Destination: Plains, Mont.

Traveling the back-roads of Montana gives one a chance to see this state at grass root level. Highway 28 goes to Hot Springs and Plains. Plains was our destination. The Flathead River meanders through hillsides yellow with Balsam root, green pastures dotted with patches of bluebells and rock ledges flanked by clumps of Aspens.

Lilac and apple trees bloom in the neglected surroundings of tumbledown homesteads and farmhouses are few and far between in this open valley. Bluebird boxes are attached to fence posts about one mile apart and though we didn't see a bluebird, we saw a number of meadowlarks.

The traffic was sparse on the two-lane road and the scenery on both sides had a tranquil effect on me. While my husband talked with a car dealer in Plains, I walked along the main street to get a cup of coffee.

People were friendly. They greeted me as I passed and a woman remarked on my pretty purple shoes. Shops flank one side of the street and the Clark Fork River and the railway are on the other side.

I got sidetracked from my reason to walk when I sighted an old building at the end of a side street. The grass had been mowed around a 15-foot by 20-foot rock and mortar jail that sits forlornly on a small lot. The iron grill door was padlocked. Between the iron bars and broken glass of the small front window, a sign stated that the jail was built about the turn of the century.

I walked along one side of the building. A woman who was keeping an eye on her dog in her back yard regarded me with curiosity. I asked her if there was only one window in the jail.

"I don't know she said, I've never looked." Her disinterest in the historic building surprised me.

I found a larger barred window on the other side of the building. Being more interested in the old jail than the woman who lived by it, I pressed my face against the iron bars and peered through the murky glass.

In one corner of the one room jail, a tin coffee pot sat on the back of a rusted pop-belly stove. In another corner the door of the cage-like cell was ajar. Steel bars from ceiling to floor skirted two sides of the cell. Heavy chains supported a metal slat cot that hung from the stonewall. Another slat cot, chained flat against the iron bars on the outside of the cell, I'm presuming could be lowered when there was more than one rowdy customer.

Because of my interest in this remnant of Plains history, I didn't get my coffee.

We drove a few miles along the road to Paradise, a very, very small town that one would pass through without reason to stop.

I stepped inside the one and only cafe and the woman at the counter pointed toward the rest room. It seemed to be a natural gesture. I went the way she directed and asked her for a cup of coffee to go. One of the four counter stools was occupied and another customer was eating lunch at one of the two small tables.

"Quiet town" I said.

"Yes. We like it, and we hope it stays this way."

Other than the cafe the business block consists of a post office, bar, a garage that was closed and a large barn-like building that sells antiques and secondhand furniture. Across the road is a lovely picnic area.

We have driven through Plains and Paradise a number of times with no reason to stop.

I'm glad we had a reason this time to stop and spend a little time in these two small Montana towns that time has changed very little.