Right after leaving Sundance, we headed for Devil's Tower (or Bear Lodge, if you want to be more politically correct about it). I wasn't feeling super-great so we didn't actually walk around the tower, but we did get close enough to it to be amazed. The tower itself is really cool looking for a distance, but once you get close in, the boulders surrounding it add to the grandeur. It's clear why it was a sacred site: it looks so darn imposing. Can you believe that people climb it? The best story is that one person parachuted on top of Devil's Tower and had to be rescued six days later by rock climbers. (What the heck did he expect to do, anyway, once he got to the top? Parachute down?) Anyway, although Devil's Tower wasn't one of our must-sees, Alex and I were both glad we went.
From Devil's Tower, we headed north along I-90 into the Montana. We stopped at the site of the battle of Little Bighorn. Guess what? It's a field of grass. The visitor center was good, though. I have trouble understanding the whole thing, like, why exactly were we rooting for Custer anyway? It seems like the whole cause he was fighting for was sort of morally ... questionable. Alex enjoyed learning about the Crow Indian scouts fighting in the US Army (there was a roll call sheet along with handy pronunciation and translation keys for their names) and how the battlefield was interpreted. There is a marker at each place where they can identify that a solider died--white for US troops, red for Lakota/Cheyenne. They also have signs explaining what happened on various parts of the field, and a memorial to horses. Alex found the memorial a bit confusing at first--they killed the horses for breastworks? Is that like horse armor or something, like a breastplate? Why would you need to kill the horse for it? But some Googling later revealed that this meant Custer's men were so desperate they killed their horses to take cover behind the bodies.
From the visitors center: have you always wondered what a buffalo bladder looks like? Wonder no more!!
The highlight of the day, at least for me, was discovering that Montana is freaking gorgeous. Like, unwordly, feel-like-you're-in-a-movie beautiful. What made is so? First, there's a tremendous variety of scenery all at the same time: hills, mountains, with trees and snow-capped, valleys, rivers, the odd train track, all set against a smoky sky. (It's almost like God tried to create a Settlers of Catan board.) For much of the ride we were heading directly toward a series of snow-capped mountains best described as: only missing the "Coors Light" label. To make it even more beautiful, the clouds simultaneously let through beams of light from the sun while in other parts of the sky sheets of rain feel in the distance.
Big sky!
We also passed by a number of wildlife, including what appeared to be a deer farm and what was either a bison farm or a large bison herd that happened to congregate behind some guy's fence. But we're so over bison we didn't even both to slow down much. Speaking of slowing down: a group of three deer crossed the road in front of our car on the route to Gardiner, MT (don't worry, we were going slowly enough that this wasn't a problem).
There was one major disappointment on the day: discovering that Montana brought back a state-wide speed limit. I wanted to see what the no speed limit signs looked like!
On a trip planning note, those of you with maps and a great deal of attention to detail might have noticed that we took a not-so-direct route to get to Yellowstone. Specifically, it would have been far faster for us to drive to Yellowstone's East Entrance along US-16, but instead we looped around the entire top of Yellowstone via I-90. The reason we did this is simple: the East Entrance doesn't open for two more days! Consequently, we figured it was better to drive a little bit longer and get an extra day in Yellowstone rather than try to fill up 24 hours in Cody, Wyoming. (Which I'm sure is very nice...)
We plan to spend several days at Yellowstone. Expect further reports and pictures soon!
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