Around Yellowstone it dips into different states in which we float in and out of and can sometimes lose track of which one we started in. But we're still in Montana and on our way East, not before a rest stop on the freeway in which we get offered free hotdogs, home-made cookies and hot drinks. Excellent stuff and all in the name of god and Easter weekend. Good on 'em, nutters. At least they weren't ramming the lord down our throats like the insane preachers on tv everyday. Not a day goes by without hearing about the lord in some capacity or other and it grinds. No other country seems to do this and yet it's America that seems to want the whole world to be part of the Christian church.
So, on into the wide plains passing ugly looking industrial factories and equally ugly looking towns that serve these factories on the way.
What is the state of Montana famous for? Hmm. Well before arriving I had no idea but once here I realise I had heard of one thing here, the Battle of Little Bighorn. This is the site where Indians hammered American soldiers and was also known as Custer's Last Stand. Although General Custer seems to be somewhat famous around here and to be held as a kind of hero, almost every state park in the area bears his name, he was actually killed early on in the battle and was reported to be a bit useless.
We visit the battlefield just as the place is closing so have to rush round the large hilly site. It seems an odd place for a battle but it's hilly nature would be good to retreat into.
It resembles the green undulations of a train set, I presume General Custer was the fat controller, but a bit brushy looking rather than lush English green.
The story, as I briefly got it, was that the Indians were sick of the poor land and conditions of the reservations they were forced onto and off their land. They decided to slip away from these reservations and the Americans didn't like this. They planned on rounding up the Indians and placing them back into the reservations whether they liked it or not, which of course they didn't.
The whole thing comes about after years of oppression from the Americans. When the first Europeans landing on the East coast of America it was the befriending of the local Indians that saved them from starvation.
They were shown how to cultivate crops on this land and so forth. Once the white man had his foot in the door it was time to turn on the Indians, snatch their lands and chase them out of town. White man speaks with fork tongue you know. This went on through the years in the 'trail of tears' in which President Jackson evoked a law enabling the westward movement of the Indians onto the baron and somewhat uncharted lands. It also meant that anybody had free reign to slaughter Indians if they attempted to take back their lands. And so this went on for years as the Americans were unsure of what to do with them. Reservations were set up and the Indians were corralled into them to keep them away from what the Americans considered their god-given land, i.e. the whole continent of North America. Land was afforded to Indians, then taken away when gold and the like was found. Many stories exist of battles between the Indians and the invaders and generally they get the rough end of the wedge in the Western movies of Hollywood.
So, it was here that the Indians won one of their most famous battles against the Americans even though they were severely out numbered.
The U.S lost the battle but won the war in the end. Reservations still exist today and now and again we see tv programmes about the poor quality of life on the harsh landscapes. But these mutterings are barley prevalent among the constant complaints of hardships from the former black slaves of America. I still can't help thinking the Native Americans are largely ignored in modern history and are poorly represented in every department of US society. Much the same is the aboriginal scenario in Australia and I doubt anything will be resolved or balance readdressed in the short term. Many countries throughout the world have had the same issues over history and some still are fighting over land today. In relative terms the formation of America is still a new country, therefore the scars from the last few hundred years of bloody history are still real.
The next port of call is a national monument named Devil's Tower. It's shown on the Wyoming state plates so we've seen it in a smaller version for some time.
It's basically a square-ish rock that sticks up from the surrounding flat ground seemingly out of nowhere. Up close it's even odder. Geologists say that the earth around the rock was up to a mile higher than it is today and the result we now see is a once buried lava chamber. The rock looks like it's pushing up into the air and isn't what I expected at all.
It's also one of the only places on earth that has this type of rock formation. The rock has cracked into hexagonal columns, some can be seen on the floor near us, as water has seeped through the cracks. It's no wonder Steven Spielberg chose this rock as part of the location for the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We take a walk around the base of the rock seeing it in different lights and angles, the sun is shining but the path in places is still covered in thick slippery ice.
They live in dug passageways and always seem to be on the look out for something. It's amazing how none of them seem to run out onto the adjacent road but they don't.
