Starting Mileage leaving Glendive: 5115
Ending Mileage arriving Billings, MT: 5342
Miles Driven: 232
Avg. MPG: 7.4
Gas Price: $4.09--Miles City, MT
Overnight: Billings, Montana
Billings Trailer Village RV Park
Travel and Sightseeing Day:
- Pompey’s Pillar
We left Glendive a little earlier than usual. It was 9:15 AM.
As we drove, the terrain changed quickly to mountainous and pine trees. But, that didn’t last long. Before we knew it, we were back into farming and flat lands surrounded by mountains.
We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Forsyth, MT, for lunch. It was a quaint town and very “country” but they had a beautiful courthouse. After our lunch, we decided to drive by the courthouse and we got stuck by a train. I think we were at the tracks for about 20 minutes. However, we were not bored. There was a teenager on the sidewalk who was also unable to cross. So, he practiced many maneuvers on his skateboard. If only I had thought to turn on the movie camera. I could have made $10,000 on AFV (American’s Funniest Videos).
The temperature was climbing steadily as we crossed this arid part of the state. The temperature climbed to 97 degrees. And, we really missed those South Dakota breezes. The air was very still.
We did follow the Yellowstone River most of the drive and that added some really beautiful sights of rushing waters.
Since the Glendive area, we have seen a lot of road signs stating that we were following the Lewis and Clark Trail. This has been baffling us because we thought that the expedition's route was along the Missouri River west to the Columbia River and on out to the Astoria, Oregon, area. But, we finally found out that the expedition followed the Yellowstone River on their return trip eastward. Mystery solved.
Our only planned stop today was at Pompey’s Pillar. This is a rock pillar that contains the only known physical evidence, other than journal entries, of Lewis and Clark’s expedition. On the side of the pillar of sandstone, William Clark signed his name. So, I really wanted to see this.
Pompey's Pillar was named after Baptiste Charbonneau, the infant son of Sacagawea, the Shoshoni woman who accompanied the expedition. Pomp was the nickname Clark gave the young boy. In his journals, Clark originally named the pillar "Pomp’s Tower."
When we arrived at the pillar, the parking area for RVs was quite a distance from the visitor’s center, so Dave dropped me off while he parked the RV (I had hoped he could spot something closer). I went inside the visitor's center to inquire as to the location of the signature. I was informed we would have to walk along a 1,000-ft boardwalk and then up 200 steps to see the signature. I quickly opted out of this trek!
So, I rushed back outside to catch Dave before he walked all the way in to the visitor’s center (about 1,000-ft in the opposite direction of the pillar). By now the outside temperature is 101 degrees. Instead of walking in the street to meet Dave, I naturally took their beautiful path to the parking lot. That was a big mistake. This path had no exit to get to the street unless I wanted to traverse cactus-like plants. I think I walked about 500-ft before I could exit to the street. By the time Dave drove the RV to meet me, I was hot, sweaty, cranky, suffering a heat headache, and in no mood to go back to the visitor's center to look around. So we exited post haste. But, hey, at least we did see the pillar!
Back on the road again, the terrain began to change from hills and rocks and back to farmland and flat, dry, land. As we approached Billings, we were not impressed with the town. It is very industrial and hot and dusty.
We finally found the campground and it was completely covered in blacktop. Our tires really chewed up the melting pavement as we navigated into our spot. There are grassy patches between each site and behind the sites. But, the car and RV were parked on that hot pavement. When we looked at the temperature that registers in the car, it was 107 degrees coming off that blacktop. Poor Dave had to do all the setting up in that blistering heat.
And, yet another surprise. We had to pay for our WiFi. the office staff made it sound like a bargain because "It was free for the first 12 hours." We had not paid for WiFi at any campground, so far, on this trip. Now, I thought we’d be clever and only be on the WiFi a little bit at a time and save up our 12 hours. But, oh no. It’s free for the first 12 hours from the time you first log on. So, we ended up timing it so that we only had to pay for one 24-hr. timeframe on Dave’s computer--I was out of luck. It was only a $1.50, but if they want to charge for this service, they should state so in their advertisement. But, alas.
For dinner, we ventured out to a local Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t too bad. We just can’t get over the casinos in the area. In Montana, almost every independent restaurant has a casino attached to it. Large chains like Applebee’s or Outback do not have casinos.
We settled in early as we had to get up and travel over an hour to get to the Little Big Horn Battlefield. So, nighty night!
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