Leaving Montana

Entering Wyoming






The Indian Memorial at the Little Bighorn Battlefield







Headstones Placed Where Soldiers Fell in the Battle. The Dark One Belongs to Custer.









Horses Grazing on the Prairie

Big Sky Country

Thursday, June 16

First of all, I loaded the pictures backwards, so they go from the bottom up. The bottom and through the Little Bighorn Battlefield are in Montana and then we enter Wyoming.

Anyway, we loved our site at Red Lodge KOA. It was on the end of the road with a fenced field and mountain view beyond. It was perfect for Ben with large trees and lots of grass.

I know I've mentioned lilacs, but once more, they were thick and everywhere in light, dark and white. They were just beautiful and added so much to even the shackiest little house.

Montana has had a lot of rain and all of their rivers are at the top and over flowing around trees and into fields. It was on the news that ranchers have not been able to plant and the deadline is fast approaching for it to be too late as the season is so short. In one small town we saw people with sandbags around their homes. They are worried that with the higher temperatures, snow melt in the mountains, and rain, the flooding will get much worse.

They have had lot of storms in the area and on the news, we heard about a bad hail storm they had the week before. A ranchers cattle stampeded and went over a cliff killing his herd. The area ranchers were raising money and donating cattle to help him out. It was so interesting hearing how they supported each other.

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and picked up two more books on CD. Thank you to Pat and Vern for putting us onto taped books while traveling. We downloaded three to my ipod and had two on CD. Cracker Barrel let's you buy them and then turn them in at any other Cracker Barrel for much of your money back. It makes the long stretches of miles go much faster and keeps our eyes free for scenery...and, well, driving.

We drove through lots of big sky country with miles between towns and exits labeled "no service." We saw many Pronghorn Deer, but flew by too fast to get pictures.

We exited on 212 to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Memorial which is the site of Custer's Last Stand. We saw where the Little Bighorn River had overflown and left debris in the farm fences and muddy banks.

We listened to the Ranger tell the story to the days around the battle and we walked the path to see the sites where different events happened. It was all very somber, but very nicely done, with sadness as they honored both sides. Though there were many people there, it was very quiet and people talked in whispers. Black Elk's quote was on the wall of the visitor center; "Know the power that is peace." Can't we as humans ever learn?

The highway followed the Little Bighorn River for a while and we saw more flooding. Then we moved away from seeing any houses. There were just big grassy fields that grew into bigger and bigger hills with occasional cattle or horses grazing and then snowy mountain peaks off to the southwest near Sheridan, Wyoming.
We drove through miles of plains, but enjoyed watching, seeing Pronghorn and listening to our book on CD.

We got quite tired and finally made it into Sundance, Wyoming and the Mountain View Campground up on a hill with great views. The wind rocked us to sleep and then some time during the night, it darn near blew us off the hill.