Only a few more posts before the trip starts!

GREAT NEWS!!! we just got news from our insurance company that we will get reimbursed for almost the full cost of having our tire replaced in Harrisburg. It would have been nice if our extended warranty could have helped us with the engine repair but the check for the tire will help!

Today we are in Garryowen MT just a few miles from the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park. We are here for four nights and once we leave here, we will be arriving in Great Falls. After being in Montana for few days, it is easy to see why this is called the Big Sky Country! Yes, there are mountains, but the land is so vast that the mountains are only a compliment to the sky. There is a hill behind the campground that gives us a panoramic view of the land around and the sunsets are beautiful. Don’t ask about sunrises because I am not even awake that early!

Of course, the major draw to the area is the battlefield where the Battle of the Little Bighorn took place. For decades history had called it the place where General George Armstrong Custer was massacred. However, history has always been written by the victors. Yes, Custer was defeated but the Natives lost the war and to this day I feel that they are still losing. One does not have to look very far to see just how deprived the Natives living in this area are. Yet anytime we have a chance to talk to a resident it amazes me how positive they are.

Our tour of the area started with a visit to the battlefield and after leaving the Visitor Center we drove almost five miles to the far end the park where several companies of reserve troops and supplies including ammunition fought and survived their own battle and only two days later, they learn of Custers fate. The first photo below is the mass grave of the soldiers at the scene of the last stand. Custer was once buried beneath the headstone with black lettering. However, his remains were later dug up and reburied at West Point.

The battle that ended with Custer’s death covers possibly a few hundred acres of land and there are headstones representing fallen combatants all over. Once the fighting was over the natives recovered their dead to honor them in their own manner so there is no accurate way of knowing how many actually perished that day but there must have been some because there are some native burial markers throughout the battlefield. Since it was several days after the battle before the army had an opportunity to tend to their dead identifying the remains was difficult at best. However, as each body was buried a wooden post was placed into the ground to mark the grave and if the body had somehow been identified the name of the deceased would be written on a piece of paper and inserted into a spent rifle cartridge which was then driven into a hole in the wooden post. This is important because sometime later a work party returned to place grave markers and most of them only said “U.S. Soldier 7th Cavalry fell here” but some actually had a name on it instead. When a grave of a Native was marked a similar marker was place in their honor with the only difference being the soldiers’ stones are white and the natives are red.

In another area of this park is Custer National Cemetery comprised of tombs of fallen soldiers from all over the west and up until January of 1978 one could apply to be buried there. I believe that it was in the early 2000’s that the last person to apply prior to the 1978 date was buried there.

This blog is getting longer than I had planned so I am going to end it with just the battlefield experience and post more on our other adventures around Garryowen MT. Just little trivia Garryowen was named after the Irish marching song of the same name which became the official song of the 7th Cavalry.

Here is the link to our tour which is coming up quickly. We are doing the one listed as departing on July 11. However today we got notification that there has been a major washout on the Alaskan Highway. Since we aren’t going to be there for 25 days or so we have hopes that it will be fixed.

Alaska & The Calgary Stampede | Adventure Caravans – Guided RV Tours