where the west was lost

yesterday we had our earliest morning yet--we were leaving deadwood by 6:45 in the morning. ugh. but that meant that we made really good time heading toward devils tower national monument, the first national monument ever created, in fact. that's it up above--the rainy weather continued to follow us into wyoming, where the tower is located. devils tower was sacred to several indian tribes, which is why teddy roosevelt gave it its special designation. it was formed by hardened magma which stuck out of the ground. over time, the softer ground around it eroded, leaving it sticking really far up out of a relatively flat landscape. in this picture it looks like it is just disappearing into the clouds. up close it looks kind of like the picture at left, but its more colorful than it appears in the picture. people climb up this, some of them without gear. can you imagine? my favorite, though, was a guy who skydived to the top, and then was stranded up there for six days until some climbers came up to rescue him.

from devils tower in wyoming we headed north to montana, where our first stop was at the little big horn battlefield national monument, which some of you might know by its white people name: custer's last stand. this was the last of the big plains indian battles, and took place in 1876. the battle took place because the indians--mainly sioux, cheyenne, and lakota--refused to relocate in the middle of winter (and it does get quite cold up here). it pitted sitting bull and crazy horse, with their 2000 warriors against custer's force of about 400. custer woefully misunderstood the situation as well as the indians's numbers and their desire to fight for their homeland. custer divided his force, leading to the massacre of many of them, including himself. the battlefield itself is in the middle of the crow indian reservation, a tribe which was actually working with custer because they were at odds with the other tribes. the scene at right is where some of custer's men fought the indians, who would have been encamped down by the river. we spent quite a while here--neither mum nor i knew much about the battle or the circumstances surrounding it, so we went on a ranger walk and attended a ranger talk as well. interestingly, both of the rangers we met were indian themselves--one was lakota sioux, the other crow. both of them were raised on the reservation and follow traditional practices, and one of them was not a native english speaker. we though that it was nice that the park service employed them, since they give a completely different angle to the whole thing. after leaving the park, much of eastern montana looked like this, but prettier:

lots of hills, varying from gently rolling to sharply rolling. it really is impossible to capture on camera. one of the most interesting things about the day was the amount of wildlife we saw. at devils tower we saw prairie dogs and wild turkeys, and then at little big horn we saw wild ponies of different varieties (the patched ones are paints, the grey one an appaloosa), and a weirdly blended-in bird called a grouse. we had seen prairie dogs, buffalo, and mountain goats before, but most of these were new to us. my mom is pretty into the whole wildlife thing, so she was quite giddy. it was either that or the massive amounts of coffee she drank.

anyway, as our drive through the aptly named big sky state continued, the terrain became increasingly rocky and mountainous. by the time we got to livingston, our home for the next week, there were very tall mountains to the south, still covered with snow--it was supposed to snow three to six feet in the wyoming mountains yesterday, and that was immediately south of us. by the time the sun was setting, the picture to the south literally looked like the picture below. no lie. i think i'm going to like it here, despite the fact that it won't get above 60 tomorrow.