Little Bighorn National Park ( are you getting the theme of Garryowen, MT)

June 25 – Sunday and we slept in.  Bill didn’t get moving until 9.  We had decided after breakfast he would wash the car and the front of the RV and I’d start cleaning the RV from back to front.  Everything is dusty from the winds blowing in around the slides and during opening and closing them.  Bill was finished first so he started from the front of the RV.  I literally wiped every wall in the bedroom, dusted, changed the sheets, vacuumed, cleaned the mirrors and the sink.  I used 2 rags and I still didn’t do the cabinet fronts along the table as we have a lot of stuff under the table and I didn’t do the cabinets above the driving panel. The floors are shiny and it smelled so nice with the Orange Glo scent in the air.  I also put a Bison pot roast in the crockpot with carrots, onion soup mix and beef broth to cook while we were out this afternoon.

Memorial

Bill showered and I showered and scrubbed down the shower, the door and the door track which is the hardest and nastiest to clean.  So now the bathroom was clean again also.  We had lunch and watched the end of a show on TV then headed to Little Bighorn National Park.  Of course there was a long line as today was the 141^st Anniversary of the 
battle and there was a lot going on at the park.  Different tribes were doing different things at different times.  It was free for anyone to go today so that draws more people also.  Their VC is pretty small which I didn’t even remember from the last time we were there.  We skipped the movie since we saw one yesterday but checked out the interesting displays and Bill got this magnets from the gift shop.  We found a bench outside to wait for the 3:00 event of the Indians riding in and there was a Tribal leader speaking outside at the end of the building and then blessed all the young people doing a “run” in memory of the event.  There was a group of men around a huge drum and they chanted and played the drum.  Suddenly we saw Indians on horseback go around the car circle and head back down the driveway.  I asked a ranger where they would be coming back so we would be in position and he said they were done and wouldn’t be back.  So no one on our side of the building saw a thing except horses rear ends!

 

Tribal Flag Display

We gave up on the events at the VC and drove to the memorial on the hill top where the majority of the 249 soldiers died.  When we were here prior you could walk around the headstone that mark where each man fell but now they have a fence around it.  Those that were identified were later moved, but the remains of the unidentified were buried in the mass grave under the memorial.  Part of Custer was moved to West Point where he went to school.  There is also a mass grave for the horses with a headstone.  They killed their own horses to use them as a barricade.  There are red granite stone markers where any known Indians were killed, but the Indians took most of their dead with them to perform their native rituals. 

We drove the rest of the battle loop which is pretty far and explains why Custer, Reno and Benteen had no idea what was going on with each other.  It’s a rolling hills area and you would never know what is on the other side of the hill.  We stopped across from the river location of the reenactment we went to yesterday and took photos from the hillside.  One of the rangers told us that they will never know the true facts about a lot of what happened.  As story was retold and retold by soldiers and Indians it was changed a little here and

View of Reenactment area from across the river

there and what the soldiers recorded is not what the Indians claim so the truth lies somewhere in between.

As we left the park we crossed over to a big “trading post” with a restaurant and perused the beautiful jewelry, pottery, rugs, blankets, all the things I love but don’t need.  Bill got a t-shirt and I got some huckleberry chap stick as mine is down to a nub.  Bill checked the menu posted to see if they had Indian fry bread and they did for $6 a piece so we passed. 

Next door was another Crow Agency event so we parked to see if they had fry bread.  Theirs was $3 so we each got one with honey and it was so hot we took it to the car and by then it was cooled enough to eat.  Yummy!  My favorite thing about being out west near the native Americans.  Well, that and the jewelry! 

The smell of pot roast was stimulating my taste buds once we reached the RV, but we waited quite a while for dinner since we’d had that bread.  I added in my canned whole potatoes and let them warm through and when it was time to eat I made gravy from some of the beef broth.  Bill loves gravy and that bison roast is so tender you rake it apart with a fork.  We each had a small piece of peach jello pie and that’s it for today.

I typed the blog but could not a wifi signal.  I downloaded and prepped my photos.  Maybe the next campground will have better wifi.