Sunday, 11 July 2010

Evansville WY to Billings MT 24 June



Day 14 Clear and sunny 300 Miles

Today we travel through some famous military landmarks connected to the Indian Wars of the late nineteenth century. Our first stop was at Fort Kearny, which was erected to protect a wagon trail known as “The Bozeman Trail”. This was one of the routes west for settlers and came under frequent attack from the local Indians. The Fort is now just a marked out area of ground with a replica wall giving some idea of scale. The local landscape is exactly as it was about one hundred and forty years ago and gives a very vivid impression of how remote and dangerous life was for the pioneers.

Close by was a the Fettermen Battle Site where a Cavalry Commander, named Fettermen, was goaded by an Indian War Party into falling into a simple ambush, which wiped out his command. Here again the battle site gave a sense danger with rugged “eggs in a basket” topography. As dear reader you can imagine not everybody in the party was enamoured by old battlefields so we went straight to the hotel with no further details.

The hotel entertaining us at this “two-nighter” was again the C’Mon Inn; unfortunately it wasn’t come on in and have a drink, because it didn’t have a bar! We have, sadly, become used to a beer to wash away the daily dust of travel. The Hotel did have a swimming pool, which was very refreshing - to swim in.

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