Custer and the Little Bighorn . . .
I’m still going through all the Beartooth Highway photos. I’ll try to have the story of our trip for you tomorrow.
We left Cody, WY about 9:30 this morning heading for Billings, MT about 117 miles away. But our first stop was at a Maverik Gas Station about 2 miles away to fill up on diesel.
With my Maverik discount card it was $3.80 a gallon, but the real problem was how slow the pumps were. And it wasn’t just diesel, it was gasoline too. The clerks said they had called a tech to take a look at the problem.
It actually took 40 minutes to take on 105 gallons. Talk about slow.
Jan had been waiting off to the side in the toad, and once I was finished we headed down the street a couple of blocks to a vacant parking area to hook up, and about 10 minutes later we were on our way.
After our really bad luck with construction on SR 72 in Montana on our way down to Cody, we decided to take a slightly longer way back to Billings.
So we took US-14A northeast to Garland where we got SR 114 to Deaver. Here we got on US-310 which took us all the way to I-90 about 10 miles west of Billings, and then to our RV Park. This time the roads were good, and the trip was uninterrupted by construction zones.
We got parked and hooked up, and then about 1:30 headed about 60 miles southeast to Little Bighorn National Monument, site of Custer’s Last Stand.
We had spend a good bit of time here in October 2008 on our way back from Alaska. It looked like this and it was in the low 30’s.
Today it looked like this, and the thermometer at the Visitors Center said it was 100 degrees in the shade.
Big difference!
The real reason we came down today was to get our National Park Passports stamped for here. But we couldn’t leave without walking to the top of the hill where the monument stands.
The remains of about 220 soldiers are buried around the base of this pylon. The bodies of the officers, including General Custer, were removed in 1877, about a year after the battle, and reburied at various military cemeteries around the country. Custer is buried at West Point.
It’s hard to ignore the eerie feeling you get walking this battlefield. Even today when it was so hot, you could feel a cold shiver run through you as you walked around.
Leaving Little Bighorn, we got back to Billings about 4 pm, stopping off at Sam’s Club, before getting home about 4:30
Then we left about 45 minutes later to meet our friend Linda, and her friend Sandy, at Guadalajara Restaurant. The food was delicious, and since Linda and Sandy work at a hospital, and Jan used to, much of the conversation stayed over my head.
After dinner and saying goodbye to Sandy, Linda came over to the rig to ask my opinion of some software she was looking at, and then stayed awhile to talk.
We always enjoy seeing Linda, and hopefully it was won’t be too long until we’re through Billings again.
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Thought for the Day:
The nice thing about being dumb, is that everything is helpful.
sfdg
