Day 2

Two things are happening in Montana on I-90 today: intermittent paving, and a reconstruction of many (most?) rest stops. I kid you not about the rest stops. They say helpful things like “Closed” with “Next stop 139 miles” below. And then the next one is closed too!!! But, as rest stops go, these look to be beauties! Definitely put them on your 2022 Bathroom Road Tour. 

It was because of these bathroom remodels that we found ourselves at the 50,000 Silver Dollar. It’s Montana’s largest gift shop, complete with a casino, 2 bars, a restaurant, a motel (including  a horse corral), pet parking (whatever that is), and 50,000 actual silver dollars. And a bathroom! 😉

On the wood panels are embedded silver dollars!

Other than that, it was a car day! It was a surreal 8 or so hours because the smoke from several wildfires kept the light pretty stagnant the whole day. The light at 8:30 was pretty much the same as 7pm.  We found 33 US license plates, and tried to find songs that matched the corresponding capitals.  For instance, I played “Little Rock” by Reba McEntire when we found Arkansas and “Callin’ Baton Rouge” by Garth Brooks when we saw Louisiana. Wish I’d thought of that game several hours earlier!

The land we passed through was beautiful, despite the heavy smoke. There were several places we would have gotten out to explore, and learn about Lewis & Clark, gold mining, and cattle barons, but we needed to drive, drive, drive, to get to Billings (where it was 106 today!). Tomorrow we have almost half the drive time to get to our North Dakota “home” for the next few days. We are definitely hoping for legit adventures tomorrow!

Clark Fork River

Our State Patrol BFF. We drove "with" him for almost 70 miles.

Livingston