Billings

I went on an early morning run, exploring the streets between the Rough Riders and the Cowboy Café, and realized I was just across from the Visitors Center at the entrance of the National Park.  It was a little eerie running just after dawn, and I saw nobody out except another runner just disappearing around the corner.

 

When we had toured the Cowboy Hall of Fame the previous day, I found some more quotes by Theodore Roosevelt.  The more I learned about our 26^th President, the more I admired him, and this one stayed with me as we checked out of the Rough Riders Hotel and headed westward:

 

“I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.

I have envied a great many people who led difficult live

and led them well.”

 

We had failed to find fuel for the Mini the previous day, so we stopped at the only place in town with gas tanks out front, the Medora Convenience and Liquor Store – GIFTS, POP, BEER, LIQUOR written on the mansard roof – but the gasoline was apparently an afterthought.  The only kind they sold was 87 octane, which is even worse than Box Wine (“Two Buck Chuck?”), so I put a small amount in the Mini (apologetically) until we could find higher octane farther down the road.

We entered Montana shortly after we left Medora, and the speed limit abruptly changed to 80 mph, which is unheard of anywhere in the Eastern United States.  I remember that on our last trip in 2016, our 2005 Mini seemed to be straining a little at this speed so I backed off.  But our 2018 model seemed to welcome the higher speed limit, and at times when I passed tractor-trailers I glanced at the speedometer and saw that it easily swung up to 90 and above.  80 mph really makes the hours speed by.

 

We began to see more and more buttes, which are really just smaller mesas.  And there were also quite a few cattle ranches.  Like farms in the Midwest, these ranches were often sheltered by a stand of cottonwood trees, and they all had a lot of outbuildings.  There were more and more trees as we approached our next destination, Billings. 

 

We stopped at a nice rest area on I-94 for our picnic, and there were signs posted in the parking lot saying that rattlesnakes had been observed in the area.  The walkways were surrounded by pebbles so that snakes could easily be spotted.  We walked out to a quiet little picnic table, sheltered from the wind and sun, and had our picnic overlooking the Yellowstone River.

We arrived early enough in the day that we had time for a detour to the Pictograph Cave State Park just outside of Billings, one of many State Parks we were able to visit on our trip. 

 

Along the road to the park, we passed many of these smaller buttes we had been seeing in Montana,  We got out at the Visitors Center for a short hike up the Ghost Cave Trail.  There were some daunting signs along the trail, and I asked the Park Ranger if the snakes were active.  “Oh yes,” he said.  “I would not get off the trail.”  We did not, but it was unnerving to hear the rattling of locusts that were also in season off in the brush.  Would I know the sound of a rattlesnake if I heard one?

 

The trail took us up to the pictographs, paintings believed to be between 200 and 2,100 years old.  The oldest pictograph is that of a turtle, radio-carbon dated to be approximately 2,100 years old according to the brochure, and we had a little trouble identifying it.  There were also paintings of animals, warriors, and even rifles.   

 

We continued up the trail to Ghost Cave, silent and shadowy, almost like a chapel up in the rocks.  Martha thought she spotted a snake sunning on top of a rock, and we gave it a wide berth as we continued on back to the Visitors Center.

 

There was a photo of the rock in the Visitors Center that explained that what we had seen was the fossil of an ancient worm (a big worm), which is often mistaken as a snake, and which I suppose is even better than the Beware of Rattlesnakes signs.

 

It was only a few miles to Billings, and we found some higher octane gas and fueled up before checking in for the night at the Boothill Inn and Suites, which unlike the Rough Riders Hotel was surrounded by busy roads but was still very nice, with a fitness room as well.  Our overall mileage to date:  2770.