Sheridan WY to Hobson MT -- 290 miles
We got away from the RV park at about 8:30 am and drove up I-90, crossing into Montana after just 23 miles, then approximately 40 more miles to the Little Bighorn Battle National Monument, the site of Custer’s Last Stand. Here, on June 26, 1876, Lt Col George Armstrong Custer and his entire force of some 140 men of the 7th Cavalry were wiped out by a vastly superior force of Souix, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other Indians. I won’t go into the details of the battle, which is well-documented, but will describe the battlefield which remains today almost exactly as it was on the day of the battle. Only the road, the visitor center, the battlefield monument, and the National Cemetery have been added. The final battle took place on a grassy ridge, perhaps three-fourths of a mile above the Little Bighorn River. The combined Indian camp, with a total of 7000 to 8000 men, women and children, lay across the river, between it and today’s Interstate 90. It’s easy to place one’s self in the small band of cavalrymen, surrounded by 1500 to 2000 Indian warriors, wondering how they had so badly miscalculated the strength and numbers of the enemy. Unfortunately, that was probably one of their final thoughts as they were surrounded and cut off from any relief which was miles away. If I have time later I'll pick a couple of photos and edit this post to paste them in.
Leaving the Monument, we stopped for a burger in the next town, Hardin, MT, then off again toward Billings. We gassed up in Billings and headed north on US 87, the first non-interstate highway of our trip. Coincidentally, US 87 also runs through San Antonio, and this was the highway we took up into the Texas hill country to my Boy Scout camp back in the 1950's.
US 87 is a two lane road that travels almost due north to the small town of Grass Range, where it makes a 90 degree turn and heads off due west. The first 20-25 miles is through more rolling prairie until it hits a wooded escarpment and climbs a few hundred feet up onto another plateau. Traveling through this area is not unlike the Texas hill country -- think Kerrville with ponderosa pine instead of live oak and cedar. The small town of Roundup lies in the midst of this forested area, and it's easy to imagine this as the destination of Gus and Call in their cattle drive to Montana in Lonesome Dove. Atop the plateau is more rolling grassland, dotted here and there with playas like you see in the Llano Estacado of the Texas panhandle. Off on the western horizon you can see the Big Snowy Mountains with a dusting of snow still visible on the highest peaks. All around you the world is a sea of green. This has been an extremely wet early summer, and the prairies are as green as Ireland (well, almost).
We finally reached our destination for the night, Ackley Lake State Park, just a few miles past Lewistown and near the tiny burg of Hobson, MT. If you look at a map of Montana, Lewistown is pretty much dead center in the state. It sits in the middle of a huge basin called the Judith Basin, a broad valley surrounded by distant mountains. It is somewhat similar to the "parks" in the Colorado mountains -- South Park, Middle Park, and North Park.
The state park is small and primitive -- just a few campsites with picnic shelters scattered around the edge of a small irrigation lake, which is perhaps a mile long and a half mile wide. There are no facilities other than a couple of vault toilets. The shore is ringed with small cottonwood trees, probably what might be considered teenagers in tree terms. There is a basic boat ramp, and a few locals were out joyriding on the lake and pulling kids on a float tube. We saw only one boat that looked like it was fishing. But the best part about the park is that the camping is free.
After dinner we took a walk part way around the lake, perhaps two miles in all, then settled in for the night. I was tired from two solid days of driving, so I conked out around 9:00 pm. An interesting side note -- we're far enough north already (47 degrees north) that the sun had not slipped below the horizon when I called it quits. (I'm writing this the next day, Sunday.)
No comments:
Post a Comment