Date: 21 May 2001 (Monday)
Start: Miles City MT KOA
End: Hardin MT KOA (123 miles)
The temperature this morning was 42, partly sunny, still somewhat breezy but less than yesterday.
This was a really short day on the road and very interesting stops afterward.
But we sure had problems getting going.
We started early, intending to eat breakfast out. Fueling the truck came first, and in doing that the automatic filling device didn’t shut off when the tank was full, so the fuel overflowed onto the pavement and my feet.
Then we went across the street to eat. In swinging around the building to point facing out and be out of the main parking lot, I swung too close to the building and scraped the awning on the corner of the building. The awning has a rip for several feet and is probably trash. I’ve never liked that brand anyway, and this may be an opportunity to go to another one.
The owner said not to worry about the bent trim on the corner of the roof, so we had a really good, standard, bacon-eggs-and-hash-browns, breakfast.
The wind is down today so the trip to Hardin went easily and quickly cross-wind. We pulled into another KOA with very friendly owner, who gave us tips.
After setting up, we visited the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument (Custer’s last stand site). We saw the film intro, drove the driving tour to Major Reno’s area of the battle five miles south of Last Stand Hill, and hiked the Reno Entrenchment Trail.
Then the tour called for going back to the Visitor’s Center, and taking the Deep Ravine Trail and the Last Stand Hill and Monument area. Dolores saw a snake scurrying through the grass but didn’t slow down to identify it.
Now we have a better idea of the ground around the action and by reading the books & brochures we bought, we have a better understanding of what happened here in June 1876. But I can't imagine what Custer was thinking of when he decided to take on all those Indians in this grassland.
After this we visited the Big Horn County Historical Museum. This museum has a collection of buildings from the county relocated here and set up for examination. You can walk through the farm house, the one-room school, the railroad depot, the doctor’s office, the barn, the blacksmith shop and others.
People have given the museum many old farming implements like threshing machines, and house articles. It’s a very friendly, nice, small, museum.
A tour of the town followed, with a stop at the grocery store and gas station/casino. Yes, casino. Almost all the gas stations and many restaurants have rooms in the same building given over to machine gambling. I don’t know how much play they get, but they sure are everywhere.
The day got up to the mid-60’s, so it was comfortable out of the wind. But there was snow this morning south of Billings and there is snow on top of the Bighorn Mountains southeast of here. It’s hard to tell what’ll happen next.
We did change our reservations for Yellowstone to arrive the 24th and leave the 28th. It rather surprised us that we were able to do it, seeing that this weekend will be Memorial Day weekend. So we’re off to Cody, Wyoming tomorrow for a couple of days then into the park.
(Ed addition 5/22/01) Dolores’ wildlife sightings today included Say’s Phoebe and a Downy Woodpecker.
