Crowne Plaza Hotel Billings

The Hampton was nice, new and comfortable. We woke this morning, enjoyed the hotel breakfast. We organized our bags and cleaned out the car; tossed out our cooler, food, drinks and utensils then headed for the airport. Billings is another extremely small airport. It was easy to park the rental car and walk to the gate.

Let the all day journey home begin....

We're delayed to Denver, 20 minutes.

... was a nice small airport
and it took no time to find my bag.




Having never met Bart before, and being
a bit too sleep depraved at this point to fully recall his facebook
profile pic, I did the only thing possible: look at all the men
waiting with a quizzical expression and hope one would return it.
Nope. Just some equally puzzled 'stop-staring-at-me' looks, and one
that might have ...

... cheapest around .Brent also had his eyes tested and new glasses ordered.By mid afternoon we were back on the road  heading for Bozeman and another costco, where they checked the wheel nuts and made sure we were good to go. Great service.we arrived at a little town called Ennis around 7 pm, a long day for us.

 

... and thinks it funny to 'play' driver .. "Hey y'all, LETS GO TO VEGAAAS", (the passengers laughed a bit), "You strap in and prepare for the RIDE O' YOUR LIFE HAHAHA" (about 3 people nervously smirked).."Now, how do you close the damn door", you could hear as she muttered under her breath. People stopped finding it funny as she was clearly looking for the button to CLOSE the damn door! The bus driver didnt hear her at all and only noticed her sat there as she tried to get ...

... a climber attempt to scale the rock.

Our next destination was the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument in Montana, the sight of Custer's Last Stand. We watched a brief video about the park, toured the museum, then drove around the Battlefied reading the markers that described the battle between the troops and the Lakota Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne indian tribes.

Leaving there, we headed on to our destination the KOA in ...

... to see the other creations. The Enchanted Highway features the world's largest scrap metal sculptures produced by artist Gary Greff from North Dakota. The website is interesting: http://www.enchantedhighway.net/

We saw lots of cattle country until we reached the Badlands. There was an instant transition from grassy plains to rugged, rocky spikes and cliffs. We stopped at Painted ...

... quite pleased with myself.  It was a busy road and there were no bushes for cover so I improvised and overcame, and managed to pee in a handy tupperware I had handy - all I could think about while I was waiting for the AAA was how relieved I was that I didn't need the loo anymore! A State Trooper pulled up to check we were OK and the tow truck only took 45 mins or so.  Adam from Agave Towing was also a driver in one of the lower ...

... occurred to me where the "West" was . . . I vision California or somewhere . . . but Custard's battlefield where the battle of the Little Big Horn began is nearby as well as where General Custard is burried. Pompey's Pillar where Lewis and Clark carved their names into the sand stone is about 30 miles from Billings and ...

... had been sent out to trap the large Indian group that had formed to fight back. One group had been pushed back and another was no yet engaged being some many miles away. Custer made contact and despite being warned that the Indian group was too large to attack pressed on to destroy the village of 6,000 by the Big Horn River before they moved on having spotted the oncoming Cavalry. Bottom line ...