Friday, May 25, 2012

Hail, Rain, and Snow, Wyoming to Montana

It started with a hail storm in Douglass. Small hail, but the cold front arrived after.
It was going to be a long cold travel day, so I put some beef stew in the Crock Pot to cook off the inverter while we traveled. Made a nice hot lunch when we arrived in Sheridan.
THe terrain was changing and interesting even through the rain.
We began to see strange critters on the hillsides, like this Jackalope,
and Triceratops.
Passed a couple Historical Markers, this one about the discovery of oil in Wyoming in the late 1800s.
And this one about the Indian Wars started by the violation of our treaty with the Indians. We were the violators.
Big stormy skies over the Bighorn Mountains.
Entering Montana, cloudy and rainy.

Everyone stopped to see the Little Bighorn Battlefield, site of Custer's Last Stand.
This description in the museum...
Next to a diorama of the battle.
 THe National Cemetery on the grounds is prepared for Memorial Day ceremonies.
 The battle site. The markers show where individual soldiers fell. The black one is where Custer's body was found. The soldiers are buried here in a mass grave under a monument at the top of the hill. Custer's body was moved to the National Cemetery in Washington, if I remember correctly. It was too cold and rainy to stay and read all the signs.
Back on the road, we ran into snow flurries.
 Big flakes that melted upon hitting the ground. Accumulations were expected in the Beartooth Mountains, closing some of the passes there.
This view from our campground, where we will stay a few days...to wait for Carol to catch up (She was feeling under the weather today and decided not to travel....a wise decision given the weather.) We'll wait here for two to have work done on the RVs in Billings (My hot water heater is leaking, and Mitch still has battery concerns.) And we'll wait for the weather to improve.
We've landed in an interesting small town...a surprise. And we'll have some fun exploring for a few days between showers.

4 comments:

  1. Okay Liz--are you photo shopping those animals? lol, Snow on Memorial Day weekend--ouch. Glad to hear that the small town is interesting. I Google-mapped it really is small. Hope you and Mitch get your RV problems quickly and cheaply repaired.

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  2. Liz, your friends are either all southerners or wienies. Of course it's snowing in Montana! (But the summers are delightful.) Great photos of a lovely part of the country. Your travels are broadening -- for me!

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  3. Thank you Liz for the tour of the last stand of Custer... so much history in the west... CArol is the first reason to stay put and the second is the weather... will be worse most likely in Canada...

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