The Long Trail to Little Big Horn

We made our way over the mountain and to Belgrade, near Bozeman, where Jan's former college roommate lives. We would have been happy just to stop by, but he and his wife are so incredibly hospitable that we ended up staying 3 nights.

On the way there, as we came down the mountain, another light came on on the truck's instrument panel. This has happened a couple times before, and when it does I frantically pull the manual from the glove box and try to figure out what it is this time. For instance, one time it was a little droplet symbol. Turns out diesel engines need a little condensation reservoir emptied out about once a month. We take the lights seriously as we really depend on this truck and are in no position to replace it if it goes down. This time it turned out to be an air filter warning.

When we got to Belgrade, we replaced the air filter, but still the light didn't go out. So we stayed over so we could take it in to a shop Monday morning. We weren't about to leave, pulling a trailer, with a warning light on. Before we left for church Sunday, our friend said something about a reset process in a friend's car, something about pumping it 3 times and counting to 10 or something like that. We had called the Ford shop and they didn't say anything about a reset button. Still, I pulled out the Smartphone, typed in F250 air filter reset, pressed "search," and there it was! Jan popped the hood right away, as soon as we got to the church parking lot, and found the button. Voila! But too late to leave that day.

We took a couple  days getting to our friends' house just inside Wyoming, church friends we'd met in Washington and who had recently moved back to Wyoming, where they had grown up. They were still unpacking and arranging. We had some school books waiting for us in the mail there, and a warm welcome. It was such a joy to see them, especially Robin, who greeted me with one of the hugs I'd come to love.

The next day, we went on a day trip to Little Big Horn, site of Custer's Last Stand. The parking lot was nearly full, and I saw license plates from almost every state. I hadn't realized it was also the site of a National Cemetery.

Here the guys are on their way up to the monument after viewing the exhibits and the movie in the visitor center.

Here is the monument

and the inscription (I didn't think to take a closeup of it, so this is just a crop; sorry about that).

There are also memorials to Native Americans who perished at Little Big Horn.

We took the scenic route back to Wyoming, via Fort Smith and Yellowtail Dam (where we got another stamp in the National Parks Passport--that made two for today! Actually, the road to the visitor center had just been closed, but we stopped in at the National Parks office in Fort Smith, where we had a nice chat and got the Passports stamped.). I hadn't realized that just out of sight of the Interstate, there is significant agriculture on the Crow reservation. I especially liked this field of sunflowers.