Moving to Great Falls Summer 2007 (Missoula, Bozeman: home sales, neighborhoods, middle school)

[GiftShoppeGuy]

For a truly spendid and single social scene, you may do well to "party on garth" in Missoula... heh heh...

Missoula is the party capital of Montana with Bozeman pulling in behind at a close second place.

oh, and while I'm thinking about it... We usually make it a point to cook our meat (fish included) before we eat it..... it's just much healthier to do it that way... heh heh...

[ahc]

Originally Posted by GiftShoppeGuy

For a truly spendid and single social scene, you may do well to "party on garth" in Missoula... heh heh...

Missoula is the party capital of Montana with Bozeman pulling in behind at a close second place.

oh, and while I'm thinking about it... We usually make it a point to cook our meat (fish included) before we eat it..... it's just much healthier to do it that way... heh heh...

Duly noted. As soon as I'm sure the road are clear, I'll check out Missoula. Can't wait!

[MHT]

I would move back to Great Falls in a heartbeat! I am from the Great Falls area. We would probably not live right in town but would live out of town. The people are great.

Crime and drugs are everywhere - the previous posters seem to think that it's worse in Great Falls than anywhere else but it's a problem everywhere.

The weather - where should I start. Yes, it gets cold (and I do mean cold), however it may be in the 60's in a few days. I love it - spring several times a year.

I'm sure there are people who have had a bad experience in Great Falls. I had a terrible experience in MN. I just figure that the fewer people who move to Great Falls the better - it will be all that much better when we get back.

[GiftShoppeGuy]

Originally Posted by ahc

Duly noted. As soon as I'm sure the road are clear, I'll check out Missoula. Can't wait!

I hope you know that I was being somewhat facetious by my post.

I can appreciate the fact that there are those who may find themselves totally bored to death in Great Falls....... And we do need a few things here to lighten our somewhat "small town" mode... like say... getting a Red Lobster wouldn't be such a bad idea for starters.

I think the trouble you run into with regard to druggies and the bars around here is mostly having to do with not going to the right places.... There are places in Great Falls where certain young professionals can go to whoop up on a cold one that doesn't involve having to ward off druggies.....

I hope that all of the fun you'll be having this summer here, will outweigh any of the initial impressions you might have had upon your arrival...... it really does get better than this you know.....

[ahc]

Originally Posted by GiftShoppeGuy

I hope you know that I was being somewhat facetious by my post.

I can appreciate the fact that there are those who may find themselves totally bored to death in Great Falls....... And we do need a few things here to lighten our somewhat "small town" mode... like say... getting a Red Lobster wouldn't be such a bad idea for starters.

I think the trouble you run into with regard to druggies and the bars around here is mostly having to do with not going to the right places.... There are places in Great Falls where certain young professionals can go to whoop up on a cold one that doesn't involve having to ward off druggies.....

I hope that all of the fun you'll be having this summer here, will outweigh any of the initial impressions you might have had upon your arrival...... it really does get better than this you know.....

Thanks! I appreciated your reply -- the "party on, Garth" gave your facetiousness away!

So are you telling me The Loading Zone isn't my best bet for the bar scene????!!!!!!!!

[GiftShoppeGuy]

Originally Posted by ahc

Thanks! I appreciated your reply -- the "party on, Garth" gave your facetiousness away!

So are you telling me The Loading Zone isn't my best bet for the bar scene????!!!!!!!!

heh heh.... you've got to be kidding... right?

It's most likely the least best place to go......

That place and the strip joint next to it have been busted for drugs and closed so many times it's not funny....... they shutter-down, and a new owner swoops in to pick up where the last owners left off......

I've always said that in order to get to the top, you've got to start at the bottom...... but the loading zone, I'm afraid, is just a little more *bottomer than anyone elses definition of the word.

[Reziac]

When I lived in Great Falls, the J-Bar-T was where you went for a stompin' good time and a shootin' in the parking lot

And there was a thriving red-light district along 2nd Ave. North, below 6th St.

OTOH, the closest thing to a slum was Black Eagle, and looking back, it was probably more ramshackle than slumly. It had a good Italian restaurant, too.

As to growth, an economy doesn't necessarily need to "grow". Being static and *stable* is actually better for the town and its people -- maybe you don't get rich but you don't get the boom-and-bust thing going either, nor the problems that booms and busts attract and create.

[avman1]

It's funny, I read all these posts and I have yet to have a problem or a bad time here. I just moved here to work at the airport and to settle down after 5 years in the middle east as a military contractor.I love it in Great Falls alreadey. I'm from a small town in upstate New York, born and raised on a wine grape farm. I hunt, I fish. Great Falls is what you make of it, just like any where else, but I do have to say how freindly people are here.

yes, you'd better have a job waiting for you when you get here, and real estate prices are going up all the time ( I know, I just made an offer on West Hill Road). As far as some of the places I've been (including New York) this is one of the nicest.

As far as crime and meth freaks.....I own a lot of weapons, and my wife knows how to use them too. As far as I can tell, if you are friendly they (as in everybody else) are friendly too.

if you look for the negative all the time you will find it.

[bigskylaw]

ahc raises an excellent point. People's willingness to enjoy Great Falls depends a lot on their stage in life. Case in point: Even though I am born and raised, when I moved back here after school it was boor-ing.

Then I met my wife and now we have a family. We love it here. It is a great place to raise your kids: it is a small town and the 'mom network' is awesome. We know everything that goes on in our kids' lives.

Another thing that has been touched on is the people; we have some of the friendliest people in the world, I think. Just last night as I was checking out of the grocery store, I started talking with the teenaged boxboy. He was not indifferent or aloof, he started telling me about school, girls, etc. That is not an exception.

Our economy is not booming. It is growing. After many years of slow growth, there is a new found optimism in people's minds, at least the businessmen and women I work with.

There is a fellow here who transferred from Oklahoma. He loves it, and runs a website. It's a good place to learn about the community from the perspective of a transplant: www.greaterfalls.com

Meadowlark Elementary is the school of choice (see: mom network, above!) It's full though, so you will have to move into its district to get in. It is, I think, one of the finest schools in the state. Our middle schools are a weak link, and our high schools are decent. GFH failed to make AYP under NCLB, but that was because of the difficulties of two subgroups.

Welcome. We look forward to having you.

[loeyd]

My husband our two young sons and I moved to Great Falls in June of '69. (Military).

When my husband went to Viet Nam and Korea, the boys and I stayed in GF instead of coming "home" to WI. As far as we were all concerned, we were home!

We are an "outdoorsy" family. I always had a horse or two in the backyard, and a dog or two. We went camping in the summer, hunting in the fall, and snow mobiling in the winter and have been to a lot of places in Mt.

As far as GF goes, we felt if we had to live in a city, we were glad it was GF. I grew up in Milwaukee, WI and hated it.

East of the rockies is windy, including Great Falls. and it also gets it snow and below zero temperatures in the winter. The coldest I have seen it is -35 w/out "wind chill". It can and often does stay like that for a week or more, but in the winter there is the warm Chinook winds to break up the cold and melt the snow. We had often gone to bed with -20 below temp., and in the middle of the night the sound of the wind and the water dripping off of the roof due to the temperature going up to as much as 60 above would wake us up. By morning the snow would be about gone.

Many years while living in Great Falls, we would be outside in shirt sleeves on "Xmas day with temps in the 60's. We sure can't do that here in Wisconsin...even in it's warmest winter's.

I talked to my best friend in GF recently, and she said it was and had beenin the 50's for about three days. Of course, a couple of days later she called and said they had about 8" of snow and it was cold, but that is Great Falls and Montana.

We left GF in '84 when my husband retired from the military, and went to live near Seeley Lake. We had bought an outfitting business, and took out of state hunter's into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which was a dream come true.

We lived 12 miles out of Seeley Lake, and 50 miles NE of Missoula, so we would do our major shopping in Missoula. The only drawback we saw to Missoula is that, being down in a valley, and the west side of the rockies not having the winds like the east side, there was a lot of pollution, especially in the winter.

We had to move back to WI in '91 when my husbands mother died suddenly and we had to come back and take care of his aging father.

You either love Montana or you hate it. If you love it, you are never satisfied anywhere else.

We love it and can't wait to get "home".