Montana/Black Hills

While we were at Shadow Mountain Ranch with the Sinnards we had our first taste of winter with snow in the mountains and temps in the 50's. You'll see in the pictures below.

Yep, this is close to Heaven. Green grass, peaceful, great scenery, close to nature and we get to visit with friends we haven't seen in 4 years. As usual, the Sinnards were great hosts.

So the weather cleared and Cindy & Joan got to do their horseback ride. Here they're saddling up Ellie and Shanghai.

Cindy on Ellie .. snow on the Bridger Range in the background. Unfortunately, Joan accidently almost cut her thumb off while preparing some food after this ride and spent a good part of the evening in the Emergency Room in Bozeman .. luckily the thumb is going to be OK after a long healing process.

Some of the Nakota horses at Shadow Mountain Ranch. Bred for endurance, lineage from the Nakota Sioux Indian horses. The beautiful light blue roan mare in the foreground is Spirit, only three weeks old last time we were here in 2006.

Little Bighorn .. the site of Custer's Last Stand. The headstones represent where each soldier died and are all over the battlefield .. this is the largest group. Many of the Indians who died are now being represented in the same way with a different kind of headstone. Custer's is the one in black. Very interesting visit.

We hiked around the back side of the tower and into the boulder field. Weather was great and the area was not crowded.

Continuing our tourtist mode .. we drove from Little Bighorn and hiked around Devil's Tower. It's a "been there .. done that" kind of place but interesting.

Typical view of the grass plains in Montana and Wyoming. It just seems very peaceful driving past all the grass and wheat fields.

So we went on to The Black Hills area, known for Mount Rushmore but also a beautiful rough area of granite spires and flowing grasslands.

The size of the stone faces is much bigger than we imagined. Compare to the worker who is standing on Teddy Roosevelt's head.

Mt. Rushmore .. actually pretty interesting in explaining why and how this was done. Also very impressive and an instant feeling of patriotism. Not too crowded ... summer would not be good however.

View of typical Black Hills valley, looking east toward the plains. The area is very dry, 18 inches of annual rainfall but looks fairly lush with the trees. Forest fires are a way of life with a big one every 10 years or so. Trees are slow to grow back.

Crazy Horse Memorial .. a work in progress but this is more of a tourist trap. $20 to get in the gate to see an unfinished work. It's going to be huge with the horse and upper body of Crazy Horse, but it's too commercial for our tastes.

We stayed in Custer State Park ... this herd of buffalo was right behind the campground. The park has about 2500 bison and does a great job of managing the wildlife.

Big bull ... kind of the king of the herd. Didn't put up with other males messing around with his cows!

Also saw a lot of pronghorn antelope ... a lot in the fields but these were right beside the road when we were driving down to tour Wind Cave.

Bighorn sheep .. the ladies were all over the place but we never saw any of the guys. These were also just behind the campground.

Of course, there are miles and miles of prairie dogs. These guys have mounds all over the grasslands .. but are purported to help in the ecosystem of maintaining a healthy environment ... keeping grass from clumping up, a food source for the rare black footed ferret, burrowing owls, etc. I still think they are just pesky rodents.