The human spirit needs places where

nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. 

~Author Unknown

If we had a nickel for every time someone asked us, “Why Montana?” or “How did you find this place?” we’d be rich.  It is a good question.  I wrote this years and years ago.  I hope you enjoy it.

The Search

In the fall of 2005, a year after JR and I joined the ranks of those united in wedded bliss, we went on a search for well, what exactly?  Property, a house maybe?  We weren’t sure, other than that we were looking for a little piece of paradise to call our own, in the wilds of Montana, near a still-quiet town.  Why? Considering I was born and raised in the South, and JR is, GASP, a Yankee, and neither of us has spent more than two weeks at a time in the Great West of this land, or seen more than a few inches of snow?  Well, I guess you could just say Montana spoke to us.  And, the more we saw of it, the more we loved it.  So, I think our little 20 acre parcel was calling to us, all the way to Atlanta, and it just took us awhile to hear it, and heed it.  Here’s how it went…

The Search Begins…and We Find A Skunk

In September 2005, we landed in Billings, Montana late in the evening.  JR drove us to Bozeman, goodness knows how since I was asleep in the passenger seat, about 30 minutes after promising to keep him awake.  I had booked our hotel room for the night, in what I thought would be a quaint hotel.  No chain for us.  I was looking forward to whatever Montana adventures awaited, I was just hoping the adventures would wait until we had a good night’s sleep.  No such luck.  We checked into the hotel – the area for check-in was in the building featured on the hotel’s website.  Rustic, yet very elegant – just what you want as your introduction to Montana.  However, our room was in a cinder block building out back.  Funny, I don’t remember seeing THAT on the website.  We still had faith it would all be okay.  After all, we were just there for one night’s sleep before we started our Great Adventure, right?  We opened the door to our room, and it was well, old, dark, and moldy.  Not elegant, not rustic.  Well, actually, extremely rustic but not in the postcard sense of the word.  Now, I’ve stayed in some pretty crappy rooms before, so I was still okay.  That is until…

JR went to the bathroom and had to fix the toilet;

we got into our “king size” bed, which consisted of two sorry, saggy twin beds pushed together; and…

we started to smell the worst smell, especially being that we are in a hotel room, and my husband asked me if I farted.  Fabulous.  What have I ever done that would make him jump to the conclusion that THAT smell originated from me?  As a female, and a newlywed, I was somewhat put off by that remark (as you can imagine).  As it turns out, at midnight, after two long flights and one long car ride, a skunk decided to hang out just on the other side of the wall unit a/c.  Welcome to Montana?  I hope not….maybe that “call to Montana” was for someone else…

Did I mention we found this bat in the grill of the car the next day?

That is a shot of it after JR wrangled it out of the grill.  Ewww.

To be continued…

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Why Montana? (Part Four) Why Montana? (Part Three) Why Montana? (Part Two) Montana…