2017 Western Trip Day 1 and 2

We headed out Friday August 18th toward the Black Hills of South Dakota again for the annual Black Hills Hammock Hang but we have been making this a two week road trip going somewhere new before and ending up at the Hang. This year Vicky decided she wanted to explore the areas of Little Big Horn and Devils Tower National Monuments

So off we went, through the flat lands of Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and bit into Wyoming and then into Montana

We split the driving up and Vicky drove her share.

Because we started after work on Friday, we stopped for the first night in Council Bluff Iowa at a hotel to get some sleep for the rest of the 11 hour drive the next day to get to Montana

Entering into South Dakota and the sunflower fields and the n the long stretches of just nothing 

We decided to come up Hwy 212 leaving Spearfish SD and ran into no highway as it is being completely torn out and replaced. 

 Good thing for us there was virtually no traffic on a Saturday afternoon.

Little Big Horn National Monument is near a very small town called Garryowen Montana and also adjacent to Crow Agency Montanta, which is the headquarters of the Crow Native American Reservation.  We didn't bring the RV on this trip as we had to make miles to get where we wanted to go and felt it would be very hard to pulling the RV.

 The RV campsite we were going to stay in also had cabins! (shed, barn, dustbin) but it seemed good for what we needed, which was just a place to sleep at the end of the day after exploring the battlefield and local area. However I didn't realize it was "Bring your own linens" However we had all our camping gear, so it was fine

The RV site was called 7th Ranch RV campsite (after Custer's 7th Calvary Division) the owners were very nice and the campsite was only 4 miles from the National Monument.

 After settling in, we made it over to the Little BigHorn National Monument. After 6 pm you can drive in for free and we took advantage of the first night to just go in and give it a quick look around 

We walked around the monument with the names of the soldiers that died in the battle inscribed on it.

the vantage point view from the monument 

After a quick look around at the park we ventured literally right across the street to the Custer Battlefield Trading Post. This is both gift shop, tourist trap and restaurant. We would get to know this place as we would have every meal here for a couple of days and of course Vicky needed a few items from the gift shop!

The family that owns the store and the people that work there were all very nice and the food was good. They had a selection of very colorful Tepees out front, and later we would fine out more about the traditional celebration that we had fortuitously stumbled upon.

After dinner, which I had the traditional Indian fry bread taco salad (very good) we headed back to the campsite for the evening 

Excellent evening sunset for our first night 

Our little cabin on the prairie