It’s been over two decades now, but as I remember it: the floor was sticky with peanut shells and beer.

I could feel a crunch underfoot amid the din of garbled conversation as my young, righteous girlfriends and I made our way to a wobbly table at the Haufbrau in Bozeman, Montana.

I was there to hear a friend play guitar and sing at open mic night. As it turns out, so was my future spouse. I was emboldened by the emotion of a recent breakup, the energy of a girls night and, perhaps, liquid courage.

Maybe it was also the magic of the bar, because when I spotted him across the room, I flicked a peanut at him. Within a matter of hours, we were parting, and he was saying “I love you.”

These days instead of a group of friends, I come with a lot of media equipment – straps, cords, cameras, laptop, and a black paper journal and pen – as I set out to explore dive bar culture in Montana.

I begin my reporting at the Filling Station, located on the outskirts of now trendy Bozeman, a few miles from my home. Inside, the walls are covered with vintage license plates, street signs, a large red flying horse at ceiling height, a buffalo mount with a Hawaiian lei and a stuffed deer head ridden by a skeleton.