As I get down to the last few states, the order I visited them becomes a little more clear. By 2003, I was down to four remaining states on my list: Montana, Iowa, North Dakota, and Hawaii. The first of that list to go was Montana, which we drove through in the summer of 2005, between picking up my car in Seattle and heading back to Rochester. We enjoyed the beautiful drive in from Idaho, spent the night in Missoula, and saw some fascinating sights in Butte. Grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes at Montana’s oldest drive-in restaurant were a treat as well, before we headed south to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

As we were planning our move out to Los Angeles in the spring of 2006, we were invited to a friend’s wedding in Helena, so we decided to incorporate the cross-country drive with the wedding, and travel from New York to L.A. via the very northern route, a little out of the way but worth it. We had spent the night in Sheridan, Wyoming, and headed into Montana on I-90, stopping for an interesting morning at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. As we continued west, Aimee’s car was beginning to lose power on uphills and was giving us a bit of a headache, as we didn’t like the thought of breaking down along a lonely stretch of interstate when we had a wedding to attend. We stopped in Bozeman for lunch but couldn’t get any help from the VW dealer there, so we pressed on to Helena with fingers crossed, and pulled right in to V-Dub’s and More, where Eric, seen in the photo above, took care of us right away. It was such a relief to have made it, and for him to tell us that he could have the car fixed (bad plugs and wires, misfiring cylinder) before we needed to be on our way down to L.A. Montana has many scenic wonders, but if I had to think of the sight that made us the happiest, it has to be this one.