Once again, we left early – it was dark but not long before sunrise. The casinos were brightly lit, clustered around a little church, quiet and dark. It wasn't long before the sun came up, although it took a while for the thick layer of fog to burn off, and we were once again delighting in beautiful scenery. I even managed to get a photo of an eagle in a tree with two other birds I couldn't identify. Couldn't even tell something was in the tree until I put it on the computer. I just love my camera!
One of our favorite things to do on a drive is watch for odd signs and much to my dismay, I missed getting a wonderful addition to our collection: "Bighorn Sheep Skulls - Beetle Cleaned."
We drove to the Little Bighorn
Battlefield National Monument and re-learned some history. In the
late 1860's, a large area of eastern Wyoming was given to the Lakota,
Cheyenne, and other tribes of the Great Plains as a permanent
reservation and the U.S. government promised to protect the Indians.
Only a few years later, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the
heart of the new Indian reservation and soon thousands of gold
seekers swarmed into the region, violating the treaty. The government
resized the reservation – excluding all the land near the gold from
it. Indians retaliated, the US insisted they return to the newly
down-sized reservation, and when they refused, the army was called
in. In June of 1876, 260 soldiers met defeat and death at the hands
of several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors trying to preserve
their independent, nomadic way of life. All-in-all, it was a somber
journey through the battlefield, made especially poignant because of
the many clusters of markers indicating those who had died during the
battle.
Most of us visiting the memorial felt a
deep sense of shame in the way the federal government broke treaties
with the Native American tribes, most often because of greed.
We cook most of our meals and enjoy a
wide variety of cuisines,and because of the varied ingredients have
had difficulty with the lack of refrigerated storage space in spite
of working hard to pare down what we keep on hand. We finally were
fed up (no pun intended) so decided to drive up to Billings and get a
dorm-sized fridge. After 30 years of living within walking distance
of shopping, restaurants, and a library and a 15 minute drive from
major retailers, I'm always surprised to find that we need to drive
an hour or more for common items. I'm not complaining, though; I love
our lifestyle and am a country girl at heart.
Sunflowers seem to ubiquitous
throughout the West and nowhere more so than here. Sunflowers are
cultivated in huge tracts and lend a bright, cheerful glow to the
day.
We enjoyed watching a couple of cute
rabbits in the campground – they have a home under the corner of a
small utility building on the property and hop all over during the
day. They don't like carrots, however.
We had planned on heading straight to
Devil's Tower, but I kept seeing signs for the Bighorn National
Forest, and remembered the gentleman at Mimi's Cafe in Shoshone, WY
had told us it was his favorite spot, so we decided to give it a
whirl. It was one of our best decisions ever.
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