We woke up in Billings, Montana with only one thing on our agenda – visiting the Little BigHorn National Park. Otherwise we could stop and do whatever, just need to end the day in Sheridan, Wyoming.

We slept in and of course, grabbed our Holiday Inn free breakfast 😉. We loaded the car and cooler and headed out. The drive was so flat in places that when we saw this train, we could see the engine and all the way to the caboose!

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It was only about an hour drive to the Battlefield. This was one of the things Mike was most looking forward to on the trip.

Found our own cowboy in the Visitors center 🥰

I think we read everything in here. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t remember a great deal about this battle, other than it was “Custer’s Last Stand.” So I thought they did a good job with the museum/story telling of the visitors center.

The boys really liked all the ways the Native Americans used every part of the bison. Mmm… how about a bison bladder for a drinking container?

USAToday version: US Government wanted the Indian tribes to stay on the reservation land. The Indians wanted to live as they always had, nomadic and following their food sources. The US Troops thought they could control the Indians. A bloody conflict resulted.

For years, this area was known as Custer’s Battlefield but the Native American Tribes fought to have it renamed, and in 1999, it became Little BigHorn National Battlefield. There is a separate monument to the US Troops who died, and to the Native American Tribes.

Honestly from the reading, it sounded like the Indian Tribes did all they could to avoid the conflict, but the US Troops basically kicked a hornets nest that they weren’t prepared to handle, nor should they have. Custer seemed to have taken an all or nothing approach to the battle, and things did not end how he expected.

We hiked the mile long Deep Ravine Trail. After seeing this sign, no one ventured off the trail! 🐍

There were markers along the way that corresponded with this trail book.

Everyone had to take turns reading the stop summary… some of us liked it more than others 🤣

It was cool to see to depictions of the battle and then look up and see the exact topography of that battle.

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Made it back to the top and headed up to the marker at top of the hill, which is literally the sight of Custer’s last stand and where they found his and his brother’s bodies after the battle.

The battle occurred on June 25 and 26. And on the 28th a group of soldiers returned to claim their bodies. All were buried in shallow graves initially, and years later, the government came back and recovered their bodies. The remains of the US troops were then buried around this marker.

Yikes another one of these warnings!

The white markers depict where US Soldiers were found, and the red stone markers were where an Indian was found.

The Indian Council created this monument to honor the Indians who died in the Battle.

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This turned out to be a really cool stop.

We left and made a stop at the Crow Tribe Trading Post. They had literally everything in here: pottery, jewelry, fabric, knives, walking sticks, food, clothing, books, bags, etc. They even had a stuffed bison!

We made our purchases, and as we were leaving, we saw an awesome sight – a grill on a grill.

Hello Wyoming! State number 24

We checked in to our latest Holiday Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming, and like clockwork, got our swimming time in before dinner. We headed into Sheridan to eat at the Cowboy Cafe in downtown Sheridan.

As we approached downtown, the streets were blocked off. We weren’t sure what to do but kept circling and finally found a spot as we did, we looked downtown and found out it was the 2nd Thursday Festival.

We explored booths and found the Cowboy Cafe. It was so good – I had Spicy Elk and Bison sausage with grilled onions, Mike had a locally raised steak, Michael had locally caught rainbow trout, and Leo had corn dogs 🤣 We all had dessert and finally discovered what all the buzz was about for huckleberry dessert

Then we explored the festival for a while – it was so fun!

And then we found the axe throwing!!!

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I love when we stumble on stuff like this. Thanks Sheridan! We had the best time!