Yellowstone

Had lunch at a quaint little restaraunt in Gardner and then on to Yellowstone from the north entrance this time, thru the Roosevelt Arch. It's a marvelous park with a different picture around every corner. First stop was Mammoth hot springs, it's a huge white pile of calcium deposits from the hot water escaping to the surface. Oh yeh, heavy sulfur smell, did everyone have egg salad the night before.

Last Stand hill

The day was a hot one, when we were on the hill it was 84F with no breeze. I'm not sure how hot it was in June 1876 when the battle took place, but it must have been awful. I never took a picture of it but there is also a horse burial site on the hill. The other thing is - you stay on the pathways, they have lots of rattlers in the area to greet anyone who wanders off.

Sunday at Hardin

Drove east to Hardin today, that is about 15 km north of the Custer Battlefield site. There was a nice interpretive centre with a presentation and then the site itself. Pretty well done. There is a graveyard with markers where Custer & his 4o odd died and there are headstone type markers along sharpshooter ridge where the soldiers fell and some where known native figures died. According to history, the natives did pretty well, losing about 100 warriors, while about 200 + of the 7th cavalry were killed. There were over 2,000 indian warriors in the battle. There were elements of the 7th cavalry that got away, but the 42 odd with Custer did not. Pretty impressive view from the hill they fought from and the paintings depicting the indians were something else. So much for the advantage of the high ground.

There are walking paths around the last stand hill & driving paths along the ridge as well as memorials from both sides. Tough times in the old west.

It was a hot one, the highest temp I saw was 94F on the car read-out.

Sunny Saturday

Wow what a nice hot day, we slept in and then went in to Bozeman. It is a typical small US city with an old downtown, but pretty well preserved and still very active. Some really quaint shops and almost a hippy kind of feel to much of it. In honor of the summer like feel to the day, had a few MGD's - not all american beer if bad.

Made an appointment with the Chev dealer, real friendly service guy, could not have been more helpful. Found that we have a noisy wheel bearing on the car. He said it's still tight, so should be OK for a while. Difficult to leave it though as the car spends many miles behind the m'home and if a wheel fell off we could drag it for a while before it was noticed & there could be other resulting damages, so we told him to get the parts and we will get it done before moving on. We need to be able to count on 3 or 4,oookm's before we get home.

Tomorrow we are off to see the battlefield site where Custer & the 7th cavalry got their hair lifted by Sitting Bull.

Bear Canyon

Found a nice RV park at exit 313 on the I-90, in a place called Bear Canyon. After we checked in they advised us not to leave out garbage because they have had a bear in the park for the last 3 days running. There are about 3 or 4 tenters in the park, not sure I would be quite that bold, but have not seen it yet. We are fairly close to the Custer areas and the Little Big Horn site. Took this direction to see where custer got his hair lifted. Anyway will be in that area tomorrow. Went into Bozeman and ate at Chicago, an Italian restaraunt. Was good. Got some kind of vibration thing with the car, so not sure what the plans for tomorrow are, stay tuned.

Across the Border

Early start in the morning & on to Coutts where we visited the duty free and into Montana. For you scotch fans - 15 yr old Dalwhinnie was the order of the day. The US customs guy was nice, but they had about 4 vehicles pulled over for detailed searches, so guess they weren't looking for seniors- HAH! Some real interesting scenery down the I-15, particularly the mesas and through the mountain passes. The Mesa pictured should show up if you click on it. The Indians in this area stampeded buffalo over the cliffs when they were looking to get meat. Stopped at the Flying J in Great Falls for fuel and lunch & were disapppointed to learn they no longer have a salad bar. Made our way down through the passes south of Helena and turned east to Bozeman.

Thursday, Sept 30

After a night in Balzac [yes that is correct], we went in to the dealership where they re-did the bedroom ceiling in our RV. They were pretty good about it. Hope this is it; for that long suffering issue. Drove on to Milk River, where we spent the night in the town campground. The town is about 2o km from the border, so we were well positioned to head out in the morning. The picture with Marg is the town's namesake, the Milk river. Had a sumptuous [not] dinner at the local chinese restaraunt, I think we had who-flung-duck. Anyway it was OK, but after when driving around we found a nice Italian place so bought pastry there, it was really good.