Highway 212 ...

Most people driving east from Montana out to South Dakota will just get on Interstate 90 and stay there ... but a few knowledgeable folks will venture off the freeway and strike out on US 212 instead, which is actually the shorter route. I really like the US 212 drive -- it's a lovely mix of mountains and plains, forest and prairie. And there are some interesting old towns along the way, too.

One of those little towns is called Hammond, down in the southwest corner of Carter County. There was never an awful lot at Hammond, and today the place is just a post office, a one-room school, and a handful of abandoned buildings. Here's a photo I took last year of one of them ... a long-closed gas station. It's definitely the coolest thing in Hammond, and I think it's the coolest gas station in Montana.