A road trip is all about the unexpected. All surprises along the way are welcomed (except for the surprise of the car breaking down, which thankfully didn’t happen!) I had one goal, see Mount Rushmore, everything else was take it as it came…
As you may have read, I began in Vancouver and then stopped in Calgary for a few days to visit some friends. I was just about to set off towards the U.S border, when I was lucky enough to get a co-pilot for the drive. How’s this for adventure? A friend from Vancouver flew one-way to Calgary and than would simply buy a ticket home wherever we happened to be in five days. She’s also to thank for some of the pictures. She’s 1/4 navigator, 1/2 official roadie photographer and 1/4 saint for having to put up with my singing.
The first of the eight states on the journey was Big Sky Country, better known as Montana. Montana is a lot of open road and open sky and definitely comes by its nickname honestly.
Somewhere in Montana aka Big Sky Country
And I know you can only look at so many pictures of the sky, but how cool is this one?
Rays of light in shining on Big Sky Country
When you know the drive will be over 3500 km’s (2100 miles) and you see a candy store, you stop, even if it’s only one hour into the drive.
Candy Store - Enough Said
Like i’m sure you are, I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of “stuff” there was.
A lot of stuff
I couldn’t bring myself to buy a straw full of sugar, I didn’t want to be too hyped up on sugar while driving, but I thought about it. For the record, I bought some “chews” gum (sour candy that turns into gum), chocolate taffy (that melted before I had a chance to eat it) and a butterscotch stick, which I shared.
Pixy Stix
So after one day of driving, we had covered one state, Montana is frickin’ huge! We were curious how huge, so a quick search to Wikipedia told us it ranks fourth in area, but 44th in population. And even though we made it to Billings, the “Star of the Big Sky Country” and also the largest city in Montana with a population of almost 90,000, there are not many options for food after 10pm. But you know the old saying, in life, you can count on three things, death, taxes and Denny’s.
We were pretty hungry and we had no discipline to say no to Denny’s evil/delicious offer of cheese fries, which were on their value menu for $2! If i remember correctly, it was cheese sauce and cheedar cheese!
Cheese fries
Don’t judge me, it was 10:30pm, I had driven all day and I wanted some gravy with sausage in it to smother my omelette!
Southwest Omelette with hashbrowns and the amazing country gravy
With Mount Rushmore on the agenda for the day, we still had to cover a part of Montana, a smidge of Wyoming and a chuck of South Dakota, but we were delayed with the possibility of checking out the Battle of Little Bighorn, or more commonly knows as the site of Custer’s Last Stand on June 25-26, 1876. Knowing very little about the Battle, I got the impression that the notoriety of the area is more the fact that the Americans lost to the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes and the Americans gained a martyr in the process.
I always find it eerie to stand somewhere where wars were fought and where bloodshed occured and all you can see are rolling hills of greenery. The black tombstone on the bottom right belongs to General George A. Custer.
Battle of Little Bighorn
I’d never seen this before.
Honoring the horses in battle
Remember this…
Words to live by
We were slightly delayed towards Rushmore, but how often are you in Montana and right beside an American National Monument? Off we went east towards South Dakota, but we needed a little energy boost and Hoofers seemed like a solid choice. I’m always on the lookout for good food, coffee and gossip and a positive message!
Good food and a good message!
The decor was exactly how I thought it was going to be, I love not being disappointed! It had all the warmth and charm you’d expect from a small town restaurant.
Welcome to Hoofers
The special of the day was their Pulled Pork Sandwich, which seemed like a pretty good special to me. Unfortunately, it was just a bit on the dry side. I was surprised they didn’t throw any BBQ sauce on the bun because that would have made all the difference. As for their coleslaw, it was homemade creamy coleslaw and it was good! And on a positive note, I got some of my vegetables for the day (or so I tried to convince myself).
Pulled Pork sandwich with creamy coleslaw
As much as I dislike it when sitcoms end a show with “To be continued…”, I’ll be posting the second half tomorrow. I’m giving your poor fingers a break from too much scrolling. See you tomorrow from South Dakota!
Tastes better with friends 
