Indian monument at Little Big Horn

Yesterday we traveled to the site of a huge battle at a place called Little Big Horn. This happened in 1875 when the US cavalry led by General Custer fought with the Indians (led by Chief Sitting Bull) in order to persuade them to go back to live in the reservations where the US government had put them. They did not want to live on a reservation and resisted the soldiers. As a result of the fighting, General Custer and all his men were killed by the Indians. The only survivor was a war horse, who was found later injured and bleeding but managed to recover. The Indians won that battle but lost the war. They ended up on reservations anyway. The whole story of the battle was told with great skill by a ranger at the site; he made it so realistic you could just imagine it happening in front of your eyes. Markers have been put where all the dead soldiers were found the next day by other cavalry troops. At the top of the hill is a huge white monument with the names of all the fallen soldiers. The prairie landscape around the place is vast and majestic. It was quite an experience being there.

monument on top of the hill where the battle took place

Marker to remember an Indian warrior who died here

markers showing where all the dead soldiers were found

We spent the evening at a ranch near the Little Big Horn river. It was an active working ranch with horses and cows etc which also served as an RV camp. The landscape all around us was vast prairie

Prairie view from our campsite

Today we decided to take a back road as a short cut to our next destination. Not a great idea. The road was under construction for a number of kilometers and reduced to mud and ruts and one lane. We waited for over half an hour in the burning sun (at least 34 degrees)  to be let through at one point. Good thing we are in vacation mode!

never take short cuts!




We also visited a very strange landscape today called "devil's tower". It was a piece of rock that jutted up our of the landscape and could be seen for miles around. It had been revered as a spiritual place for the Indians for centuries and even today the natives come to this place every June for a week of ceremonies and rituals. There are trails around the rock and every day mountain climbers climb up to the top  of it. The top is about as large as a football field.

closer view of the tower

Strong!

We drove through the town of Stergis South Dakota. Next week for a whole week they will have a motorcycle rally at the town, much like Port Dover. They expect more than 500,000 motorcycle riders. We already saw many of them riding in today, since we are camped right near the town. I was amazed at how many women ride their own cycles. If I were a bit younger....... But I am sure it will be a real zoo next week so I am glad we are moving on again on Saturday

Monday we visited an incredible museum called “Museum of the Rockies” in the city of Bozman. In this area of northern Montana, very large deposits of dinosaur bones have been found, many of which were on display at the museum. This is similar to the dinosaur park area in Alberta, which is just north of here.

Scientists also  have done much research on the geology of this area. It is hard to believe that animals that large once roamed the earth. What a sight that must have been!

 tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur in front of the museum

Tuesday we drove into Yellowstone National Park. We have camped in a little town Gardiner just outside of the park boundary. This is indeed a beautiful spectacular area of the country. It was designated to be a national park way in the late 1800’s since even back then they recognized it for being so unique and for the importance of keeping it unspoiled. It is a very mountainous area and as we went up and down and around the mountains the views were really incredible. Temperatures again varied by 20 degrees depending on whether we were on top of a mountain or in a valley. It is thought that the present landscape was formed by the eruption of a huge volcano, which erupted at least 3 different times in the distant past and now lies sleeping underneath the park. Molten rock from this volcano is thought to be as close as 5 km underground. Water from rain and snow seeps down below the surface of the ground where it is heated. Hot water and steam rises through underground fractures created by previous volcanoes to produce hot springs and geysers. The temperature of this can exceed the boiling point and all around the park there are signs warning people not to go near that ground. People have been burned to death over the years as a result of getting too close.  Years ago people would catch fish in one of the rivers and then cook them in a geyser or hot spring. This is now illegal since it is too dangerous. We saw many people fishing, camping and hiking as we drove around in the park. There are numerous hiking trails in this 2.2 million acre park and people are encouraged to always carry bear spray while hiking.

Here we are: finally!

many geysers: the soil was boiling hot. Looked like a moonscape and nothing can grow around it

Bison at the side of the road. In error these are called buffalo but are not since buffalo only live in Asia and Africa. Bisons are what the natives hunted. They have massive heads and a hump  on their backs. We saw a few of them traveling through the park, as well as a few herd of elk

Petrified tree. This  tree at one time was covered by lava during a volcano eruption  and the lava went through all its cells and turned it into rock.

Old Faithful geyser. So named because it faithfully erupts regularly every 90 minutes or so. Lots of steam comes out and then a sheet of boiling water shoots up from the ground. In the information center they even post the time of the next eruption. About 1000 people were gathered all around to watch this happening when we were there. The entire eruption took about 5 minutes. An impressive sight!

Old Faithful

wildflowers covering the mountain side

site of a forest fire in 1989. Note all the new trees that have sprung up

endless mountain views

bridge across Columbia River east Washington

A beautiful Sunday morning with warm temperatures and the sun shinning. At present we are in Butte Montana. Butte is the birthplace and final burial place of the great motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel. He was quite famous when I was younger and did all kinds of stunts and movies. He died at the age of 69, not of broken bones (which he had lots of!) but of lung problems. So every year they have a festival in Butte honouring Evel. Lots of motorcycles, music etc. That was this weekend, so the campsite was full of motorcyclists who had come for the festival. They ended it off with a fireworks display at night. Butte is an old copper and silver mining town; very prosperous in the early 1900's with lots of saloons etc..It is now much smaller with still one mine in the area operating.

Evel Knievel

Just to review: on Fri morning we left Seattle for our return trip traveling east. We are following the interstate highway 90, which pretty well stretches from west to east all the way across the continent.

Late Friday afternoon (July 25) we were looking for a place to camp for the night. We were still in the state of Washington. We turned off the interstate at a camping sign and followed the road into the country. The landscape at this point was very remote, very desert like with few houses and trees. We drove through a little village which looked like a ghost town. Only the post office and a grocery store were open; it looked like the setting of an old west movie. I was rather creeped out and really wondered where we would end up! We finally saw the campground, which looked almost deserted and had a for sale sign in front of it. Rusted old cars and trailers hap- hazardly strewn around, everything looked old and worn.

The owner of the campground  was elderly, with many tattoos gracing her arms and legs. She had a thick accent and acted gruff and stern. Yikes! She showed us to our spot, and we were glad to notice that there were other campers around. I figured since they were there, the place couldn't be that unsafe and stopped whining that I wanted to find another place. So actually it turned out ok, except for the fact that we were right beside a train track and I am sure I heard the train whistle and noise every hour on the hour all through the night! There was also a small lake onsite, with fresh water pelicans swimming around. A couple who had the campsite right beside us were from California. They were both ex military, he was a quadraplegic in a wheelchair. They had been traveling for 2 months already and expected to go another 2 months. They had just been at Yellowstone park, so were able to give us all kinds of good tips about where to go and what scary mountain roads to avoid. Interesting encounter!
Driving back through the town Saturday morning we stopped to look a a large collection of old trucks that someone had collected. Surrounded by barbed wire, for I am sure some of them were quite valuable!

trucks anyone?

old old old

Deserted stores on "main street". There was a sign on the store that said the store could be opened by appointment only since the owner was home taking care of a sick husband and lived only 2 miles away! The buildings looked like they had not been touched for at least 100 years.

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inside the deserted store: an "American Pickers" dream!

You can tell you are in Montana when you can go into any store to buy a gun!

After leaving Tina and John in Vernon, we traveled west again along the beautiful road through Kelowna to Hope to Langley. A very mountainous road: sometimes the outside temperature was almost  20 degrees lower depending on our altitude. We drove through the communities of Chilliwack and Abbotsford and Aldergrove, which up to now had been only names to me. From now on  will be able to visualize them! We got to Langley, where we had a great time visiting with the Van Beelens. They live in  a beautiful area of Langley, surrounded by trees. While Emily and Marieke live near them, the boys live far away; one in Mexico, one in New Zealand, one in Kelowna. It had been been 27 years since they had left Hamilton: wow time goes fast! We spend the night parked in their driveway, which worked fine. We would love to come back to the west coast of BC and and travel to Vancouver and Vancouver Island etc. It is worth a trip all of its own to properly experience everything. Would love to see Whistler as well. Perhaps some day.......
Wednesday we were on our way again, crossed over the border and drove through Seattle. Huge city. Lots of traffic, which we got caught in. Camped south of the city in a nice KOA. Thursday we took a guided tour of Seattle which was great. Got picked up right from the camp grounds. Seattle is a vigorous, vibrant city. We met a couple from Kelowna who had been traveling across Canada since May. They were going the opposite way to us , heading west again  while we are heading east today. They gave us some valuable tips about traveling in Yellowstone park. Told us to avoid a certain road since it was so mountainous and treacherous. We will be sure to do so!

not bad hair cut eh!

with Henk and Marya; has it really been 27 years !

welcome to USA: border crossing near Langley only took us a half hour

"fish ladders" in Seattle. The salmon come in from the Pacific ocean into Lake Washington to spawn and then to die. Since the lake is higher than the river they are swimming in, they need to jump from one height to the other, and so swimming upstream they make their way through these man made ladders to the higher level. Most fascinating to see them jump out of the water as they moved from one level to the other, all against the water flow. Their instinct within them is so strong that they have to return there to the place where they were originally hatched.

view of Seattle from surrounding hill. Many years ago part of the city was destroyed by fire. So rather than tearing it all down they just built on top of it. Parts of the old city can still be seen underneath, and it is possible to take an underground tour to view this. Too bad we didn't get the chance to do this.

We have been in Coldstream (suburb of Vernon) BC for the last few days visiting our friends John and Tina. I have known Tina since 1967 when we were both nursing students in Hamilton; a long time! Vernon and surrounding area is absolutely beautiful; I would move here in a flash if it wasn't for my dear kids and grandkids! It is surrounded by high hills, mountains and lakes. Just a really nice area of the country and now we can understand that once John and Tina moved out here there was no moving back to Hamilton! The forest fire situation has been bad in BC. More than 400 forest fires now, often been started by a carelessly thrown cigarette. People have been evacuated from their homes in the city of Kelowna, which is about 50 km from Vernon. But it has rained overnight, the extreme heat is gone so most of them are now under control.

on the ferry going across a lake: the only way to get to where we were going

mountain on one side, sheer drop on the other: yikes!

smoke from forest fires as we drove through the mountains on the way toVernon

incredible scenery around Vernon

view of Coldstream

from
surrounding hills

John and Tina; friends from way back

having a great time

since 1967!

On Monday we left our campsite to visit our old friend Yoka. We have known her for a long time and even traveled around Europe with her in 1970. She has been living in Alberta for many years so it was great to catch up with her. Wednesday morning we hit the road again. We traveled south of Calgary, along an interesting road called the "cowboy trail". All along this road were cattle ranches and some horse ranches. The filming of "Heartland" took place in this area, and the lady in the bakeshop told us that they were filming right now at her mother's dairy farm! There have been many other movies made in this area that needed the ranch landscape. Lovely road and area but a little too isolated for me! We turned west right near the Alberta/US border and drove through a beautiful area called the Crowsnest Pass. We were back in the mountains again! Up one hill and down another. We came across an area called "Frank Slide". Back in 1903 there had been a little mining village called Frank. Early one morning in 1903 while everyone lay sleeping, the mountain right beside the village started toppling, causing a huge rock slide right on top of the outskirts of the village,killing 100 people. There was a passenger train heading to the area at the same time and luckily one of the villagers ran down the track and was able to stop the train on time so not more lives were lost.
As we traveled along, we crossed the Continental Divide. This is a drainage basin that runs through Alberta south all the way to South America. All the rivers running east of this drain run in an easterly direction toward the Atlantic Ocean and all the rivers west of this run the other way toward the Pacific Ocean.
Tonight we are staying in Nelson, BC. Surrounded by mountains. Our campground is right on Lake Kokanee, which is nice because it is so hot. Today was about 32 degrees. It has been unusually hot these last few weeks with no rain. Nice for us but not for forest fires: there are at least 12 of them burning right now in the Rockies and so there has been a real haze around the mountains in the last few days. Apparently the smoke/haze can be seen all the way to Manitoba. Did not see any actual flames, though!

Old friends: more than 45 years!

RCMP Musical Ride Calgary Stampede

Heartland country

Frank Slide

Frank slide (note top of mountain is gone since it fell over on the village)

Dinosaur head found at Frank Slide

We met this interesting man who was cycling from Banff to Mexico through the Continental Divide by himself. He had started 2 days ago in Banff and was only using remote trails, not highways. He already encountered 3 grizzlies! Grover loved his bike.

Continental Divide