A Surprise Visit to Custer's Last Stand Battlefield

Okay, so this one came as a pleasant surprise.

Long had I wanted to visit this site. Like with many people, it had always strangely,  perhaps even morbidly, fascinated me. 

Yet, I knew that it was somewhere in the huge state of Montana.  But I had no idea where, exactly. 

Then, as we were driving towards Billings, we passed a couple of signs for the historical site. So I took the exit and started driving. There were no signs or anything. And it was completely empty. Luckily, my GPS signal was somehow strong enough to come in, and it showed me that it was well over 40 miles away. That would be 80 plus miles both ways. 

A bit deflated, I shrugged and got back on the highway, in the direction of Billings. 

We had a great time camping, and a full itinerary the next day. Woke up early and decided it might be best to get an early start. 

Started driving eastward, but knew we needed gas. My son checked the GPS, and found that we were 90 something miles from the next gas station. 

Ridiculous. We were down to maybe 40 or so miles left in the tank. We needed gas. 

So we turned around and headed back to Billings and got gas. Then we got back on the highway,  heading east. 

After a while, we saw signs for Little Bighorn Battlefield coming up. 

Wow! I turned and told my son that if we do indeed come close enough, it would be great to at least see the site where it all happened. 

We got closer and closer. Well,  as it turns out, the highway we were traveling went right to the battlefield site. Indeed, we were going to see it.

We arrived just before eight,  maybe ten minutes before the site opened. It wasn't originally on the itinerary, but I felt it deserved a visit. So after altering the itinerary a bit, we took our turn on the growing line to enter this national historic park. 

Boy, I was glad that we did. Again, this had long been on my list of places to see,  in that vague,  general way where you never do solidify any concrete plans to pay a visit. But now,  here we were. 

Obviously, I enjoyed our visit, and was fascinated by it. My son, who apparently had not really known anything about Custer's Last Stand when I mentioned it the day before after seeing the first signs, now had learned quite  a  bit- and physically seen the place where it had happened,  to boot. 

Just an awesome surprise!

Below are some of the pictures from our visit. 

Enjoy.