Montana Tundra Members

Ok , can anyone tell me if there is a Polynesian themed tiki bar in Great Falls ? I am in New York and it seems like a great reason for a road trip, lol.

 

So far best thing I have read all day!!

 

Lived in Kalispell, MT for 5 years and had to move back to San Antonio Texas for family reasons. Definitely going back to Kalispell in a couple of years with my son and our 2019 Tundra That will be my final place for sure! Ski at Big Mountain every year in Whitefish, MT. Oh I miss it so bad Here’s my truck.

 

Technically Montana has outlawed anything that can possibly kill you....this includes alcohol and vehicles. You can still drive here, but have to leave your truck at the border and walk the rest of the way.

Stay home, save lives
2020 - eternity

 

Hahahahahahahahah awesome, but seriously MT is full folks

 

Bet if you saw big mountain now you would t miss it. It is stupid busy, it has officially been discovered and blows monkey balls 99.7% of the time. And the type of tourist that visits is a fu$$ asshat. But hey Blacktail is still nice to hit.

 

Like super duper full. I've heard Texas had some great sking!

 

Ha, that’s because it isn’t the bunny hill. To be honest, I could see it going that way before I left. So sad. For years and years now, Montana has been the last mainland frontier that isn’t mobbed yet. It is still beautiful country. When it snowed here in Texas people tried to ski, if you can call it that with all the rocks and no mountains. It just made me miss Montana more. I have not been able to adjust fully to Texas since I came back (and I grew up here). I have family in Kalispell too so I will be going back one day soon. I hate the 105-107 degree summers here. We used to have cool people here too but then we also started getting mobbed. Can’t drive down the road at night for running into street racers or people looking for trouble. When ever you are there and you see it all happening, it feels like everything is going to hell doesn’t it? (It is) I go 4-wheeling that is all I can do to get away. Just put air lockers and gears in my truck so it keeps me occupied and something good to focus on instead of the usual crap. I look forward to coming back one day. Hope I can before it changes too much and a home is too expensive. Montana real estate is already at least double the cost of a home what it is here in Texas. Enjoy what you still have because I envy you.

 

Supposedly ~30k moved to the Flathead in 2020 ... I dispute these numbers without factual data, but this place is definitely blowing up, and not in a good way. Every boom cycle is followed with a bust ... I'm hoping that bust comes soon. I hate seeing what's happening now ... pretty depressing.

 

In 2020 alone ! Oh man. That’s a lot. The whole of Kalispell/Evergreen wasn’t even that much. Yea I’ll bet you do hate it, I would too. You know what they say though, most people who move to Kalispell don’t make it through 1 to 2 years because the lack of good paying jobs. There are some there but they are almost impossible to find. So the “Bust” you (and I) are now hoping for could very well come. What’s not helping is low interest mortgages right now. I used to live off Farview Drive between the medical center and the college off 93. They were just finishing the first Retail Expansion down around Lowe’s, Costco, Target and such. I’m pretty sure the city was trying to bring in investors. That’s what I heard when I was there. Hopefully there will be a flood of houses when I come back if a bust happens. Yep, I can see foreclosures coming. We’ll see right.

 

If an economic correction won't do it, I'm selfishly hoping for a brutal Winter followed up with a bad fire season. Haven't seen either here since '17.

 

Yea that would do it. Give them some snow drifts where you can just walk right up it to your rooftop of your house. I think it was 92 when I witnessed that kind of snow there. Beautiful drinking weather. We were visiting there and it turned out to be an extended stay. One of the best times of my life. We took the kids over to that big ditch (I think it’s close to the park) and let them sled down the hill. There was about 50 people there. We were just visiting and all I can remember was my freezing feet. Learned how to fix that with some -40 degree boots real quick. We can back in 98 and went to big mountain for a week. Then we moved up there in 2004.

yep, good times.....good times....

 

If we had an extended period (read: several weeks) of the below zero weather like the East Side had here recently, I think that would help out a lot!

I realize that a lot of the industry in Western Montana anymore is tourist-related, but I couldn't care less...too many idiots out there anymore ruining it for us Montana folk.

 

1999... Landscaped our first house with gravel from the gravel pit that HomeDepot sits on now!! We used to love the Flathead Valley! Many fond memories there for sure. Some of the change is good? But too many people moved there without common decency/respect! Moved back to the east side in 05 cause it was getting stupid then...
Hopefully after the Covid BS passes many will move back? Winter of 96 I think was the 6+ feet of snow on the valley! That would run a lot of people off for sure!

 

A good fire season will do more than the snow I would imagine. Smoke season takes all the fun and beauty away from the "just off the roaders" that don't travel to nature but just slip on the side of the road to take an insta picture. The smoke makes everything look like post apocalypse around here.

 

The Sip N Dip Lounge

 

Sip N Dip is awesome. I worked in Great Fall for 6 weeks in 2003 and spent a lot of time there and the J Bar T. I’m sure the old woman with the bee hive is long gone by now but it was a pretty fun place. Especially when the mermaids were swimming.

 

Piano Pat is still there!

 

Holy cow! That’s pretty awesome.

 

Red Suns are symptomatic of all the smoke. You can tell how many tourist are there during some fires. They all pull off the road at the same time to take pictures of the fire and the red sun. I was coming home one evening and just about everyone was parked on the side of the road taking pictures.

 

Man i forget how bad fire season was a couple years ago...and totally agree might make some people leave before a good hard snow.

 

Ha ! Very fitting.

 

This is what I have always loved about Great Falls. Not a boom town, so it looks pretty much the same as when I was a kid in the 80's. In this time of change its nice to have something stay the same (and still be cool)

 

Like I was saying ... it's a buzzkill https://dailyinterlake.com/news/202...xIFh-5GJ07kTuY5i5HpGqzvTTmVWiTwpEIE9M0awHL2DE

 

Geez dude that’s a lot of housing projects. Are people making the kind of money in Kalispell to pay for a new house or is it people moving into Kalispell that already have money (retired etc) ? I supposed some are the new owners of businesses cropping up. But retail jobs don’t pay that much. I would also think low interest rates right now add to this too. 30 year 2.40% !!! That’s about as low as I have ever seen it. That cuts the monthly payment tremendously.

 

I always wanted to checkout Great Falls. I heard it is nice. My wife had to drive there for training classes when we lived in Kalispell.

 

It's nothing more than a debt-fueled frenzy as most employment around here doesn't pay squat ... along with equity locusts coming in with wads of cash and remote jobs. This all goes upside down when interest rates start rising again, but that's only if the Federal Reserve lets it happen. The markets and economy are so fake and rigged right now it's not even funny ... maybe it all blows up by the time you're ready to come back and you'll have a lot of great options for real estate!

 

I can certainly agree with this. I lived in Great Falls for a number of years before moving to the Flathead. When I go back, I always see that very little has changed, and I can still find my way around as though I had never left...and it's been almost a decade since I lived there. I could stand to live there again if the circumstances were so.