July 7, 2010

My new favorite state

Filed under: Kids and Life,The Writing Life — jenny @ 7:34 pm

Back in South Dakota, we stopped at a car museum for my son and a re-creation of an 1880s town for my daughter who is into all things old-fashioned. The kids got to lock themselves into a jail cell and even drove a real buggy with mules guided by the most colorful wagon driver west of the Mississippi (we noted the river upon crossing…what a history and geography and geology lesson this trip is).

But oh, did we love Montana. It helped that we could not buy a bad meal here. In the town of Broadus, literally a pair of crossed roads, we stopped at an unassuming cafe decorated with every imaginable kind of pig trinket and statuette. I had the best, freshest spinach and bacon salad I’ve ever eaten, homemade chicken and dumplings, spaghetti and meatballs for the kids, and a monster cookie that took the monster out of all of us.

In Livingston we had the kids’ first fancy meal out of the trip, at a farm to table restaurant where a mint clogged mojito wiped the last of the road dust off me.

And the day after a somewhat ill-fated night of camping–a freight train woke us every hour on the hour, so close we felt its vibration in addition to hearing the air horn, and the temperature dropped into the 30s–a community co-op woke us up with strong coffee and healthy treats.

Lest I sound like all I care about is the food (it’s really not ALL) Montana also offered some of the most striking scenery of the trip so far. We didn’t think it could get any bigger or more majestic. Our eyes are simply saturated with beauty. Here it’s roads so long the prospect of running out of gas is scary–in addition to food, I go in for the fearsome, the dramas in real life–and mountains that are suddenly snow topped after our blistering days in the heat.

From here we go into Idaho and enter the time zone we’ll be in for the duration. Gaining hours has been just one more plus of driving west, although I suspect little bodies are getting tired out as we take advantage of later nights.

And still no news on the sub.






2 Comments »

  1. Thanks for sharing the photos! Hope you stocked up on pig trinkets!

    Comment by Sara — July 27, 2010 @ 8:24 pm

  2. Great photos! I hate that feeling–when you take a long break away you smugly think, “Ha! THAT’ll make time pass!” Only to find…still no news on the sub. :( Bleah. I am sorry. Nothing makes those NY types get off their butts. :)

    Comment by Savvy — July 28, 2010 @ 8:06 am

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