Being from North Carolina and having never lived in the west makes us observe things that locals take for granted. The same way we do back in NC. So I thought I'd write about some of the things we saw that we perceived as odd.
First, thing we did after crossing the state line from Washington was to get off I-90 and head north to Columbia Falls, MT. Since we didn't know when we'd find lunch we stopped at an old truck stop that was now only a cafe and surprising a casino. At first I thought I might be on an Indian reservation, but I quickly found that anybody and everybody opens a casino in Montana. It's always some sort of video game of chance like poker or slots. All across Montana we saw gas stations, convenient stores, restaurants, bars, and hotels with casinos. I looked but didn't see a church with a casino. I'm sure that will happen at some point.
There is terrain difference when you drive from one end of Montana to the other and then across North Dakota, but it's nothing like North Carolina. In North Carolina, you can't drive 20 miles without going into a different town. In Montana you can drive on a road for 60 miles and still not see a town and may have only passed 2-3 farms/ranches.
Since both Montana and North Dakota are farming states everyone drives a truck and most are dually's, every gas station has diesel and usually Diesel #1 and Diesel #2. Sometimes they even offer Premium Diesel. That was good for us because I can always get fuel with or without being hitched to the RV. A whole lot of the fuel stops were truck stops and had restaurants. They usually service a great breakfast, but no grits.
The big part of the drive was along US-2. The picture at the top is from the start when we left the Glacier area along US-2 which goes from the Pacific to the Atlantic with a break at the upper peninsula of Michigan, but it picks up again in NY. It is mostly a 2 lane road, but in most of Montana it doesn't need to be but 2. We'd drive for hours and pass no cars and have none pass us.
One of our overnight stops was in Glasgow, MT. It was larger than most we passed by, but small enough to have most all the business along US-2. There were 3-4 gas stations with all of them being C-stores. All were casinos. There were a few full service restaurants and all had a casino room. There was a bar/casino that said food on the sign, but that's all it said about being a restaurant . We checked Yelp and found Nickel Bill's Casino was one of the best breakfast and lunch places in the town. We went and tried the Chicken Fried Steak breakfast and it was outstanding. Even the hotel and RV park had a casino.
Speaking of Hotel/RV parks, we found that to be a widely available choice. It's nice to have to combo. If the hotel is a good one, then the RV park will be as well. The hotel provides the lounge/restaurant, pool, and laundry for the RV park.
You see some real characters along the way. In Glasgow we wanted a hamburger and found Flips, a well rated hamburger, hot dog, fries and shake place. When we walked in the counter girl had turquoise and purple hair, but was good at taking orders and delivering food. At one of the booths were three cowboys who obviously belonged to the farm truck pulling the horse trailer out in the parking lot. When they got up to leave you could see and hear their spurs. Of course they had the cowboy hat, jeans, and western shirt. They all were a little dirty from their work. The scene called for the decor we saw in Tombstone and not the look of a plastic modern burger joint.
Bugs - I didn't notice many and none bothered me. That must have been because they all run headlong into the front of the truck and RV. I can have both vehicles perfectly clean but after 8 hours of driving they are covered. It's almost hard to tell the color of the front of the RV there are so many of them. I'll not complain about the few bugs we get back east. The ones back home must be smarter. They miss the vehicles but annoy and bite people.
Bicyclist out here are a different breed. There are large groups of them loaded with backpacks, pulling trailers with their camping gear and clothes and are supposed to be having fun. They are usually struggling with their heads down so they miss the scenery. The roads we've encountered them on are 70 mph 2 lane roads with wide shoulders. When we or 18-wheelers passed them you'd see them shake and wobble. Not sure how much fun that is, but there aren't many roads out here that aren't 70 mph.
When you hit North Dakota, the change is immediate. No casinos and among the fields and grazing lands are oil wells and the associated equipment. The oil work is down due to the world oil price. So a lot of the businesses have hundreds of pieces of oil field tools just setting there waiting for the next boom. It's also interesting to see how the industry ramped up and how it temporarily shutdown. There are special high density trailers communities built especially for oil workers. The trailers don't resemble RVs or mobile homes. They are closer to module housings. I saw dozens of these communities completely empty of people. Some even had for sales signs for the whole community. Each one of the communities held hundreds of workers when full.
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