This morning we drove East out of Bozeman, crossing the great grassy plains that compose most of Montana.  Towards evening we reached Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the site of “Custer’s Last Stand”, where Lieutenant Colonel G. A. Custer and five of his seven companies, 268 men, were killed to a man by a force of over 2,000 Sioux warriors.  The kids got to work on their Junior Ranger workbooks:

At the battlefield site, markers indicate the locations where the soldiers fell:

Custer’s marker, lower left corner, has white writing on a black background:

The soldiers were hastily buried by late-arriving reinforcements.  In 1881, 5 years later, most of the soldiers were reinterred under this stone memorial.  Custer’s remains went on to be reburied at West Point:

When Trish and I were last here in the ‘90s, this Sioux memorial adjacent to the battlefield had not yet been built:

It’s odd standing here, watching the cars roll along the interstate in the distance, and imagining the battle as it occurred on this very spot a mere 138 years ago:

There is also a military cemetery here, where veterans from the Indian Wars through modern times are buried:

The kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

Leaving at 8pm, we continued driving past sunset, arriving at the Walmart of Sheridan, Wyoming a bit after dark.  See the trip map for driving details.