Lewis and Clark...(Sacagawea and Custer too)

theramblers88
Dec 9, 2019
2 min read

8/6

Our day begins with a quick drive-through downtown Billings, Montana. We stopped at a little place right in the center of town for some tea. Billings is a nice town, quiet and not very crowded. We are use to busier, more crowded downtown areas of Michigan!

Pompeys Pillar National Monument in Yellowstone County, Montana is our next stop. This monument is a sandstone pillar which stands about 150 feet tall along the Yellowstone River. This is a place where William Clark (Lewis & Clark fame), Sacagawea and others came upon to rest and explore while heading back east from their explorations. Meriweather Lewis and his party had taken a northerly route and the two parties would meet back up again. The pillar is named after Sacagawea’s son, Pompey, his nickname (Little Dancer.)

William Clark actually sketched his name and date in the sandstone there. Many other etchings and petroglyphs are there, dating back hundreds and hundreds of years.

Our next stop is Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument near Crow Agency, Montana. This is a driving tour of the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25 & 26, 1876. Here we saw the actual battlefields of the US 7th Calvary, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer & the Indian tribes of Cheyenne and Lakotas, led by Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse. Here, many soldiers and Native Americans died, including Custer. The driving tour was hauntingly beautiful and sad.

We drove on through Montana and ended up at a campground in Miles City.