To the Bear's Lodge

Our adventure continues eastward today with stops at Devils Tower National Monument before heading to Deadwood, South Dakota in the Black Hills.  Its 131 miles to Devils Tower and then 74 miles from there to Deadwood, about 3 1/2 hours of driving today.

Teddy Roosevelt

Devils Tower

President Theodore Roosevelt made Devils Tower the nation's first national monument in 1906.  Technically its a monolithic, igneous intrusion which basically means that its volcanic rock.  The magma created rock that was harder than the ground around it.  Over the years, the softer rock around it eroded away leaving only the hard rock.

Bear Claw Marks

The tower soars 1,267 ft above the surrounding terrain.  It has grooves along all of its sides.  The name Devils Tower (no apostrophe) came from someone misinterpreting the Indian name to mean Bad God Tower which later became Devils Tower.  The Indian folklore is more interesting.  The Indians call this Bear's Lodge.  The story is that six Lakota girls were picking flowers when they were attacked by bears.  The Great Spirit felt sorry for them and caused the ground around them to lift up so the bear could not get them.  The markings on the side of the tower are supposed to be markings left by the bear's claws as he tried to reach them.

We are not going to climb the tower, but if we are brave there is a hiking trail around it.

The tower was also made famous by the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

After visiting the tower we travel to Deadwood, South Dakota.  Historic Deadwood is an old mining town that is still as wild at heart as it was in the 1800s when the outlaws, gamblers and gunslingers ruled the streets.  Today the entire town is a National Historic Landmark.  Here we will walk in the footsteps of Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock.

There are now 80 gambling halls in the town which helps to bring in the tourists. We are staying at the Hampton Inn at the Four Aces Casino. 

Stepping Back in Time

Relaxing in the Cody Lobby

Another fantastic day on our adventure. We had a great breakfast at The Cody which was a very nice hotel.  The weather was clear, sunny skies and a high of 79 degrees, quite a change from the day before.

We headed to nearby  Tecumseh's Trading Post for some shopping.  We met Jerry Fick, the proprietor, who spent a lifetime creating a miniature town and museum at the back of the store.  The dioramas depict the history of Wyoming and Montana. This was a really unique kind of place and we were so glad we stopped.  So far, the hospitality we have experienced has been terrific.

Buffalo herd in diorama

We did not get a chance to do to much in Cody, but we did see the Rodeo grounds and Buffalo Bill's Irma Hotel named for his daughter.
We were surprised at how dry this part of Wyoming was compared to Yellowstone.

Montana farm

We then set off on our trip to Little Bighorn.  The roads were great and the speed limit is 75 so we covered quite a bit of ground.  The only sizeable town we experienced was Billings, Montana which has 80,000 people. 

Little Bighorn was a terrific place, more than we both expected.  A ranger, who clearly likes what he does, gave a terrific 45 minute talk on the battle that kept our attention the whole time.

Site of Indian encampment (green area)

Then we drove the battlefield area which covers a pretty large area.  The great part about this site is that this area looks virtually the same as it did at the time of the battle in 1876.  Most of the area is covered in wild grass that grows about a foot tall.  The grass has grasshoppers and rattlesnakes.

We listened to an audio tape as we drove and visited different markers describing the fight as shown on the right.  Its hard to believe the Indian encampment here in 1876 was estimated at around 8,000 people since there is nothing here but grass.  They came here following the buffalo which was their main food source and they wanted to stay free and off of the reservations.

Driving the battlefield, you can see how both the terrain and the distance between the forces of the 7th calvary made it difficult for them to coordinate their efforts.  

A unique feature of this battlefield is that the men were originally buried where they died and markers were erected at these sites.  The graves were later moved to Last Stand Hill. Recently, they have added Indian markers in a different color stone to give more balance to the story.

Markers show where men died

Calvary Marker

Indian markers were added in late 1990s

 The drive ends at Last Stand Hill where most of Custer's men were killed.  They had the high ground, but there was no place to hide.  There is a monument erected here and a graveyard with the soldiers.  General Custer's marker has a black face on it.  He was later reburied at West Point.

Marker at Last Stand Hill

Cemetery at Last Stand Hill

There was no monument for a mass grave of Indian's buried on the battlefield until 2003 when an Indian memorial was dedicated across from Last Stand Hill.  On a semi-circular "weeping " wall there are plaques honoring the names of the Indians who died from each tribe in the encampment.  On the other side is a sculpture depicting Spirit warriors.  It was very well executed.

Near the Battlefield was another Trading Post.We were like kids going in the tepee and fort and even dressing the parts.  

Fort David

She makes a good squaw

Whoa.  We're getting too authentic.

Indian Handicapped Parking

Back to Wyoming

We traveled through the Crow Nation reservation back into Wyoming traveling through the Bighorn mountains.

We settled in for the night at the Holiday Inn in Buffalo, Wyoming.







For dinner we went to the Historic Occidental Hotel in Buffalo and had dinner in the Virginian restaurant.  The Virginian is named for Owen Wister's novel of the same name about the Old West.

Since we were in Buffalo, we decided to be brave and have the Bison Medallians Occidental.  Buffalo meat is leaner and tastier than beef, but we found it to be a little chewy.  It was a nice atmosphere.

The Occidental Hotel (built in 1880)

The cussin part was tough for her

Cowboys and Indians

We're leave Cody today and head up to Big Sky Country - Montana - to Crow Agency, Montana site of the Little Bighorn National Monument.  Its about a 2 1/2 hour drive of 169 miles.

Marker on Last Stand Hill

Custer

Little Bighorn is the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn also known as Custer's Last Stand and to the Indians as the Battle of Greasy Grass.  It was a battle between Native Americans of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and the 7th calvalry led by George Armstrong Custer.  The battle occurred on June 25 and 26, 1876 ending in a major victory for the Indians. 268 members of the 7th calvary were killed that day.  Most of the story has been passed down by the surviving Indians since so many of Custer's troops were killed.  Click on the links to learn more about this battle and the people involved or if you decide to come here I recommend The Last Stand.

The story actually begins a few years earlier when Gen. Custer was on an expedition in the Black Hills of South Dakota and discovered gold.  This area was sacred to several Indian tribes and the U.S. government signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 giving the Black Hills to the Lakota.  Once gold was discovered, the government broke the treaty and the Indians were pushed westward into Wyoming.  By 1876, the government was pushing to force all of the Indians onto reservations, but many chose to follow Sitting Bull as he refused to develop any dependence on the white man by living on a reservation.

Custer led one group of forces towards the area where Sitting Bull was reported to be camped and he was supposed to wait for the other column led by Colonel Terry once he got there.  However, Custer chose to attack on his own and then further divided his troops into three battalions when he got there.  His scouts had underestimated the size of the encampment and they were outnumbered by three to one. The group led by Custer himself were virtually annihilated within an hour with none of them surviving.  The other battalions led by Major Reno and Captain Benteen fought into the next day and the surviving members were eventually able to retreat. 

News of the massacre reached the East Coast as America was celebrating the centennial in Philadelphia.  Although the Indians won this battle it led to efforts to force Indians onto reservations. 

The soldiers were first buried where they died and markers appear throughout the battlefield giving you a feel for the battle.  The graves were later relocated around Last Stand Hill but the markers remain, now joined by Indian markers as well.  Since this is in a remote part of Montana, it looks much the same as it did in 1876.  Reading the book, its amazing how brutal both sides were to each other in these battles.  We always heard of Indians scalping, but it was common for both sides to mutilate the bodies of the dead.

Today the area is part of the Crow Nation, one of the country's largest Indian reservations.

We have another 105 miles to cover today traveling back into Wyoming and beginning our eastward trek through the state.  Most of this journey will be on I-90, the longest and most northern interstate highway running 3,100 miles from Seattle to Boston. 

Main Street in Sheridan

Sheridan Inn

We'll pass through Sheridan, Wyoming, a cute little western town with a historic main street.  The Sheridan Inn with 69 gables is a historic inn and restaurant built in the 1890s and once owned by Buffalo Bill. 

Buffalo is the site of the Occidental Hotel which dates back to the late 1800s.  Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill stayed here.  So have Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.  But its not good enough for the Magee's so we are stay at a Holiday Inn.  However, we hope to take in a meal at the hotel's famous Virginian restaurant. 

I hope you are keeping track of all the presidential references because there is going to be a test.

And you thought they were the same thing! 

Snowed in - Take the Road Less Traveled

We started our day in West Yellowstone, Montana, a cute little town that feeds on the tourist trade.

Ida would not let me buy one.

Yesterday, we said that Yellowstone was a wilderness.  Well today we had a real surprise.  Entering Yellowstone in the morning we found out that the road that we intended to take to Cody was blocked by SNOW.  That's right, snow in September.   They said it would be opened later in the day, maybe, and suggested we take the Northeast Entrance which is a huge detour, but the only other way there.

In the higher elevations the dusting of snow on the lodge pole pines was beautiful.  It was 34 degrees when we were there, later warming to about 60 degrees but unless the wind was blowing it did not feel bad.


We decided to make the best of it and stocked up on food in the Canyon area and headed to the Upper Falls which we did not see yesterday.  This time, we were right over the falls and the rush of ice cold water was spectacular.

Yellowstone River near Upper Falls

We then traveled back over some of the same road we saw yesterday toward the Northeast Entrance.  The Northeast Entrance is the least used of the five entrances to Yellowstone and for a good reason.  Its in the middle of nowhere!  We had no cell service, no satellite radio.  In fact, there were was nothing but mile after mile of beautiful scenery and animals.  Our buffalo count leaped to 64 after we ran into a few herds..

Scenic Valley

Lamar Valley, Home of Yellowstone's wolves

Starting the day in Montana, we entered Wyoming once in Yellowstone, then entered Montana again before entering Wyoming again.  Very Confusing.

The diversion enabled us to be on the Beartooth Highway, which Charles Kuralt called the most scenic route in America.  We did not stay on it long enough to reach its highest altitudes because we had to take the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway toward Cody.  The trip still took us through the Shoshone National Forest, America's first National Forest.

Traveling this route, we only came across three towns, all very small.

We passed many ranches, all of which seemed to have an Open Range, which meant that the cattle could wander wherever they wanted.  These were too numerous to count.

Red Rock Formation

Cattle

Sunlight Creek

Once getting into Cody we visited the Buffalo Bill Historical Center as planned, it has five museums and we managed to wander through four of them (Sorry NRA members we skipped the gun museum).  We saw the Natural History, Buffalo Bill, Plains Indians, and Western Art museums.

Indian Cradle from Plains Museum

Buffalo Bill Museum.

Museum of Natural History

Thomas Moran Painting

At the end of a long day we settled in at the Cody.  The hotel gave us a great recommendation for a restaurant nearby, the Terrace.

I am holding what I think is the largest Margarita I have ever had.  What a better way to relax at the end of the day.