Today I got to do something I've wanted to do for at least the last fifty years: visit the Little Big Horn battlefield. Unlike most normal humans, I've been totally addicted to American history from my earliest elementary school days. I never pass up an opportunity to read about historic events, visit historic places, or put my hands on historic things. Today, I got to do all three and I was in heaven. Fortunately, I married a woman who is equally fascinated with history. Though she is far less likely to haul historic items home the way I do, Concetta is always game for being dragged to yet another historic site. Lucky for me.
We scheduled virtually nothing for today but visiting the scene of Custer's last stand, located in the rolling hills of southeastern Montana and only 35 miles or so from last night's camp in Billings. Though I had some trepidation that sufficient room would exist for us to park our thirty-foot motor home at the site, it turned out that there was more than enough room for a dozen such vehicles. The price was nominal and the route well marked and soon we were headed for my long sought after goal.
The first thing we did was take a seat in an outdoor patio to listen to a park service employee give a thirty-minute detailed account of the events leading up to the 7th Calvary's last battle. Let me just tell you that the guy was so knowledgeable and so enthusiastic about his subject that he easily surpassed any of the history professors I ever had for shear "listen-ability." By the time the speaker had finished the entire audience was chaffing at the bit to get out on the hilltops and into the various coulees to try and locate each and every one of the graves of the various troopers who met their end June 26, 1876. He was just that good.
One of the things that stuck with me about George Custer was, despite the fact that many people consider him a failure for the demise of a hefty portion of the 7th Calvary, he was a darn talented military commander. During the Civil War he was one of the youngest generals in the Union Army at age 23. You don't get to be a General at age 23 by being unimpressive as a soldier.
I always assumed that one would have to stand on the summit of Last Stand Hill and look out over the low hills and grassy valleys surrounding the Little Big Horn to have any chance of grasping the significance of the battle. In that I was dead on. Between the spirited descriptions of park employees and the physical effects of standing on the wind-swept summit of Last Stand imagining yourself trying to hold off thousands of native Americans with a single-shot rifle you become totally immersed in the drama. Wow! I just loved it.
After a brief break for lunch, Concetta and I signed up for a guided tour of the entire battle area, including those positions occupied by Reno and Benteen's men five miles off to the east. Our guide, a native American, gave us some of the "rest of the story" filling us in on her ancestor's movements on the day of the battle as well as acquainted us with stories told after the battle by surviving Native American warriors. It was powerful, very powerful.
So it was that the clock read 4:00 p.m. by the time we finally loaded up for the trip to our evening camp site. Not wanting to spend the afternoon on the interstate, we chose instead highway 212 that headed, more or less, straight east out of the Little Big Horn area. Triple A said that there was only one small camp in that direction, in the town of Broadus, which I know you've never heard of. We never had, either. But though we sailed right by the camp located two miles west of town and had to ask at the local gas station where we'd missed it, we easily found it on the second try located just off the highway in a stand of trees. I didn't hold out much hope of being impressed with the "Wayside Mobile RV park," and its sixteen spaces, but I was pleasantly surprised when they had full hookups, a 30 amp electric, individual sewer connections, AND Wifi!! Man, you just never know. The price was just half of what the folks in Billings charged us for a site wedged between two other RVs. Here, I could barely hit our neighbor RV with a tossed stone.
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