LITTLE BIG HORN
DAY 3
We slept
in. Tired from the long day we slept on
the “egg crate” for the first time. Oh
lord above, we have been rescued. Thank
you Jimmy for practically forcing us to buy one. This hard as a rock bed now has a strong resemblance
to one we can get accustomed to.
Since we slept
until 6; 30, we might as well have a leisurely breakfast. Counting the first two days in Minneapolis
and day 0, we have accumulated about 6 days worth of laundry. No sense letting that hang on and cause us to
spend some extra time someplace else.
We did the
laundry, re-arranged our gear in the motor home and tried to plan our route for
the day ahead. After doing 4 loads of laundry
and of course the dryers took extra time, we finally headed out at
10:00am. Our original goal for the day
was to be Great Falls, Montana.
Not quite
making it to our goal on Day 2 and leaving at 10:00am on Day 3 was putting us a
bit behind the schedule. No
problem. We are on vacation and are not
set to an exact schedule, just want to be able to maximize our time in
Banff/Jasper Parks and in Alaska.
Driving and
trying to make up a bit of time, we talked about bypassing the Little Big Horn
Monument and Memorial. Nah. This is one that both of us really wanted to
see. We would bypass any tourist museums
about the battle but would stop at the battlefield for a quick Look around,
spend maybe 30 minutes to 1 hour and leave.
Drive was
un-remarkable with pretty much the same scenery as past 2 days. Vast stretches of open land, some freshly
planted crops, mostly old stubble and grazing land. We brought a book on tape
that we felt would help pass the time and keep our minds occupied, but so far
have only listened to part of disc 1 of 4.
Lots of good conversation and map reading.
We have
plugged in Lucy and use her to help guide us through the territory, but our
most valuable tools are our AAA maps.
Old School I guess, but we both love to read maps. Trace where we have been, where we are going
and where we might go. This trip has us
using up 7 maps. We have the route
highlighted in yellow with circles where we hope to camp for the night. Made duplicate maps for Jim, Cortleigh, Clara
and Wyatt so they might follow us on our great adventure.
Little Big Horn River
We arrived
at Little Big Horn at about 2:30 and ate a late lunch before going into the
visitor’s center. Uh Oh. There is a lot more here than we expected. Outside the visitors center is a National
Cemetery with graves and headstones honoring veterans from the Civil War up
right up to the Gulf War and current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan It is located on hill overlooking a valley and the Little Big
Horn River. Today it is a bucolic scene
with the river and small ranches below and I-90 across the valley and bisecting
the hills beyond.
Our vision
of the Battle of the Little Big Horn has been incorrectly shaped by Hollywood
movies. The battle did not occur on a
gently rolling hillside, but instead on a rather steep hill with the battle
taking place on both sides as well as down in the valley along the Little Big
Horn River. While quite a few of the
Indians used Bows and Arrows, about 200 had the latest repeating rifles with
the Army having single shot rifles.
The Park
service has done an amazing job of reconstructing the battlefield through the
help of narratives from Indian Survivors from the battle as well as forensic
evidence found. Evidence including
bullet casings and arrow heads.
Headstones are placed out on the battlefield marking where both Indians
and the 7th Cavalry soldiers died.
Headstones where Indians and Soldiers died
There are
walking paths out on the Battlefield (yes you do have to walk both down the Hill and then back up) with appropriate
markers describing what you are looking at.
There is a 5 mile road that takes you from the visitors center all the
way to an overlook where you can see where the fight alongside and across the
river took place.
This is a
place of great beauty and solemnity. It
is easy to imagine the battle taking place and the carnage that occurred. Unfortunately we did not plan on spending
much time there and had to leave unfulfilled.
Our 30 minutes to 1 hour time had quickly expanded to almost 3 hours, time very well spent. We vow that we will return and walk all the
trails, read all the signs and study our history a bit more.
We left
the Little Big Horn and Custer’s Last Stand and headed north with Great Falls,
Montana as our goal. It appeared that it
we would have to drive late into the evening to make it to Great Falls and that
is not what we have in mind. While I
drive, Irene researched the internet of possible campgrounds along the
way. We are having trouble with the
electrical system of the motor home and want to stay where there are full hook
ups until we figure it out.
We decided
on Lewiston, Montana as a compromise place to spend the night. Our route took us to Billings were we took
State route 87 north. Somehow we made a
wrong turn, detoured 25 miles before we
figured it out (had almost made a circle, forgot to leave crumbs on the road to
show where we had been). Basically took
an extra hour.
Montana Roadside
We finally
made it to Lewiston about 8:00pm. Found the campground office closed. We drove about the campground and selected a
site that was open and removed from other campers. We were the only ones in this wide open
section and felt if we had to us the generator we would not disturb anybody
else. Hooked up to the electrical and
water and settled in. Read the operators
manual and discovered our electrical problem was pilot error. There was a GFCI that was tripped. Reset it and nothing. Then discovered that there was a master
switch that had to be turned on. Viola,
all is well.
Middle of
the night we figured out why nobody else was camping in our section of the RV Park. Wind started blowing and it buffeted our rig
about. The other campers were in an area
protected from the wind. Lesson here is
when in Rome……
Taco Tuesday
This is was the night that we became aware
that something was changing. Arriving in
Lewiston this late, it took us about an hour and a half to settle in, cook
dinner, clean up and get ready for bed.
It is still light outside. The
farther north we go, the later nighttime comes.
Go figure.
Slept
peacefully and rested.
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