Oooh, BOZEMAN! I am highly envious of you. I was at MSU twice for some 2 week courses put on for the Forest Service in 1979 and 1984, and loved the country. Especially coming from Alaska, and seeing woods without tons of underbrush. You are one lucky dog!
~Kees~
I moved to Mt in the fall of 1979 and lived in Helena, but one of the goofy jobs I had allowed me to make contact with a guy in Big SKy, mt South of Bozeman who ran a fly shop there...
I visited and he and I fly fished together... in a warm spell (chinook) in like Feb-march...he invited me to move there and sublet his apt on the drive up to the ski resort (huntley lodge, IIRC)
I worked in his shop and guided on the Gallitin River as well...
Those were shinning times!
I tried for jobs in AK but they had "residency requirements " by then so I tried on in coastal OR that was a total bust... I'd done just about everything under the sun around Helena from "gopher chokin in WY to working in the HS as a Custodian... I finally contacted some people back East and moved back to PA and took a job in a proprietary school (privately run biz school)... Ended up there a while, then hit Clarkson Univ in up-up state NY along the St. Lawarence and when that job tanked I still had a home near PSU so I moved back there and remodeled it and sold it off...
I fished ever square inch of the Galliten River from Snowflake Springs to the ribbons below Bozeman in the flats...... then I ended up in Coastal Norfolk VA and got an invite to quide a guy in my old haunts. Our old spots had out-of -state tag cars in em so we traveled some but even by 93' it was changing... I came back saddened...
I had friends in Boulder South of Helena and Butte... that was wild country back then...
I maintained some contact with natives for several years but that finally dissolved to....
Nothing stays the same...
Age and time changes things..