Antique Wooden Stairs, Olive Hotel, Miles City MT
This, well preserved oak stairs that climbs to the third floor, is one of the many “antiques” in the Olive Hotel. ZMM narrator and his companions, the previous night, had a bad camping experience and had just traveled through an extreme heat wave before arriving in Mile City. We could imagine the totally exhausted crew climbing these stairs for a place to rest, clean-up, and/or sleep. Here we should remember that the Narrator in the ZMM book had previously traveled this way repeatedly, probably with his family, for recurring visits back to Minneapolis from Bozeman. He would have known very well where to find the good hotels/motels which had rooms appropriate to their low assistant professor’s income. As evidence, recall that the Narrator says as they arrive at their first night’s stay (Oaks ND?) ” …. but I tell him there’s a better one [motel] if you turn right, at a row of cottonwoods a few blocks down.”
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(Photo = 104-0499...... ZMM Page = NA ……WayPt = 097w)