125 reasons to love Montana
Editor's note:This story originally published in November 2014 in honor of the state's 125th anniversary.
There are millions of reasons to love Montana, but here are 125 of our favorites.
1. Leisurely picnics in a sea of wildflowers.
2. Three great college football teams: the Grizzlies, Bobcats and the Carroll College Saints.
3. Family outings to cut a Christmas tree.
4. Glacier National Park any time of the year.
5. No traffic jams, and patient drivers.
A Montana bucket list: 100 things every Montanan should do
6. The smell of sagebrush on the plains of eastern Montana.
7. Small-town merchants and local shoppers who patronize them even if they have to pay a few extra bucks.
8. One-room schoolhouses.
9. The 771-mile journey from Yaak to Alzada. (The trip from Great Falls to Seattle is just 678 miles.)
10. A higher-than-average rate of military service.
11. Two national parks and 55 state parks.
12. The lure of the huckleberry.
13. Flathead cherries.
14. Montana microbrews sipped while listening to a Montana band.
15. Monte Dolack's whimsical creations.
16. The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.
17. Montana's Dinosaur Trail.
18. The preamble to the Montana Constitution: We the people of Montana grateful to God for the quiet beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains, the vastness of our rolling plains, and desiring to improve the quality of life, equality of opportunity and to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations do ordain and establish this constitution.
19. The What The Hay Bale Trail and all of its clever gems.
20. Baked goods at the Polebridge Mercantile.
21. Evel Knievel.
22. The Grand Union Hotel in Fort Benton.
23. Inexpensive top-notch ski hills like Showdown, Discovery, Lost Trail and Great Divide.
24. Few Californians.
25. No sales tax.
26. Pioneer League baseball games on a warm summer's night.
27. County fairs and the 4-H kids who make them special.
28. The Arlee powwow.
29. Neighbors helping neighbors.
30. A stroll in the bear grass.
31. Hippies who actually eat meat.
32. The drive to Hauser Lake.
33. The old Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.
34. A day hike anywhere on the Rocky Mountain Front.
35. The Little Big Horn battlefield.
36. Cookouts and campfires.
37. Cowboy poets.
38. Our natural hot springs.
39. "A River Runs Through It"
40. The pies at the Crazy Mountain Inn in Martinsdale.
41. Close-knit communities. No matter where you move, you can always find someone who went to school with your aunt or knew your brother.
42. Fall in Montana. The colors, the crisp air and the sound of a fight song on the gridiron will put a smile on anyone's face.
43. Sunsets on the prairie.
44. The Virginia City Players.
45. Bugling elk in Yellowstone in the fall.
46. A hike to Iceberg Lake in Glacier, which offers up a reward at every turn.
47. Authors like Pete Fromm, Ivan Doig, A.B. Guthrie and Jamie Ford, who have called Montana home for years and have written many stories based on its people and places.
48. The Crow Fair.
49. Saco bacon, the sinful treats from the Pay N Save grocery store.
50. Opheim lefse.
51. Western Art Week.
52. Cut Bank's 27-foot-tall penguin.
53. North American Indian Days in Browning, a beautiful display of our rich heritage and history.
54. Cool dogs — like Shep in Fort Benton and Jag, former Gov. Brian Schweitzer's border collie.
55. The most premiere fly-fishing destinations on the planet — and no, we're not going to tell you where.
56. Montana's 3,200 lakes.
57. Our purple politics. Neither party has a stranglehold on our state.
58. Rough roads that lead to beautiful places.
59. Jeff Ament, our very own member of Pearl Jam.
60. The snow ghosts visible from the chairlifts on the way to the top of Whitefish Mountain.
61. The inspiration our state provides to many great authors including John Steinbeck who wrote: "I'm in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it's difficult to analyze love when you're in it."
62. Our amazing ghost towns, like Garnet, Virginia City and Bannack.
63. Miles City's Bucking Horse Sale.
64. The uniqueness of Butte. There's no other place in the world quite like it.
65. A North Pole adventure on the Charlie Russell Chew Choo.
66. Wedding invitations posted on the bulletin boards in Hi-Line post offices.
67. The Virgelle Mercantile's "A Real Country Christmas at a Real Country Store."
68. A good old-fashioned branding at some of Montana's oldest ranches — where the cattle are rounded up by horseback and wrestled by cowboys.
69. A view of mountains, prairie or the big sky around every bend in the highway.
70. Experiencing the Stillwater River in the fall.
71. The thrill of holding a 20-inch rainbow on the Big Horn.
72. Floating through the Paradise Valley on the Yellowstone River.
73. Tailgating before home games, regardless of whether you're a Cat or a Griz.
74. The view from the top of Spanish Peak of the Bridger Mountains.
75. Taking in the fall colors from Billings' rims.
76. Whole communities shutting down during a big Class C game.
77. The grit of six-man football.
78. Havre Beneath the Streets.
79. A Choteau Fourth of July alongside Dave.
80. Hot cocoa and a good sledding hill.
81. Wibaux's Ski Festival, which celebrates its Polish and Scandinavian roots and all things -ski.
82. The Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs.
83. Summer rodeo season.
84. Paddlefish.
85. The Moss Mansion in Billings.
86. The abundance of wildlife from moose to elk, bobcats to bears, sometimes literally in our backyards.
87. The Bitterroot Valley.
88. Cool songs written about our state, whether it's LeGrande Harvey's "Montana Melody" ballad or Jewel's "The Missoula Song."
89. Ice climbing in Bozeman's Hyalite Canyon.
90. A historical tour of Helena aboard the Tour Train.
91. The Seeley-Swan Lake Highway, which offers amazing views and easy access to some of Montana's more hidden gems, such as Placid Lake, Holland Lake and Lake Inez.
92. The opportunity to sift and mine your own yogo sapphire — a Montana treasure.
93. Wild Horse Island on Flathead Lake, a state park like no other.
94. Butte's Our Lady of the Rockies.
95. The supposedly haunted Kempton Hotel in Terry.
96. Four distinct seasons.
97. The Fort Peck Theatre's incredible summer play performances.
98. Makoshika State Park outside of Glendive, which proves that eastern Montana is just as beautiful as the mountains of western Montana.
99. Excellent hunting right out your back door.
100. The Smith River. Truly one of Montana's last remaining treasures with only one access point in and another out.
101. Missoula's Big Dipper Ice Cream, featuring Montana favorites such as huckleberry and Kettlehouse Coldsmoke-flavored scoops of deliciousness.
102. Fields of butterflies.
103. Rocky Mountain oysters at the Testy Fest outside of Missoula in September.
104. A drive through Judith Gap where you can check out Montana's first wind farm, Invenergy.
105. Tough-as-nails school mascots — like the Bison, Bengals and Grizzlies.
106. Steak. You'll never find better ones than at some of the most out-of-the-way places like the Highwood Bar or the Lighthouse in Valier.
107. The Montana Folk Festival in Butte.
108. Bald eagles scooping up salmon from Canyon Ferry Reservoir dam in the fall.
109. A (fairly) efficient government. Our legislature meets for just 90 days every other year to uphold and establish new laws.
110. Hikes to the M. Whether you're hiking up Mount Sentinel in Missoula or the M at the mouth of the Bridger Canyon on the edge of Bozeman, you're bound to get spectacular views of these college towns and the surrounding landscape.
111. Star gazing. From a pullout on U.S. Highway 2 or from the top of Bootlegger Trail, these big skies offer the chance to see stars and the Northern Lights on many clear nights.
112. Philip Aaberg, The Mission Mountain Woodband, George Winston and the rest of our talented musicians.
113. Grizzly bears roaming the mountainsides of the Many Glacier Valley.
114. The Evelyn Cameron Gallery, a must-see stop in Terry. Cameron was a British-born photographer and naturalist who moved to Terry in the 19th century.
115. A budget surplus. Not many other states in the union can make this claim.
116. Seven Indian reservations and one landless tribe, all with amazing history and beautiful languages.
117. The Chinese Wall, just one great feature of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, literally one of the last, most undisturbed places of grandeur on this planet.
118. Plenty of U.S. Forest Service cabins available to rent.
119. The song of the Western Meadowlark announcing spring's arrival.
120. Flathead Lake. It's the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. Not only is its water pristine, but it's surrounded by the Mission Mountains, the Swan Mountains and the Salish Mountains.
121. The garden of 1,000 Buddhas in Arlee. It offers a scenic departure from the beauty of the old, white mission church in St. Ignatius.
122. The many gems surrounding Lincoln — the Continental Divide, High Country beef jerky, the incomparable Blackfoot River and the sculpture garden.
123. The St. Patrick's Day festivities in good ol' Butte, America.
124. The big sky. The really, really big sky.
125. Montana truly is the Last. Best. Place.
What did we forget?
Tell us what you love about Montana by sending a quick email to kinbody@greatfallstribune.com and we'll run them in an upcoming My Montana section.