Gold Rush XXI: Day 4

Thursday morning opened with HighPoint #3 of my time at Gold Rush:  The Little Bighorn Battlefield.  My dad’s a history buff, and I knew that if I rode by the sight of Custer’s Last Stand and didn’t stop, I’d be in BIG trouble when I got home.  The ride to Little Bighorn took about an hour and we could easily have spent a better part of the day there.  I’m glad we'd watched a Discovery Channel documentary on the battle (even if it's findings are now considered controversial) before coming here.  The film followed archeologists as they used metal detectors after the recent wild fires to locate the spent shell casings of battle participants and to track the participants' movements during the battle according to the unique tracings left on each casing as it exited the weapon.  

Park ranger Michael Donahue (a Texas college professor who has worked every summer of the last 17 years at the battlefield) helped us understand the event by recounting the lives of 4 men who took part in the battle – a doctor, two young warriors, and a candy-maker.  Hammy was wearing her Yellowstone coonskin hat that day… she didn’t move an inch or lose focus one second during the ranger’s presentation.  He must make history jump right out of the textbook for his students... if only he taught history!  His specialty?... art!  He interprets drawings and pictorial maps (such as native battle accounts) in their historical context.  I also found a picture of him as a young boy in a coonskin cap; he was enthralled with Davey Crockett and the Alamo.  No wonder he commented on Hammy’s choice of hats!

The Battle of the Greasy Grass River (or Little Bighorn) was short and fierce.  As you climb Last Stand Hill, you get an eerie sense of what happened that hot day.  This is considered the most pristine battlefield in America.  White markers identify where a Blue-coat fell, Red markers – the location of a native warrior’s fall.  (Most of the warriors' bodies were removed from the location at the end of the battle.)  We located the names of Dr. George Edwin Lord, assistant surgeon, and Baltimore candy-maker Corp. George C. Brown of Company E on the white stone memorial at the top of the hill.  We visited the native Memorial and found the names of Wooden Leg's and Black Elk's companions.  If we’d had more time, I would have ridden the bike around to Benteen’s battlefield or walked the paved cement trail down by the canyon where the candy-maker’s body and those of his men were never found or recovered.  (One warrior had commented that if all the soldiers had fought as the white horse Company E soldiers in the canyon had fought, the day’s outcome might have been different.)  I would have liked to pause amid the markers overlooking the river and the site of the Indian village and near the hill where Wooden Leg and his friends had been watching over the horses when the first shots rang out.  Someday,  I’d like to visit again and take my dad.
 
We arrived back at Gold Rush in time for the Battle of the Regions.  Region C didn’t win, but we sure had a good time and we sure looked silly!  Next?  The Closing Ceremonies.  Hammy won the award for being the Youngest Rider at Gold Rush XXI.  She was also asked to draw the winning GWTA raffle ticket for a new bike or $10,000 cash. 

After we made our good-byes (which were rather tearful for Hammy and her new friend Teresa Larson), we quickly made off for Sheridan, Wyoming, due to the weather forecast and dark clouds.  U2 was the only one to rain-suit up before departure,  and yes, it did actually rain and storm so that the rest of the group had to pull over and pull on their rain suits.  (It's nice to be right every once in a while!  More importantly, I hate putting on my rain suit in the wind, so I tend to err on the side of caution.)  This leg of the trip home was our only bad weather on the whole trip. 

The next morning was sunny and a little too warm as we made our iron-butt run through eastern Wyoming and back to western Nebraska.  Every leg of the trip seemed to take longer and longer until our group finally crossed I-80 and shared a final ice-cream stop in Ogallala.  (There's another story there, but it will have to wait.)  Gold Rush XXI was the trip of a lifetime.  I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  If you ever get the chance to visit that part of our great country, grab it with both hands.  It’s worth the ride.

Mileage Total - Roundtrip:  1816
Miles To Billings (Through Yellowstone):  956
Miles While There:  195
Miles To Home:  665
posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 5:24 PM by U2Farmer

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