Moving to the Rugged West

Every time I visit Bozeman I’m reminded of why I left.

At the time I blamed the opening of a store specializing in nothing but batteries as the final straw. That was nearly 20 years ago. Bozeman has grown by leaps and bounds since then. There are probably a couple of battery stores in town now.

Malta, on the other hand, where Barb and I moved, has seen a decline in population, as has much of rural Montana. Newcomers, it seems, may talk about moving to the rugged West, but most of them actually want all the conveniences they had back home.

On the 300-mile drive from Malta to Bozeman little has...