Wow Montana is a big state

May 28: Well we had our stay in Butte and learned a lot. But we were still in Montana so headed East. Next stop was Miles City, MT yup still in Montana despite 7 hours stop to finish including rest stops. But lots of continuing beauty and open spaces.

Miles City it turns out was the site of Fort Keogh, several train lines in the past, the Range Riders museum and the bucking horse festival. But wait there’s more….. the Vintage and Rustics store (best bacon ever per yelp reviews and my taste test).

This stop was a two day stop so we had a day to explore. First stop the Range Riders Museum. Omg the place was huge with multiple buildings and wings filled with local memorabilia, pictures, saddles and dioramas and recreations of what a Miles City street looked like including info on the sheriff marrying the local madam of the house of I’ll repute. Yup that too. Pictures of many many local couples over the years with tubes under each picture with info on the people in the picture. And the volunteers there were so friendly and knowledgeable. Fantastic museum that could take several days versus our couple of hours but we had more stuff to do. Did I mention I heard the Vintage store had fantastic bacon? Oh yeah and Jo was looking for a jacket. The store like the west in general was humongous with three floors of stuff and they had a bearskin rug with a head, and several stuffed animal heads and cowboy hats (none of which fit my cranium… good thing because they were wicked expensive). I convinced Jo to join me for bacon which because of our tardiness needed to be on a burger since breakfast stopped at 11. The bacon was delicious and Jo fell in love with a white enameled condiment caddy, our one purchase.

Next stop was Walmart for food and supplies. Amazing how Walmarts are everywhere. I did notice the absence of the obligatory pajama bottoms prevalent in New England. Lots of denim however. Now to the campsite to get ready for church since we would be traveling the next day on Sunday.

We found the local Catholic Church and on street parking. Lots of churches in Miles City. The mass was great with great music including a trombone. I’ve never been to a Catholic Church with a brass section but it was great. Annnd for the first time in years we had the blood of Christ. Was great to feel back to normal.

Back to the campsite and the sky looked bad so I quickly put as much away as I could before it got wet. Good move as the sky opened up and dumped massive rain and fairly good sized hail. Imagine being in a tin can being pelted by stones. Yup it was like that. Maddie was not happy.

Jo’s good weather charm worked again and the sun was out as we packed up. And off to see if we could move on to a new state. Things out west including states like Montana. Day 3 and still driving East in Montana…. “Look there’s Big Ben kids”. Next stop Bismark, North Dakota.