Day 1 of Big Sky Country

Greetings from Bozeman, Montana! I'm traveling throughout central Montana this week testing Horizon Airlines at their various aiport hubs. My trip today was not without it's interesting moments. The flight was supposed to stop in Butte, before ending up in Bozeman. While we were descending into Butte, there was a bolt of lightning that flashed by the plane. Concerned that there might be something wrong with the plane, which was a Bombardier Q400, they had everyone get off the plane and wait for a mechanic. After almost an hour of waiting, Horizon says that the plane was going to be taken out of commission and that a bus was going to take us to Bozeman - another hour and a half drive. Within 10 minutes of this announcement, we are then told that the plane will end up taking us to Bozeman. Anyways, long story short, more delays occur to get us on the plane and take off - we finally arrive at 5 PM Mountain time, 2.5 hours late. Fortunately, I didn't have to do any testing so it was a relaxing time of sitting around and doing some reading.

After finally getting my white RAV 4 rental (was hoping for the promised Mazda6 or similar sedan), I got to my hotel around 6 PM. I'm quite impressed w/ the RAV 4, it drives like a car but with large SUV side mirrors. I was hoping to go to the Museum of the Rockies today, but maybe tomorrow. I decided to check out a steakhouse that I had heard from many sources touted as 'The Best Steakhouse in Montana' - quite a lofty title. It's a little place called Sir Scott's Oasis Steak House, located in a little town about 20 miles west of Bozeman called Manhattan. I soon found out why some may think it's the best steakhouse in Montana...even though this is the first one I've ever been to. You just get a bargain for your buck at this place. Because of the size of the place, it was very busy. I reserved for 7 PM and ended up being seated about 20 minutes later, but it's understandable since I was the only person in my party. I definitely got the small town vibe, many people in the restaurant from different parties were interacting with other parties. Once you're seated your table has a basket of crackers, a relish tray of assorted fresh veggies, a decanter of ice water, and a huge scoop of butter for the crackers....maybe for the veggies too. Yeah, that picture is butter-not sour cream or ice cream, butter. All the dinner entrees come with salad, soup of the day, a side of potatoes, garlic toast, ice cream, and a cup of coffee. As hungry as I was, I decided to exercise some self control and get one of the smaller steaks on the menu: the 16 oz New York Strip. All the steaks in the restaurant are USDA Prime Black Angus beef - very flavorful, many times very expensive, beef. The first bite of the beef came from my soup, which was a beef chili, although the beef wasn't ground it was chunks of prime rib - yum. When my steak came out it was sitting on an iron skillet surrounded by garlic toast and Jo-Joes, my tuberific side of choice. Jo-Joes are round sliced sections of potato that are battered and deep fried. It's good that I had something deep fried, I was tempted to try their steak fingers which were battered and deep fried strips of steak. The steak was one of the best strip steak's I've ever had - flavorful, perfectly medium rare, tender and moist. I was able to completely finish my meal, which left me stuffed, and was topped off with a generous scoop of rainbow sherbet. The great thing about this place is that whole meal cost about 20 bucks and there's no sales tax in the state of Montana! Definitely you can get much greater portions for more money, I think the most costly entree on the menu was around 55 bucks, but it was a huge helping of surf and turf. I noticed many doggy bagged their meals, which is a plastic baggy for your meat and a brown lunch sack to place everything else in. I'm sure you can get some huge steaks other places in Montana, definitely in the country, but the whole package definitely makes it one of the best.