Montana

(Note: It's still the 4th of July here, so I've edited the time stamp to match the fact)

After my photo orgy in Yellowstone I drove out of the park and over the famous Beartooth Pass - briefly entering Montana (state #48!), then Wyoming, then Montana again. This route - US 212 - is often called the most beautiful drive in America. I'm not in a position to verify, nor reject this claim as the fog seldom allowed me to see more than a 100 feet in any direction. Not that the combination of heavy rain, hail, wind and thunderstorm (all at once!) would have allowed me to take my eyes off the road anyway. I did notice that there was a depressing amount of snow on the ground, some of it very close to the road. It was a hellish drive, and the weather didn't let up until the last descent down into Red Lodge, a drive so frighteningly steep I honestly wished it was still foggy.

Once you get down from the mountains, the landscape is rather uneventful the rest of the way to Billings, where I spent the night. This morning I started off on the way down to Wyoming again, but took a detour to visit Pompey's Pillar, which turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant place. The pillar is a large rock named after the nickname of the son of the Indian woman who guided Lewis and Clark for part of their famous expedition to the Pacific and back (the kid's later life story is interesting enough in itself).

The rock had been decorated with paintings and colors by the local injuns for centuries, and Clark cut his name into the stone - actually the only remaining physical evidence of the whole expedition - without it one might have suspected them of camping out in St Louis for two years to save themselves the trouble...

Afterwards I drove down the I-90 to the Little Bighorn battlefield, where Custer and his men were killed in 1876. It was getting really hot, and there wasn't much to the place - I could have waited for the Ranger talk or seen an introductory movie, but decided against it and left after a mere 15 minutes.

Now I'm in the wonderful Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, WY where I am going to celebrate the 4th of July in a 101 year old saloon with bulletholes in the ceiling - pics of that will come tomorrow.

The helldrive and the scary drive.


Pompey's Pillar, originally named Pompey's Tower.


The view from the top. In the field on the other side of the Yellowstone River, Custer camped before going to Little Bighorn.


Clark's signature, now protected from the elements.


The surrounding parkland and fields were teeming with cute, furry, little things. The one on the left is called a marmot.


Monument and graves at Little Bighorn. The soldiers were buried where they fell, and their graves are marked with names, where known. After a few years most of the officers were dug up and sent back east; Custer himself is buried at West Point. A few years after that the remaining soldiers were placed in a mass grave around the monument.


All Montana pics here.