Nothing Much Ado in Miles City

Today we were on the road by 10:00 am. Yeah. I know. We're not exactly the rise-and-shine, up-and-at-'em, early-bird-gets-the-worm kind of people. And why should we be? It was raining AGAIN!

We left Arizona on April 5th and if I count the days it has NOT rained (or snowed, for that matter), it's about 8 MAYBE 9, out of 28 days. I.KID.YOU.NOT.

Yesterday we didn't do much in Miles City, Montana but catch up with chores. I did the laundry at the campground. I had the laundromat to myself. Nobody else wanted to venture out in the nasty weather.

We also went grocery shopping. Well, Jim dropped me off at the Super Walmart in town. He was all excited to go to the Ace Hardware.



This particular store is the LARGEST in the States. Yep. Right here in Miles City. Who knew?

I thought I'd have to wait a long time for Jim to pick me up since he was in "male heaven", but soon enough he showed up in Walmart, although his eyes were still glazed over a little bit.

Today while driving through the town on the way out, we passed the Olive Hotel. Built in 1899, this hotel is made famous by the movie, "Lonesome Dove", more specifically the lobby,where character Augustus McRae drew his final breath.




photo courtesy of City of Miles City website

We passed a casino with a marquee that read, "Magic can happen with our daily cash drawings!"

I asked Jim, "Do you believe in magic?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then we should stop!"

He must not have believed in it too much because he kept on a truckin'!

It rained pretty much off and on all throughout the day, and you know what I noticed? That cows don't give a crap about the weather. I know. What are they supposed to do? They just go about their business, chewing their cud. I mean, they didn't even look bothered by the pelting rain and hail. Just kept eating.



We stopped at a gas station and I saw a couple of interesting things. One was this sign.



Call me crazy, but isn't that dirt cheap? I mean, aren't they still popular? I don't know, I listen to country music mostly, but still. Help me out here.

Here's the other thing that was kind of crazy. This lady pulled in with this pick up truck. I thought to myself that it had a weird pain job on it.



What was weird about it was that it WASN'T PAINT. It was DIRT. Underneath all that was a white truck. Here's the front of the truck. See the 1/2 and 1/2 of clean vs. dirty? Odd.



Because of our detour the other day from Interstate 90 to 94, we were driving a two lane highway that was less traveled to get to 90. It was pretty desolate in places. Lots of barren trees and open land.



The sun did try to peek out every once in awhile for a few seconds.



I was so happy to see some antelope romping in the fields. Didn't get great pictures as we flew by them, but wanted to share them with you nevertheless.





This is the entrance into someone's ranch. In the words of Shrek, "Do you think he's trying to overcompensate for something?"



Not like the rancher I saw earlier today who had a small, wrought-iron sign that said, "Itty Bitty Ranch". Aww....

We are now in Sturgis, SD for three nights. Rumor has it that the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow. I'll settle for a little bit of sunshine.