On Monday, August 18, we had to leave our cushy suite at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone, to travel on to our next stop: Little Big Horn in Montana. We went out for one last view of Old Faithful and to find a kind soul to take our picture. We met an older gentleman from Tennessee, who was very knowledgeable about the park, and said he'd been coming there since 1968. Frank had met him on one of his early morning photo walks, and he gladly snapped our picture for us.
We drove out of the park after another hearty breakfast at the Old Faithful Inn dining room, and headed toward the Northeast exit/entrance at Roosevelt. Our first stop on the way was Artists Point, a beautiful, scenic spot with a view of the yellow rocks and the falls in the distance.
I could see why this was called "Artists Point" since this was just about as inspirational a scene as anything you would find on the planet. We didn't see any painters around, but hundreds of tourists with all makes and models of cameras swarmed the area, looking for a good shot of the falls and the canyon. I think between the two of us, Frank and I took about 10,000 pictures of this spot alone.
The rock on either side of the falls had a yellowish hue, which changed colors in the sun. According to Frank, this was why the park is named "Yellowstone" after the yellow stones near the falls. The water coming off the falls and into the canyon was a gorgeous deep turquoise blue, almost as blue as the ocean in the Caribbean. The rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the blue rushing water made for a a festival of color.
We left just as another bus load of elderly tourists pulled up and headed on out of the park. I was sad to leave Yellowstone, despite being sick the entire time.
We got to see one last herd of buffalo on our way out, and one that was pretty close to the road. Luckily, buffalo are not the quickest creatures when they are undisturbed and grazing, so I got a fairly good shot of one of them by the roadside.
We headed out of the park at the northeast corner, and entered Montana. I fell asleep somewhere along the way, and won't up and had trouble breathing because of the bronchial crud/asthma. We were climbing up to Bear Tooth Pass, haled by the guidebook as "The Most Beautiful Road in America" for its scenic vistas and rocky lakes and streams. At 10,947 feet at it's highest elevation, I felt lightheaded and had trouble talking and breathing at the same time.
Alex and Frank seemed unaffected by the altitude. Frank stopped about every ten feet to take more pictures, and Alex wanted to romp in every patch of snow we came across. From the map, it wasn't clear that the "pass" meant 15 miles of driving along the top of the ridge. We finally started to descend, and I could breathe again, and I felt much better.
After we got off the Most Breathtaking (literally) Mountain in the US, we motored on to Little Big Horn to see the Custer Memorial. We got there after part of the park was closed, and traipsed around the National Cemetary there, looking at tombstones of war heroes and their families. The most poignant of these were the ones just marked "Infant" with a date. Alex and I encountered a bunny rabbit, but no hostile Indians or hostile members of the Calvary.
Little Big Horn, like Minidoka, reminded us of part of our country's sad history, despite the gorgeous scenery. The plight of Native Americans during westward expansion, the lies and deceit perpetrated by the US government, and the blood that was shed by both sides are something we should not forget. Out on this plain, hundreds of lives were lost in the name of Manifest Destiny.
I don't know if Alex got that message, but he had a million questions about Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. The thing is, so do I.
Oh my, those pictures are beautiful. Thanks for posting such beauty.
Posted by: carol | August 23, 2008 at 05:22 PM
Wow those are so beautiful pics I want to visit. Sounds like incredible history. I love trips like that! Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Heidi | August 24, 2008 at 05:13 AM