I had grown comfortable enough with the Charger's handling that I decided to take some country roads west to a dying town along the way to wherever I was going.

I couldn't have made it more than a handful of kilometers though, before the gentlest, little 10m (~30ft) hill at maybe a 1% grade, forced the Charger to take about 10 minutes to climb with the tires spinning and spinning away (I didn't want to stop and end up sliding back down).

Carefully going back down the gentle hill, I retreated to the paved secondary highways of Saskatchewan, which still rewarded me with this roadside abandoned house.

Look at that view from the top floor! God I love how far you can see in Saskatchewan.

I was only inside for a couple of minutes before a car rolled up and parked behind my car. Quickly scurrying back down to the main floor and out the back door so I could claim I wasn't inside, the guy in the car was just checking if I was okay and hadn't broken down. "Nope, just taking some photos of this old house." "Okay, be safe."

Since I was already outside, after chucking a bit I decided to move along.

And wouldn't you know it, another minute up the road was another abandoned house.

Hmmm, the floor looks a bit sketchy.

LOL, like that was going to keep me outside.

Back at the car, I had to appreciate where I found myself. So stark and empty and fantastic. There's such a peace in being able to survey the surroundings for kilometers around and not see another human.

In the village of Kayville, it appeared as if someone was looking after the old Lutheran church. The exterior and setting was worth the detour regardless.

Over the last little while, I'd watched my fuel gauge and attempted to time it perfectly so that I could fill up on cheap gas once I crossed into the States. It was getting a little too close for my liking though and I considered stopping as I passed a station in Bengough, but it had signs about "Cardlock" and I figure it was a trucker's gas station or something.

(Cardlock just means that the gas station is available to anyone with a Co-Op Card 24 hours a day. During normal working hours, anyone can get gas there.)

So I continued on, running the math and figuring I had enough gas to make it to Flaxville Montana. The only problem came when a large sign appeared, informing me of the Big Beaver Port of Entry's permanent closure. One of the least used crossings across the whole continent, the Canadian side was closed in 2011 and the Americans closed their side in 2013.

This makes me now think I should have button-hooked once into Montana and checked out the abandoned Big Beaver crossing. It looks pretty cool.

Overall I was trying to go east but unfortunately there was a large gas desert here in Saskatchewan; leaving me to turn back and head to Coronach. Coronach is a place I'd actually heard of prior to this trip and I was surprised to find teenagers working at the gas station instead of older folks. I guess with a population of 643 and a nearby power plant employing people in the town, Coronach's doing alright in this sparsely populated portion of the country.

With $20 put into my car because I still wanted Montana gas savings, I headed to the Coronach-Scobey crossing and was promptly given a hard time by the bored border guard, who didn't seem to believe I could have a rental Dodge Charger. The closed Big Beaver Crossing was the world's first fully automated border crossing in 1996⁰ and I could have used this guy being automated.

0 - They unautomated(?) it following 9/11.

That border guard failed to bring my mood down. This was still COVID times and I'd returned to America for the second time since the outbreak. Golden hills rolled outward from glorious Montana Highway 13, while a couple of deer chewed grass beside a slumped shack far in the distance. The tiniest hill meant that I was out of view of the remote border post and I pulled over to breathe it all in.

My little Coronach detour meant I could tack on another county courthouse too, as now I found myself in Scobey Montana, county seat of Daniels County. Nearby there was a (financial) bank with a (cement) bank out front that I thought about riding, but the 37°F (3°C) digital sign led me to keep going. I also probably didn't have the time now, thanks to Coronach.

In Plentywood, I was pleased as I pumped gas and a man commented that he hadn't seen a Canadian plate in a year and a half. He then asked about gas prices in Saskatchewan ($1.65/L) and how they compared to Montana ($4.10/gallon), which stressed me out trying to calculate the Canadian price in American or vice versa, but then he mentioned $7/gal gas in California and I realized the whole point of the conversation was to get in a right-wing talking point.

Down the street was a beer store with faded lettering that said Welcome Canadians (it didn't show up well enough in photos) and then a few streets back from the gas station was the fine Sheridan County Courthouse.

I would have stopped at more towns and took more county roads, but both the chat this morning and the Coronach gas fiasco left me hurrying. In Culbertson though, the town looked big enough that I assumed it had to be the county seat, so I put my foot down and went for a little walkabout to take it all in.

As it turns out, sleepy Culbertson is not the county seat of Roosevelt County, that's Wolf Point.

So I missed checking off Roosevelt County, but ever since Plentywood, I was headed towards Sidney and the Richland County Courthouse.

Sidney was impressively large and bumping compared to the other towns I'd seen so far. I liked it well enough, but it wasn't dusty enough to make me want to spend the night. I didn't see any fun, old motels either.

Looking at my map of Montana county seats, I sized up one last detour to add the Town of Circle, but it was getting late and a smidgen of weather was coming this evening. Also seeing how sleepy some of these towns were, I figured I better get going to my motel room so I could find some dinner that wasn't McDonald's or Subway.

Along the way to my motel, there were a few foothill passes where I was thankful I didn't push on to Circle.

I ended up making it to Glendive's Gust Haus with 30 minutes to spare. The owner sort of seemed insulted when I asked if it was still okay to order food this close to closing, lol.

Forty five minutes later, very few people had left and I saw how my patty melt and cauliflower bites weren't a problem to the staff.

The whole reason I planned to be in Glendive tonight was because of an awesome downtown motel and how the streets looked like a classic Montana town.

Except that as I arrived in Glendive and pulled up to the motel, I found the lobby locked and no one answering their phone. There were only a few cars in the lot, so clearly some vacancy was left, but I figured it must have been converted into long-term stays and apartments.

Thankfully the Riverside Inn saved me with a $64 rate that kept money in my pocket instead of going to the Holiday Inn Express. I loved that I found a non-chain option, but the lot was also quite dark, the receptionist went home at 11, and there were only three other cars. This was also near I-94, so for a while I was worried about someone rolling up and stealing my expensive rental. I looked up Glendive robbery and car theft numbers and that calmed me, lol.

The next morning, I stopped at the Albertson's grocery for some snacks and I liked how corn dogs were important enough to go on the aisle directory.

The motel I wanted to stay at last night - the El Centro Motel!

Glendive ended up purchasing this motel five months after my visit in order to create office space and leaseable space owned by the city. They also mentioned that cleaning up a property with "a reputation as a location that was plagued by illegal drug use" was a factor in the acquisition. A Brownfield assessment was conducted in 2023 and remediation work was supposed to happen in 2024. They're still having meeting in 2025.

Last night, it was probably for the best that I didn't plan on going further than Glendive as the temps were plummeting and the pass into town was getting slushy.

After loving Montana so much on my first visit 15 years ago, yesterday I only really liked the landscape around Scobey and Plentywood - so it's not as if I skipped out on some place I loved to be in Glendive. Plentywood wouldn't have been far enough along and since then, I'd followed a river valley and it was much less arid and bleak (I love arid and bleak).

My motel's parking lot was icy with a light dusting of snow, so not only did I skip checking out Glendive's Skatepark, I also dawdled about town and waited for the sun to come out and the temps to rise.

And even if I didn't end up at the El Centro, I still liked Glendive. It was gritty, flat with surrounding hills, and there was some cool stuff to check out like this old bridge over the Yellowstone River.

This is the Bell Street Bridge, built in 1925 and what was once a major landmark on the Yellowstone Trail - the first automobile highway which traversed the upper states of the Great Plains as it crossed the country from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Seattle, Washington. This was the route followed and somewhat replaced by I-94, except obviously interstates now pass places like Glendive on the edge of town.

Of course I planned my overnight stay to be in a county seat.

This school-like structure was built in 1961-62, replacing a courthouse built by W.S. Hurst in 1883.

Another thing I liked about Glendive was that it was down in a flat river valley, but there were surrounding hills if you wanted to go for a strenuous hike. You wouldn't have to deal with hills while cycling or walking in your day to day, but they were available if you found yourself in the mood.

Only problem with Glendive would be its isolation. Over two hours to Bismarck or three hours to Weyburn to watch hockey? Three hours to Billings when you want a major city? It would be a lot of fun for a couple years to experience it, but after a while, that same Western Newfoundland problem of emptiness would pop up here.

Anyway, it was now time to get going. I thought about heading west, but those county seats were all along I-94 and a bit distant, so God willing, I hope to be driving across I-94 and get them some other day.

Instead, I headed east towards Wibaux.

Coming up out of the Yellowstone River Valley, the road conditions still weren't great so I took it slow and let people pass. There was a moment where I thought maybe I was being overly cautious, until a minute later I saw a car up on an embankment, trailed by skidding tire tracks in the snow and a destroyed highway sign. I slowed it down even further.

Eventually I'd make it to Wibaux, the only incorporated town in the fourth-least populated county in Montana. Population: 462.

Enough county courthouses, you say? Okay, okay, I'll get back to the abandoned buildings with a look inside the Stockman Bar on main street Wibaux.

Hoo wee!

The funny thing is that this unremarkable interior gives no indication of how amazing this bar once was. The Stockman's carved mahogany bar partly supported by caryatids was so impressive, that it was purchased by the Autry Museum of the American West and moved to Los Angeles where it is now installed in its own room¹.

1 - image is halfway down the page

Throwing you guys a bone there, it was now time to get back to county courthouses. Like the amazing Fallon County Courthouse in Baker Montana - it was built in the same style as a nearby bank!

Baker was home to what looked like a damn good skatepark, but having studied the snow depth maps of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies for the past three months, I knew I was headed even further away from snow as I moved south and east today.

From Baker, it was only ten minutes to the state line. Having been to Montana only once before, I was now leaving after an enjoyable second visit (as you can surmise from my need to post 22 photos, haha).

Continue to Part 6