Missoula - athletic cups, high fashion and green fields

Puff Lite and I rolled back into Missoula 6,000 miles and many adventures older and closer than we were when we rolled out. I patted her steering wheel in thanks, admired the layer of road grime and dead bugs that we had acquired together, then unloaded all my stuff and reloaded it into the restored Cream Puff.

A close inspection of the Cream Puff's new nose revealed no evidence of impact with Bambi, except that it was considerably cleaner than when I abandoned it in the custody of the dodgy tow truck company. All was apparently right with the world. I paid the bill. My credit card was not rejected. I walked out to the car. I did not fall off the curb and break my ankle. I climbed back behind the wheel, adjusted my seat and mirrors and drove off the repairer's lot. I did not immediately get T-boned by a semi-trailer. Everything seemed to be going just fine.

This positive outcome left me feeling slightly disoriented. I had allocated a three day weekend to the task of picking up the Cream Puff, just in case the saga of repair disasters picked up where it left off. With everything working out exactly according to plan, I now had three days with nothing to do except enjoy myself. What a strange situation!

Fortunately Team Missoula were standing by to ensure that I had a thoroughly marvellous time in their funky little city. Ducati Kevin, Soccer Stan and the Lovely Lucy saw to my entertainment and welfare 24 hours a day and then managed to look convincingly disappointed when I said goodbye. That is an impressive feat of hospitality and a lesson to us all, as was their seemingly inexhaustible ability to find blogworthy things to do.

In keeping with his habit of exposing me to new experiences, Ducati Kevin launched my cultural exploration by taking me with him to Bob's Hockey Shop to purchase a new athletic cup. No man has ever taken me shopping for groin protection before, and certainly never on the strength of such a short acquaintaince. I was slightly surprised by how businesslike the exchange was. The staff cheerfully discussed size and fit and the amount of padding around the rim of the cup at normal volume as if I wasn't even there. It was about as erotically charged as shopping for a toothbrush.

The shop is fascinating. It's set up in the tiny basement of a store that sells and services sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. It's an interesting commercial juxtaposition. Upstairs it's doilies and dust busters. Downstairs it's sticks and blades and groin protection packed in from floor to ceiling. Apparently the environment causes image problems for some members of Missoula's amateur hockey league. One of the guys working in the store told me that some players refuse to go in there because they don't want to walk past the sewing machines. "What kind of wusses are these guys?" He said it, but we were all thinking it. Occasionally one of these wusses manages to sneak in under cover of a vacuum cleaner repair, but otherwise they're forced to miss out on the gloriously hockified clutter of the basement hockey shop.

Ducati Kevin having acquired appropriate safety equipment for the upcoming hockey season, we ended up wandering around until we found a street party. The road was blocked off for stalls and pedestrians. It was the usual sort of thing. Food, beer, face painting and sundry local products on display. A highlight for me was the fashion show, featuring clothing from a local fashion house and the catwalk stylings of the retail crew and their families. The fact that the price tags were still dangling from the clothes was a particularly quaint touch.

Show your true colours with this divine Last Supper hoodie.

Turn heads on the slopes this season with our winter ensemble of colours that don't appear in nature.

For the real nature buff, get in touch with your wild side and stalk that buck in our sexy boxers and deerstalker range.

Having seen Missoula up close and personal, I leapt at the chance to see it from a distance when Ducati Kevin offered to take me, and his dog Max, for a hike up a Missoula mountain. The most prominent feature of the view was the only large green patch in lovely yellow brown Missoula: the golf course.