From British Columbia, we weaved our way down to Eureka, MT and then headed to Great Falls. There, we went to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. Jane went to a lecture by one of the rangers so John was ahead of her on seeing the exhibits. Jane actually got to take her time reading all the information (John just scans and gets impatient with Jane). She was amazed at all she learned…the biggest was that there are falls on the Missouri River (duh…thus, Great Falls)!
On we traveled to Billings, MT and to our temporary home, the Billings KOAon the Yellowstone River (we had stayed here when we were headed up to Canada). The days have been sunny and we are enjoying seeing it after so much cloudy and rainy weather in Alaska! We drove the Jeep to Pompey’s Pillar which is a prominent sandstone outcropping next to the
Yellowstone River (Wm. Clark and some of the men of the expedition explored this river on the return trip while Lewis and some others went another direction). Clark etched his name in the sandstone which is the only direct evidence of Lewis and Clark’s “Discovery Corp.” He named the prominence after Sacagawea’s (Sacaga= bird, Wea=woman) son, Jean Baptiste. The nickname Pompey was given to him by Clark…it meant “dancing boy”. He was born on the expedition. After our trip there, we had lunch in a small town in the area, and were amazed that this little rural town had about five café’s! Next stop was Pictograph Cave State Park. We enjoyed the walk, but actually could only see very few markings, but relied on the information we read about the Park. The excavations of this site were begun by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) but discontinued at the beginning of WWII. John has acquired a couple of Radio Controlled planes which he thoroughly enjoyed flying while here in Billings. Unfortunately, he lost one in the tree tops, but the morning we left, it had fallen down and we were able to retrieve it!
On to Cody, WY where we had lunch at The Irma Hotel, one of W.F. Cody’s hotels named for his youngest daughter. It was built about 1902. We then went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It is a huge collection of museums…one for natural history, Plains Indians, art work, guns (John said there were 1,500 firearms on display and another 1,200 downstairs), and of course, the Buffalo Bill museum! Back at the campground, John crashed the plane we were able to save from the tree-eating monster, and one of the props broke, so that one is permanently grounded!
On Sept 29th we departed Wyoming for Sturgis, SD via US 14 – a two lane highway (we think, no problem, for us, since that’s all we had in Alaska) until we could connect with the BIG Interstate 90! What we didn’t know was that we would be going through the Big Horn National Forest and the Big Horn Mountains! Jane was driving, and had a very circuitous road to follow, and very steep grades, but Mr. Cummins (our engine) did quite well despite having to work so hard (much of the time in second gear)! Our climb was approximately 4,000 feet until we reached Granite Pass at 9,033 feet! Some of the curves warned a speed of 25mph, so believe me, we did that or less! John said the scenery was beautiful and got some good photos, but Jane’s eyes were glued to the road, and that was a good thing!! We got into Sturgis around 4 PM and we were thankful to be at the Rush-No-More CG where we stayed in May.