Billings, MT – Day 58: Cowboys & Indians

What happens when you don’t take a drive on the interstate and instead stay far away from that type road, add a detour to avoid dirt road sections of a state highway, toss in a couple small detours for Roadside America photos and then spend an hour at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument? Four and a half hours becomes nine. The park was very interesting, and the Montana backroads are smooth and uncrowded. Oh, and it was a gloriously sunny day, the first in about 5 days.

 
A white marker has been placed on the battlefield wherever a 7th Cavalry soldier died and was initially buried. This is Last Stand Hill, and the officers have their names on the stones. The black hightlighted marker is for General Custer. No one is buried under the markers; 5 years later they were all dug up and buried in a mass grave, which is under a Large Memorial Marker.

Now for what everyone is waiting for: roadside oddities. Yesterday we had a large cowboy statue and a cowboy riding a dinosaur; today we have a Cowboy Riding A Rocket, but someone has stolen his hat. Then a couple hours later it was a Creepy Crawler Giant Baby which I think would be creepier without the animals and the dinosaur. Oh, this morning before leaving Hettinger, I took a picture of Last Marker of the Yellowstone Trail.