Tours of Sundance Wyoming

We arrived here Thursday afternoon, tired from pulling the trailer up and down hills, attempting to keep up with traffic (Remember it is 75MPH out here), all in a cross wind.  The fuel cost of moving the trailer from Billings Montana to Sundance Wyoming, was 53 cents per mile.  All things combined, wind, hills, and speeds higher than 55-60MPH really drag the miles per gallon down.  On the up side, the trip doesn’t take as long.  Anne-Marie and I saw around 30 antelope along the trip, all scattered in small groups 1-4 along the highway, and hundreds of horses, but we couldn’t tell if they belonged to anyone or if they were truly wild.  Sundance Wyoming is located in the northeastern corner of the state, and our drive was mostly in grasslands, and for the most part it is still green for hundreds of miles.

 

When wintering in Tucson, Anne-Marie and I tour and hike with Steve Cox, who also stays at the same RV Park.  Wednesday when I was planning our stay in Sundance, I checked Steve’s blog, as he also is touring the west, and he had changed his location to Sundance Wyoming, we crossed paths again.  Today Steve, Anne-Marie and I are planning to tour the Devils Tower National Monument, and the Vore Buffalo Jump, tomorrow visiting the local museums in town, to find the history of the Sundance Kid.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Upon arriving at the Visitors Center today, we walked in with the announcement of an orientation movie starting in 5 minutes in the theater, just in time.  Movie over, we just got through the exhibits, and the next announcement was for a narration given by a staff member titled Battle Talk.  The staff member is a retired high school history teacher, and his presentation was done well enough to be on The History Channel, very impressive.  The Battle Talk lecture was about the politics of the USA and Indians, and of the changing of the requests of the Indians, well before the military became involved, and then the military actions that led to the battle with little hope for Custer’s group.



The museum has many well done exhibits, expressing views from both sides.



After the orientation movie and the very well done Battle Talk lecture, Anne-Marie and I attended a walking tour of some of the monuments that were placed where the soldiers, and some of the Indians died.  Our guide is shown beside two red markers for the fallen Indians, this program is far from complete with only around 16 sites marked yet.  The marble monument with black on the face is marking where Custer fell, only the officers were marked with names, and the others were marked only as U.S. Soldier 7th Cavalry Fell Here June 25, 1876.  The markers dotted the ravines and ridges both, some solitaire, and some in small groups.

The white monument naming the soldiers involved, is marking a mass grave where they relocated the shallowly buried soldiers in 1881, and the granite monument was at the start of the self guided tour.



There is a Monument dedicated to the Indians lost in the battle, with a really neat metal sculpture.  The Custer National Cemetery is located on a flat area of the hill below where the battle happened, there are around 5000 Military Veterans buried here.  Anne-Marie is pictured on the right of both photos.

The final leg of our tour of the battlefield was the Reno-Benteen Entrenchment Trail.  This was a self guided walking tour, with markers indicating the actions of the troops, and their defenses, and the actions of the Indians.  Of special note, the Indians lost between 60 and 100 braves, and Custers group was about 210 men, Reno-Benteen lost 50 with 52 wounded.


This weekend is Little Big Horn Days in Hardin Montana, this is the town just outside of the Crow Indian Reservation. The highlight is the Custer’s Last Stand Reenactment on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  This is a major event for the community, as there are events planned from 9:00AM to 10:00 PM Wednesday through Saturday, and till 3:00PM Sunday.
Tomorrow is a travel day.  We will be moving the trailer to Sundance Montana for two nights, and from there we will be making a visit to Devils Tower National Monument.

Pictograph Cave State Park

We fueled the van yesterday, and the cost to move the trailer from Butte to Billings was 39 cents per mile. I believe that the really strong tail winds helped a lot with the low cost.

This park is only 6 miles south of Billings, located in the Bitter Creek River Valley.  The drive into the valley was on a nice county road, and when we dropped into the grass covered valley, you could almost imagine the wandering herds of buffalo of hundreds of years ago.  The caves were used for thousands of years by native people.  The excavations have shown various skill levels in tool making and construction, and the last occupancy of the cave was perhaps 200 years ago, as indicated by the use of metal tools, and the painting of seven rifles on the wall.  The paintings have faded and the darker colors barely show at all from the viewing area, and the camera doesn’t show much.

Our van in front of the interpretive Center

The Pictograph Cave on the right, the Interpretive Center, and the grass plains beyond.

The Pictograph Cave

The seven rifles are the easiest to recognize, the damp staining of the walls has faded the darker colors.

The red paint shows the best.  This is is to the left of the rifles.

The interior of the cave is quite large, and the professional archaeological excavations that took place in 1937 has removed several feet of material from the floor of the cave.  The level of the cave floor in 1937 is marked on the wall in black dashed lines.  Anne-Marie on the right.

Pompeys Pillar & Boot Hill

We visited a Lewis and Clark Monument today.  Pompeys Pillar National Monument was only about a 20 minute drive east of Billings, and Anne-Marie and I enjoyed the interpretive center, the displays, the movie, and even the walk up the wooden stairway to view Clarks engraving in the sandstone.

The Interpretive center and Pompeys Pillar.


Custer’s troops were camped in the valley centered across the Yellowstone River in 1873.  Anne-Marie on the stairs at the top of Pompeys Pillar.


Wooden stairs clear to the top and only a small deck at the top.  There were motion detectors and cameras at various places along the walkway.


Clarks inscription under really thick glass. There were many inscriptions dating from the late 1800s on the adjacent rock.


We visited Boot Hill Cemetery on our way back to the RV Park.


Marked but not labeled.  A brass marker at the top of the cemetery listed the occupants alphabetically but not where they were, and there were dozens of unknowns listed, children & soldiers.












We arrived back at the trailer to good smells in the slow-cooker of Anne-Marie’s Wolf At The Door chili.

Billings Montana

We had a good and uneventful drive from Butte yesterday, and with a tail wind most of the way.

Our trailer is parked in the Billings KOA RV Park, and we have a incredible patio, fire pit, BBQ stand, Patio table with umbrella, swinging rocker bench, and a park bench.


The swinging bench is a custom one.


These premium sites are really nice, and the RV park is really clean and tidy.  They place a real premium price on the pull-through sites $79.00 per nights stay, as you see we chose a back-in site.

Traveling today

We are leaving Butte today, and we will be traveling to Billings Montana.  There are a few landmarks that Anne-Marie would like to visit nearby, Pompeys Pillar National Historical Landmark, and the Custer Battlefield Visitor Center. 

The fuel cost to move the trailer to Butte was 47 cents per mile.  The cost per gallon seems to be getting cheaper the further east we travel.

Butte Tours

Yesterday Anne-Marie and I went on a walking tour of the Dellinger Building and surrounding buildings that are or once were a part of old downtown Butte Montana. Our guide on this walk was Dick Gibson, who is a geologist, historian, and has many other achievements, in addition to an author of two books on local butte history. We circled the block and he had stories and historical facts on the buildings on both sides of the street and even on the trolley cars and tracks, including early paving and curbing materials, (Granite). The early paving material that was used was granite blocks, about the size of a loaf of bread, and in some places the roadbed here in town has been built up over five feet.

The Gas Company has the alley behind all dug up, but the picture shows the over the alley walkway to a little three story building and a newer piece of metal covering what was a door to an open stairway that led to the third floor sleeping rooms, suspected of being a brothel. All three floors had no internal access up or down, only outside access.

The buildings that were destroyed by fire, and the buildings that replaced them, and the owners stories are fascinating, The Leggat, Fire Proof, Hotel, the tallest in the distance, was built on the site of a Opera House that burned in the late 1800s, and Mark Twain is supposed to have preformed there.

Upstairs in the Dellinger building, inaccessible since 1938, has many original items left in place since it was boarded off. The building was built with light wells, tall windows and skylights, to maximize natural light, before electricity was reliable.The Dellinger Law Offices were in very rough shape when the building owners accessed them. The large items were found in place, chairs, file cabinets, desks, bookshelves, and the smaller items were brought in from other local sites.

The hallway had a round hot water radiant heater; I haven’t seen one of these before.

The law office was even equipped with a phone and it was in a booth for privacy. The early directories show only three digit numbers.

The lighting in the building was very sparse, and only the larger rooms had two bare light bulbs, the smaller offices had but just one light bulb, and all were operated by their own pull string.

Last night Anne-Marie and I had Chinese food at the Pekin Noodle Parlors. This restaurant has been operating continuously on the second floor of this same building for 101 years. The center door of this building leads to the restaurants stairs.

An unusual feature of the restaurant is that it has dining booths for privacy, and the wait staff has roller carts used to deliver dinner to the patrons. The restaurant is only open at 5 PM for dinner.