Travels With Sally Ann: Wednesday May 17, 2023

This morning we woke to smoky skies. There are fires burning in Alberta and the wind is bringing the smoke down here. My brother and I ran into the same thing a couple of years ago. From talking to David and Kim this morning, this is not unusual.

Deb and Milo both got showers this morning at D and K’s and then they wanted to take us downtown to their favorite diner. Western Diner, right on Main St in Bozeman was the perfect diner with all the western stuff on the walls, knotty pine everywhere, good diner menu, and since David was a regular the waitress was fun. Any diner where the waitress calls you “hun” or “darling” is a real diner.

We said our goodbyes and many thanks and headed for the food coop in town where they had lots of fresh stuff to restock the van with. Then back on I-90 to the turnoff north on RT 191 again.

We filled the tank as it was cheapest at this I-90 exit (thanks Gas Buddy). This will hold us for the next couple of days as we plunge into the sparse unknown of north east Montana and western North Dakota.

We are now in rolling green hills with a few mountains in the distance. We could catch their outlines here and there as the smoke blocked out the view. As we went north, it got greener and greener with lots of grass for grazing beef cattle on. We saw deer and antelope here and there, and we are starting to see prairie dogs. There was a lot of large pool of standing water which seems to be due to the successful rain this year along with the snow pack. All the streams and rivers were at full height.

Our first idea was to camp at a National Forest site down in the Missouri Breaks but we got there early enough that we decided to keep going to Malta, where there’s a $5 city campsite. Malta is an old railroad town, about 1800 people, and Amtrak has a stop here.

We took a walk along a nice city walking path next to the Milk River, and then drove around town until we found the Stockman Bar, sat at the bar and had a cold beverage and dinner. Nice chat with the waitress and fun hearing all the local gossip around us. Good small town talk.