Day 10 - Billings, Montana

Day 10 (5 July) - We left South Dakota heading west through the Black Hills National Forest and into Wyoming before finishing in Montana. The drive was terrific. Wyoming and Montana are truly the wild west. A few times we thought that Wyoming (certainly the north-east part of the state) was also a synonym for Nullabor (which I understand is indigenous aboriginal Australian for treeless plain). We imagined ourselves in the 1800's in a wagon train heading west looking to settle and how imposing the countryside must have been. It is a tough environment, but with its own beauty.

As we headed north into Montana the Bighorn National Forest was on our left and we saw snow on the peaks! In text speak - OMG. We had recently looked at the weather forecasts and to our surprise the nights in Yellowstone were low-mid 30 degrees F (or just 1-2 degrees C). Not quite what we expected when we planned the trip and let's just say that our summer traveling wardrobe for this trip does not accommodate that low evening temperature range. Yesterday we had stopped at the Base Exchange at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and bought some cheap track-suits, but it seems with snow on the peaks that probably won't be enough. With five nights planned in Yellowstone it would be nice to actually get some sleep rather than shiver/freeze and be miserable all night and then have to deal with the effects the next day. Andrea is already concerned about bears and wild animals so compounding that with sleep deprivation would bring out the PET for all of us. So it's shopping tomorrow for sleeping bag liners and some extra kit to ensure we are warm enough.

This afternoon we stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. It was really informative and interesting. Whilst many focus on Custer and the defeat, the brief by the Park Ranger described the campaign and its background. His passionate description was enlightening and walking the battlefield and seeing the memorial markers where the officers, soldiers and some indians actually fell was sobering. It is an excellent monument to both the US soldiers and the indians.

We were due to stop at another camp ground this evening, but much to the kids delight (and ours) we decided we had time to push past that evening's pre-planned small-town stop and book into a hotel in the larger city of Billings before the weather turned awful - it's rainy and cool. It's shopping in Billings before driving up to about 10,000 ft to get into Yellowstone and then dropping down to about 8,500 ft where we are staying at the Bay Bridge Camp Ground on Lake Yellowstone. We hope it warms up at night.

We are not expecting a great deal of wi-fi access whilst in Yellowstone so we may not update the blog for a number of days.