On Monday morning, we walked our 10,000 steps to and from
Buffalo but this time we cut across to the Clear Creek Recreational Trail we
had taken on our bikes a couple of days before.
We had barely started walking down the trail when we saw
this deer (they're everywhere around here).
After we reached downtown, I finally got some pictures of
downtown Buffalo as we were walking.
Buffalo is a small town with a population of about 4,600;
but unlike so many small towns we have seen, Buffalo is alive and busy.
There were very few store fronts that weren't occupied.
On the way back, we
stopped at the historic Occidental Hotel.
The Occidental Hotel has been in operation since 1880 and
has entertained many infamous guests like Buffalo Bill Cody, Teddy Roosevelt,
Calamity Jane and even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the
Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.
After the 1930's, the hotel began to lose its splendor and
the owners struggled just to keep the doors open. By the 1980's, it had become so run down that
it was thought that it would one day be demolished. But in 1997, Dawn & John Wexo bought the
hotel and began a 10-year restoration process and with the help of David Stewart
and the annual Occidental Jam that began in 2006, the Occidental Hotel has once
again become of the great hotels of the Old West.
When we walked through the Occidental, we felt like we had
walked back into the days of the wild West. We walked through the lobby...
...saw part of an old kitchen...
...a parlor...
...a barber shop...
and a saloon.
The Virginian Restaurant was also in the hotel...
...and you could request a table in the bank vault...
...or a cozy little alcove.
After our tour of The Occidental, we walked back to the
motorhome the same way we came by Clear Creek on the Clear Creek Recreational
Trail.
After lunch, we took a day trip up to the Little Bighorn Battlefield
National Monument also known as Custer's Last Stand. Like always, we saw pronghorn antelope and
deer all along the way; but once we crossed into Montana...
...we didn't seem to see as many of them.
With our America the Beautiful Pass, our entrance fee to
Little Bighorn was $0. Between the Badlands,
Devil's Tower, Coralville Lake COE camping discount, and now Little Bighorn, I
think the pass has just about paid for itself.
In the Visitor's Center, artifacts from both the 7th Calvary
soldiers and the Sioux Indians were on display along with some the actual
uniforms worn by General Custer. While
we waited for the next movie and ranger presentation, we walked up the hill to
where "Custer's Last Stand" occurred.
These markers are where the 7th Calvary soldiers including General
Custer were killed.
This marker is where Custer was killed.
The Battle of Little Bighorn occurred on June 25 and 26,
1876. On June 28, 1876, the bodies of
Custer and his men were hastily buried in shallow graves where they fell. The remains of 11 officers and 2 civilians were
transferred to eastern cemeteries in 1877 and Custer's remains were reinterred
at West Point. The remains of the rest
of the command are buried in a mass grave around the base of the memorial
marker. All five companies from the 7th
Calvary under Custer numbering about 210 men were killed in the battle.
Scattered across the hills, you can see little white
monuments marking where the Calvary men were killed.
There was even a marker honoring the 7th Cavalry horses
killed during Custer's Last Stand many of which had been shot by the soldiers
themselves in a last ditch effort to form a blockade from the Indians.
In recent years, a memorial has also been constructed for
the Sioux Indians...
...and red granite markers where Indians had been killed.
Can you imagine what these hills looked like as this battle
was raging 137 years ago?
We walked back down to the Visitor Center to watch a 20
minute movie summarizing the battle and the events that led up to the battle. The best part of the entire tour was the
ranger talk after the movie. We sat
outside on a covered patio where we could see the battlefield and the hills all
around us. This particular ranger was a
retired history teacher who did an excellent job telling us all about the
Battle of Little Bighorn, General Custer, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and all the
other people involved. Sitting outside,
feeling the wind, seeing what was the battlefield all around us, we could visualize
the battle with the rangers' words.
This battle represented the Indians' last big fight and the
United States final dominance of the 48 continental states. While the Sioux won this particular battle decidedly,
within a year they either escaped to Canada or moved back to Indian
reservations.
It's hard to place blame on either side for the fight. You can't blame the Indians because they were
just protecting their families and their way of life.
And it's hard to blame the "white man" either because
the United States had just recently ended the Civil War and was in the middle of a terrible depression in the mid-1870's with banks collapsing (sound familiar?). People
continued to move west in search of gold and/or just a better way of life for their families.
It was a battle of two different kinds of civilizations with
an old one ending and a new one beginning.
If you ever get the chance to go to the Battle of Little
Bighorn National Monument, be sure to stay long enough for the ranger
talk. It's worth every minute of it.
On Tuesday morning, we decided to ride bikes rather than
walk. We went a different direction on
the Clear Creek Recreational Trail that led us through some
"marsh-like" land.
Except for the mountains in the background, the sandy soil
kind of reminds me of Florida.
We continued over to where we picked up a paved bike trail
than ran parallel to Highway 16 (the road that takes you across the Bighorn
Mountain Range). We rode up the trail a
short distance...
and then turned around and headed back....
...going by Clear Creek one more time as we headed back
home.
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