Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the road again.

Hhmmmm so you pedaled from Great Falls to Yellowstone then to Cody, Wy and then pedaled back to Montana to Billings and you are headed south now on I90 to meet up with friends somewhere in Montana or Wyoming?

Probably easier route

Birdwatcher,

Yellowstone is cool, but you did miss the turnoff to the Platinum Mine!. I hope the old guns in Cody made up for it.

Sycamore

I think the crows got him

And he ain't talking about birds!

The Crows think I rock, of course

Got to Cody, figured I didn't have the time to ride back to San Antone, meanwhile my Great Falls friends were in the Black HIlls with their RV, we arranged a rendevous at the LBH since they had never stopped in and they could have me as a guide.

Worked out to like 165 miles to Hardin in three days, longest day in Montana was the 73 miles from Laurel to Hardin.

Back in GF now.

Pics to follow.

Wait...what?

So you backtracked to GF?? Hitched a ride with your friend back to GF? Going to fly home? I'm cornfoosed....

Had a choice, 9,000ft pass over the Bighorn Mts to Sheridan WYand then north, I figured 5 days to LBH that way. Going north through Billings on the other hand was a three day proposition. Unless I’m riding into a strong headwind I can make 60-70 miles on the Plains, only 30-40 in the mountains.

Yep, once riding home was off the table all that’s left is flying home from GF. Hanging out with friends for a while.

so you shipping your bike home? Or does it go on the plane? Thinking about it more, you have lots of stuff to get home now. ??

Wow,
really too bad you rushed through Yellowstone and skipped Grand Teton
with all the extra time you have, now.
You can fly home from a lot of the towns you've pedaled through.
Enjoy GF. (again).

yeah birdie, I'm going with the 'slave this time.

You have some extra time besides what you're planning to spend with your GF friends in at the Battle site? Maybe spend a coupla more days on the road seeing another site or two you've always wanted to visit? Then you can post more pics for us.

Whichever way you get home, enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Geno

Got it under control....

https://www.bikeflights.com/

....prob’ly about $200 by the time all is said and done.

OTOH coming and going from Europe three years back I used a purpose-built bike case (~48” x 36” x “15), $150 each way on the plane

Last run of photos....

The dry climate of Montana plus the fact that its below freezing half the year appears to favor the preservation of old cars, this Hudson was parked along the main drag of Bridger....





Just up the road in Fromberg, two biker bars, not much else....



Shoulda took a photo of the convenience store at the Rock Creek intersection, the lady had FOUR well-bred German Shepherd dogs just laying around and dozing in the isles. didn't seem to concerned about hold ups

The final drag to Laurel and the Interstate, not all of Montana is mountains....



Approaching Laurel, the refinery was a surprise....



The Harley Dealership in Billings, experiencing a downturn like everywhere else. Harley model designations continue to confuse, what the heck is an "ROXGR"?



At least this dealership hadn't been obliged to build quite the mega-showroom one sees everywhere else, pretty sure this sign is supposed to read "new 2018 models"....

If ya ain't been out west and seen just how many prairie dogs and ground squirrels there are, ya might not understand why some people spend so much time shooting them. I first encountered hordes of 'em way back in Lubbock, these are urban prairie dogs in front of a hotel complex in downtown Billings...




Along the way I saw like eight species of roadkill birds, especially along the Interstates, prob'ly colliding with semis, including a pair of wild ducks. Two roadkills on the stretch from Billings to Hardin were sorta sad to me, so I took photos.

A yellow-breasted chat, that will not be returning to Venezuela this August....




...and an avocet. Avocets are just pretty, and graceful, I first encountered 'em on the Plains north of Lubbock, they breed up here in Montana too....




Almost forgot, outside of Fromberg someone was keeping a whole herd of sorta medium-sized cattle with actual horns, must be a Heritage breed....

A climb up onto the rolling plains from Billings, then across the Prior Creek Valley towards the Big Horn River country (I gotta look up who the heck Prior was, he has a bunch of stuff named after him out here)….

Crossing the Yellowstone leaving Billings....



Followed by maybe 50 miles of open country. A heat wave, highs in the upper nineties that day, about average for Texas, and the sun ain't as intense up here.....



When its open and flat, gets hard to recall what was where, judging by the shadows this was late afternoon....



A prairie pothole, a bunch of our waterfowl breed in these things.....



The Big Horn River Valley and Hardin at last, it was a long, hot day. Just missed getting a photo of a flock of cranes here....

Crow Country...…



A Rez pawn shop, main drag, Hardin. I wish I was there when it was open, but I rolled in after closing time and couldn't wait for it to open the following morning (I was meeting one of those Campfire friends who got run off from here at the LBH that morning).



Parting shot of Hardin from the Interstate...



Looking towards Crow Agency (15 miles) from that point....



The Big Horn River, that's an osprey nest platform (with ospreys in residence) at the far end of the RR bridge...

From what I seen, pretty horses were at a premium on the Rez…



Tipi poles, curing I'd guess....



Ya know I seen signs for "Mountain Crow Road", and "River Crow Road", and there's a "Plenty Coups State Park", I dunno who Yellow Pansy was tho, perhaps one of their warriors who somehow escaped public acclaim



Perhaps someone had a vision....



A community bulletin board at Crow Agency....

too bad about the birds Birdie,

Haven't seen a chat in years. Avocets all the time in this area, cranes almost every day I go to town and I hear them every day where I live, until they migrate S for the winter at least.

Geno

Best shot I wanted to get of the Little Big Horn River, this was on the Interstate, note the lack of clearance on the bridge. Heck I coulda done it easy, but I try to avoid alarming drivers more'n me just being there already does....



First view of Last Stand Hill, you can just make out the monument on the hill behind the school buses...…



I didn't take many photos of the battlefield, the open terrain doesn't lend itself well to iPhone photography. IIRC Custer came in from the south, in a hurry, never realizing until too late just how large the Indian camp was. Subsequent events have famously become the topic of much discussion; no debate that he detached Reno to attack the south end of the camp while he himself moved north along the high ground, probing for the north end of the camp. The final rush by the Indians over Last Stand Hill at the north end of the battlefield appears to have been over rather quickly.

One cool thing mentioned in the museum was that the partial skull of the mixed-blood Translator and Indian Scout Mitch Bouyer (identified by DNA as well as by facial reconstruction) was recovered from the western slope Last Stand Hill. Bouyer going in on the final attack had no illusions about the odds they faced, and reportedly gave away his possessions to the other Crow Scouts. From what we can tell he knew he was gonna die, but went in anyway. Point of trivia, him and his close friend Thomas La Forge, a White man living among the Crows, had made a pact to look after each other's families in the event one of them died. La Forge did indeed assume responsibility for Bouyer's widow and children, marrying the widow after the death of his own wife.


Here's my best shot of the field, looking down and west toward the river about where the south end of the camp would have been, large horse herds scattered across the plain in the background, IIRC Reno's opening attack stalled out off the left hand side of this photo, whereupon his force retreated to high ground on this side of the river to the south of this point, joined there later by Benteen and his men coming up from the South. Although they were castigated for not going after Custer, my impession is by that time it was already too late. One Captain Wier and a small force did try to go to Custer's aid but were turned back by the sheer numbers of Indians, they did report Indians swarming over Custer's position shooting at men on the ground, so by that time it was likely over.



And a pithy quote from Sitting Bull, I dunno the context.....



And a concluding shot from later that day, me retracing my route of the previous day in the copilot seat of the USS Enterprise AKA my buddy's motor home, on our way back to Great Falls.....