Weather: sunny in morning, heavy thunderstorm and hail in afternoon, later light drizzle
304 miles
I got up about 8.00, and purchased a simple breakfast of a danish pastry and orange juice from a nearby gas station. I then headed out to the Devil's Tower, 30 minutes or so to the northwest. The road offered me my first views of this curious mountain, a flat-topped mountain with near-vertical sides rising from an otherwise almost flat landscape, other than what I had already seen in the movie ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind''.
The entrance to the National Parks Service site lay down by the Bell Fourche River, flanked on the tower side by vivid red cliffs. A winding road leads to the tower base via ``Prairie Dog Town'', an open expanse similar to that in Wind Cave (but without bison) where the creatures are again disturbed only by tourists rather than considerably more dangerous farmers and ranchers. Having seen them already, I decided to concentrate on seeing the tower before heading for the interstate.
I parked in the relatively busy main carpark and took a quick look in the visitor centre before applying liberal quantities of suncream and heading off on the trail around the immediate base of the tower. No alien spacecraft were in sight, merely earthly visitors.
The tower's origins lie in a volcano some 60 million years ago. Molten rock cooled to form a plug, which has remained long after the erosion of the surrounding land, cracking into elegant multi-sided columns around its circumference. Native American legend has it rather differently, with the rock rising from the ground to protect a group of children from a giant bear, which left its claw-marks on the sides as it tried in vain to reach the children.
The tower stands some 867 feet (264m) high and is a popular challenge for rock-climbers, despite opposition from the native Americans to whom the rock is sacred. Indeed, several climbers were visible as I walked around the base; also a system of old wooden ladders leading to the summit, but no longer in use.
I left a little before noon, heading down to the freeway and following it as far as the town of Gillette. There I turned off in search of somewhere to eat, finding a ``Hardee's'' fast-food outlet, at which I had a cheeseburger and fries before continuing on my way.
A while beyond Gillette, I observed dark clouds over the mountains in the distance. Gradually these got closer, until I found myself driving through a terrific thunderstorm, with hailstones and torrential rain, forcing me to slow right down until I could find a turnout to wait for it to pass. This it soon did, and I continued as far as the town of Buffalo, at which I-25 joins I-90 from the south and both continue northwards into Montana.
I made a brief stop at a tourist information point, evidently undergoing considerable renovation, then continued up the freeway, having decided against heading westwards into the Bighorn Mountains in view of the weather. Around ninety miles further on, I turned off to the Little Bighorn Battlefield, formerly known as Custer Battlefield but recently renamed in the interests of political correctness.
I first took a look around the visitor centre, then wandered out the back to find a well-whiskered ranger explaining the course of events that had made the site famous, back on 26 June 1876. Afterwards I took a brief look around the Custer National Cemetery, one of several across the US in which members of the armed forces from across many generations are buried, before heading out onto the battlefield itself.
The battle has its origins in 1874, when Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills region, violating an 1868 treaty which had pledged the region to the Lakota Sioux. The discovery of gold by Custer's expedition caused a rush into the hills followed by moves to acquire the lands from the native owners, albeit unsuccessfully. The lack of success was blamed on those Indians still following their traditional ways beyond the reservation, and the government's solution was to force them onto the reservation under their control.
Conflict was therefore inevitable, and came in mid-June. The initial confrontation was fierce yet light on casualties, and resulted in a retreat by the US soldiers by an Indian army led by Crazy Horse. Over the following days, large numbers of Indian warriors assembled in the valley of the Little Bighorn river, their numbers augmented by their relatives from the reservations. On the 25th, Custer's men caught up with them, and attacked the next day.
The first attack took place towards the Indian village, and resulted in the US forces meeting far stronger resistance than expected, again being forced to retreat. Knowledge of the events that followed remains somewhat uncertain, having been built up largely through the stories of Indian survivors and archaeological evidence from the battlefield. Custer's defiant ``Last Stand'' of popular legend is largely myth: he and his men were not bravely defending their position to the last man, but instead completely overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers and weaponry, the last of Custer's men falling while trying to escape the confusion.
The tragic result, news of which reached Washington on July 4th, the day of the nation's centenary celebrations, was a crushing defeat for the US forces. For the Native Americans, their success was short-lived, and within a few years all had been forced to abandon their old lifestyle for good, most dependent on the reservations.
A road a few miles long led out across the battlefield, a bleak landscape of gently rolling hills, with occasional boards alongside explaining the events that took place there. A monument stood at the top of Last Stand Hill, while just below a cluster of gravestones marked where each of Custer's men fell in the last desperate bid to escape down a steep ravine. Nearby a second monument was under construction, honouring those who fought on the other side in the conflict.
I returned to the interstate and continued northwest to the town of Hardin. There I stopped for fuel before finding the town's Super 8 motel and taking a room for the night. While unloading I found a slight problem in that a plastic water bottle had been leaking over some of the contents of my rucksack and the car's carpet, which necessitated a minor salvage operation -- fortunately nothing important appeared to have been seriously damaged.
I went out a little later in search of somewhere to eat, initially on foot but soon realised I really needed the car again. I drove into the centre of the town and found the Merry Mixer restaurant, at which I had a salad (again) followed by steak. I returned to the motel and went to bed around 11.30.