| After ten days at the Escapade in Gillette,
Wyoming we said farewell to many friends and hit the road with old friends
Rich and Diane Emond who will be our traveling companions the next two
and a half months. The Emonds have been fulltiming almost as many years
as us and since February 2000 we have met them many times. In 2003 we spent
most of the summer in the Canadian Maritimes together and in 2006 we traveled
across the southern part of the country together and spend a couple of
months in Arizona and California. This summer we'll spend two months in
Canada and complain about the high cost of fuel and the devalued US dollar.
Our first day out of Gillette we saw the
beautiful snow capped Big Horn Mountains and stopped for the afternoon
at Little Bighorn Battlefield. We Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument On June 25, 1876, approximately 7,000 Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, including 1,500-2,000 warriors were encamped along the Bighorn River. Led by Sitting Bull they refused to be restricted to their reservation preferring their traditional nomadic way of life. Other Indian chiefs were Crazy Horse and Two Moon. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer found the encampment and divided his command, the 7th Calvary, into three groups with Custer and approximately 225 men in pursuit of mounted warriors on a ridge. Custer made a grave miscalculation and when the fighting was over every soldier in his command had been killed. All together the US Army lost about 260 soldiers and the Indians lost between 60 and 100 warriors. We walked to a knoll where Custer and 41 of his men were killed and markers are placed where each one fell. They were mass buried on the knoll and in later years some of their remains were re-interned elsewhere. Custer's remains were reburied at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY. A monument sits on top of the knoll known as Last Stand Hill. There are signs around the battlefield showing troop and warrior movements and monuments stand where each body fell. There is an Indian Memorial near Last Stand Hill. Today the Battlefield is situated on a Crow
Indian Reservation and is administrated by the National Park Service. An
excellent museum explains the history of the battle and has a lot of artifacts
including clothing worn by Col. Custer.
Glacier National Park This was our third trip to Glacier National
Park (2000, 2004, 2008), but the first visit for Rich and Diane Emond.
We chose to stay in St. Mary at the park's east entrance because it was
on our route to Calgary, Alberta. Johnson's Campground sits on a hill overlooking
Glacier National Park and Lower St. Mary Lake. The campground has full
hookup sites on top of the hill, but the sites are not level and trees
hinder parking in the sites. So we stayed in the lower part of the campground
which is level and has water and electric hookups. It was also $5 a night
cheaper.
Glacier National Park was established in 1910 and contains over one million acres. It is a diverse park with lakes, rivers and water falls, snow capped mountains and glaciers, open plains and Going To The Sun Road transverses the park from east to west. The road is narrow with tunnels and rock out croppings that prohibit vehicles over 21 feet in length (including bumpers), over 8 feet wide (including mirrors), and over 10 feet high. The road is 50 miles long with many stopping places to view the natural wonders and take hikes. We stopped at St. Mary Lake with beautiful
blue water and mountains in the background and at Jackson Glacier. At the
Visitor Center at Logan Pass we toured the museum and took a hike on a
high snow covered vista. Being fulltimers we don't normally like snow,
but that walk was OK because we drove down the mountain and out of the
snow. At Weeping Rock water oozes out of the mountain in many places to
create a weeping effect. We stopped at water falls and by McDonald Creek
for a picnic lunch. Going To The Sun Road is fragile and there is always
work to be done shoring up the highway so it doesn't fall into the valleys.
Some of the drive was slow with frequent stops for construction. Once on
the west side of the park we stopped at Apgar Visitor Center and took in
the beauty of Lake McDonald.
Instead of driving back over the road we
took a loop around the southern side of the park. At East Glacier Park
we toured the old hotel. The Great Northern Railroad completed a line to
Glacier in 1892 and by 1915 the railroad built several chalets and lodges
as a way of increasing train ridership. The chalets and lodges were built
one day's ride apart so tourist could visit Glacier and tour the area by
horse and wagon. It wasn't long before the automobile and road displaced
the horse and wagon, but three of the large luxury lodges survives. We
visited East Glacier Lodge and Many Glacier Lodge, but we did not drive
across the Canadian border to visit the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton,
Alberta. The elegant lodges were built with large timbers that still stand
and over the years they have been reenforced with steel, but the crude
beauty is still there. East Glacier is located at the train station and
Many Glacier is well north and off the beaten path between Lake Sherburne
and Lake Swiftcurrent.
Our tour in Montana is complete and we are on our way to Calgary, Alberta and the Calgary Stampede. |
