Friday, June 24, through Friday, July 1, 2011: On to Billings, Montana:
The first stop on our way to Billings was Spearfish, South Dakota. Spearfish is less than 100 miles from where we started, but we stretched out the trip by 25 miles so we could enter Wyoming


and immediately return to South Dakota (thus entitling us to add Wyoming to our posted map of places we've been in our trailer). Spearfish seems to be a nice, civilized town of 9,300 people---big enough for a Walmart Supercenter. It also houses a campus of Black Hills State University. We stayed at Chris' Campground, a nice place that has been owned by the same family for more than 40 years. It has been kept up-to-date very well.

Spearfish is near the adjacent towns of Deadwood and Lead (pronounced "Leed") which surrounded the Homestake Mine, one of the largest gold mines in the world. The mine operated continuously from 1876 until 1991, but its facility---including its 8,000-foot shafts---have now been converted into a geologic research facility. Also left behind for tourist viewing is the open pit where its surface (placer) mining operation took place. The pit is one-third of a mile wide, almost a mile long, and 1,000 feet deep---right in the middle of town.



Becky's great-grandfather worked at Homestake, and her grandmother was born in Lead. Lead has been allowed to remain quite deteriorated, but Deadwood has been revived (due to the return of gaming casinos, thanks to the state legislature) and restored to its old-time look, and is actually quite attractive.


The old courthouse is still in full operation (although the judge looks a little worn out).


On Saturday, we moved on, 215 miles, to Medora, North Dakota, a small, well-preserved/restored, mostly-western town, which was hosting its 34th annual car show this weekend. Quite an array of old and not-so-old classics.



I must admit I've never considered North Dakota (which I've never visited before) to be "the Old West" but I guess it's historically true.


General Custer billeted his men near here just before heading to Little Big Horn, where he planned to teach the Indians a thing or two. He didn't return.

Medora is named after Medora Hoffman, the daughter of a wealthy New York banker and wife of a French Marquis who established a meat packing plant here in the late 1800s.
Medora is the home of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a 110 square mile park that we visited on Sunday.


It's marvelous. We drove a 35-mile loop through undulating hills, vast grasslands, some wild buffalo


and horses,


masses of prairie dogs, a few large plateau, and a gazillion buttes, large and small, with layers of multi-colored sedimentary rock that was heavily eroded,


all of it elevated above the Little Missouri River


that flows gently through the park. Beautiful.

We're staying in the Red Trail Campground, an old, crowded, but seemingly well-maintained park that has been in the same family for four generations.
The people at the registration desk maintain that the park is nothing special but that they are terrific. I can't disagree with them.

We broke up the 280-mile trip from Medora, North Dakota, to Billings, Montana, by spending one night (Monday) in Miles City, Montana, a nothing town with one RV park ("Meadows RV Park") that had received so much rain that the ground was soft.
We came very close to losing traction trying to get into the first site we were assigned, and ended up with mud six inches up the sidewalls of our tires. We celebrated my birthday by having an excellent dinner at the Rib & Chop House in Miles City. The leg to Billings on Tuesday was easy and uneventful. We are staying at cleverly-named "Trailer Village" on Billings Boulevard.
It's an old, not too big, OK place that has been owned by the same people for 37 years. We had some difficulty backing into our space, due to the "help" of one of the employees. Wednesday was the day set aside for our electrical repair. We dropped off the trailer at the repair shop, and immediately proceeded to the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, 60 miles to the south. The battlefield is a large, very open space, with no place to hide.

No wonder Custer---outmanned 10 to 1---got his clock cleaned. Two factoids: (i) Custer was a Major General (two-stars) at the end of the Civil War, but only a Lieutenant Colonel at the time of his battle here, the demotion being because his earlier promotions had been battlefield promotions that were automatically reversed at the end of the Civil War (but one always hears him referred to as General Custer, anyway); and (ii) fittingly, all of the Park Rangers at the battlefield are Indians.

The repair to the trailer went well (I accepted their advice and had a second battery installed, as well) and we returned the trailer to the RV park Wednesday afternoon. This time we zipped right into the same space without any aid. Wednesday night, Becky had a sushi craving, so we hit the local sushi bar. There's only one in Billings, and it is very nice ($$$$$). The proprietors are Chinese, with an interesting life story.
His family emigrated from the mainland to Taiwan in 1948, when the Communists took over. (His father was a high-ranking officer in the army, and was loyal to Chiang Kai-Shek.) The son served in the Taiwanese Air Force as a pilot for 20 years before retiring to Billings.


Thursday was an errand day and quiet evening. Friday we hit the local Costco to reload, and watched the original True Grit, which I found at a Red Box. It was better than the remake.

I was not impressed with Billings, which is the largest city in Montana (population 104,000). We saw no charming or interesting parts. It seems to be little more than industrial.