger I was sometimes afraid of bugs. Not all of them, but most I think. What can I say, they’re creepy and kind of gross. No parent wants their kids afraid of bugs, so mine did the only thing they could think to do; they took me outside during the summer. Mere exposure apparently does work wonders to acclimate young folk such as me to earth’s other creatures, and for me I can say it worked very well indeed.