The Move: Day 4

After another breakfast of bacon and eggs, we headed out. We had planned to return to Missoula and catch I-90 but my aunt said we could get where we were going by another route. So we went south instead and back by the Big Hole Battle Monument. (Actually, we had a bit of a detour into Idaho because we missed our turnoff!)

After passing by the Big Hole we started seeing all this brown stuff on the road. I thought it was dirt, Jeremy thought it was manure. We discussed it as Jeremy swerved left and right around the road trying to avoid the stuff. It had been windy the day before so we surmised that a truck carrying manure for fertilizer hadn’t been covered. We came over a rise smack into the source of the brown stuff: a whole herd of cattle walking down the road! There were two guys on horseback strolling behind and two herding dogs keeping the cows in line.



We slowed down and followed along behind the herd for some time. Every now and then one of the guys would turn and smile. Eventually, a truck came from behind and the guys waved him ahead and waved for us to follow. So – into the cow herd we went. It was tricky business trying not to run over cows and dogs.





We were getting stuck so one of the guys rode up to prod on the cows, so then we were trying to avoid running into him! We finally made it through and passed through Wisdom, the Antler Saloon, and on into the wilderness.

I forgot the roads we took now, but we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. Some parts were very snowy and others not. It is so beautiful around here.

We eventually joined up with I-90 and then stopped in Butte. We had done some research and were going to have lunch at the Pekin Noodle Parlor but it turned out they were closed. We went down the road and discovered Pork Chop John’s, sort of a fast food pork chop place, also offering hamburgers, hot dogs and such specialties as pork nuggets and deep fried hot dogs.

Lunch on board, we hit the road again. In Bozeman we stopped briefly at the Community Food Co-Op so we could pick up some food items for our picnic lunch tomorrow. It was a beautiful building and a great store with a coffee shop on the second floor. Seattle could use something like that. =)

Back on the road for a few miles we turned off at Livingston and headed south to Pray, Montana where we are staying at the Chico Inn. We mostly found this place because their restaurant looked really good. Then we realized they also had rooms. Then we realized they had hot springs!

We just got here and are going down for dinner in 15 minutes. Afterwards we’ll check out the hot springs. Very exciting!!