Fish n Chips Travel the world: Custer's Last Stand

Friday 27th of June
Leaving Great Falls Montana this morning we were glad of the sunshine. David did a great job with the duct tape on our dry liners last night but thank goodness we didn't need to prove them. Breakfast this mornming cost $2.10. We already had the cereal so banana, milk and yoghurt reached that grand total.
We stopped at a small petrol station just down the road from Great Falls to get coffee and a muffin to share while we are enjoying it out in the carpark another bike pulls in. His pillion (?wife) hops off and goes to use the facilities while he stays there and doesn't even put the stand up so we strike up a conversation and they are from Minnesota travelling to Fairbanks we tell him all about the shocking condition of the road between Destruction Bay and Beaver Creek and he says "Oh don't tell my wife!"
ha ha so we keep our mouths shut when she comes out and says Hi. They go on their way and David and I both need the bathroom and there is only one but there is a toilet and a urinal in the same room so we share LOL.
Our next stop is another service station further down the road. We have just ridden through a huge wind farm and the buffeting was incredible I cuddled right up to David so my head didn't blow off. We saw a cautionary sign on the side of the road with the image of a horse and carriage ha ha must get a photo the next time we see one LOL then we saw an ?Amish ?Mennonite man mowing the lawn in pants, white shirt and suspenders with a bowl cut hairdo was too funny. At the station is a western outfitters it's an amazing array of everything cowboy/girl including boots, clothes and horse accessories.
Our next stop was Billings for lunch, we are actually staying in Billings tonight but after lunch we are heading up to the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn aka Custer's Last Stand. We go into Subway for lunch and just ahead of us is a woman and her 5 children and her Mum & Dad they have also carried in a baby carrier carseat and placed the baby on a table, they are ahead of me in the queue and I look over to the baby and notice she has clenched hands and her forefingers cross over and she is 'mouthing'. I order our food and when I get to the table I say to David "I think that baby has Trisomy 18" when I go to get our drink I say to the mother "It looks like you are feeding an army!" she laughs and says "it feels like it some days" David and I talk over lunch and I decide to go and talk to the woman. I introduce myself and say "I couldn't help noticing your beautiful baby and tell her we are from Australia and run a support group for Trisomy 13/18 and related disorders and are in the States to attend a conference. She says oh this is Gabrielle she is 9 years old and at first they thought she had Trisomy 18 but as yet she is undiagnosed. So we chatted for a while and I pointed her to the SOFT USA website and asked her name which is Mary Margaret. It's amazing that we both stopped for subway at that precise moment in time.
Then we head up the road to Garryowen which is where the Battlefield is. There is a huge storm which looks like it's straight over where we are headed. We don't get too wet but we need more fuel so we pull into the station near the Park and there are HUGE water-filled potholes!! we almost come a cropper!
We head up to the Battlefield and notice there are reenactments all weekend. We didn't really think it appropriate to go watch a reenactment after learning more about the battle it just seems like it makes the whole thing entertainment like Disneyland. We did wander around the site, watched a short film and listened to the ranger talk (which was so interesting). We walk up to Last Stand Hill where there are markers which mark exactly where soldiers/indians fell. There is a mass grave at the hill and a memorial to the soldiers on one side and to the Indians on the other side. Then we drove around the battlefield which is 5 miles long. We stopped at the Reno-Benteen site and got out to read some information boards and got talking to one of the volunteers there and another couple were listening in, the volunteer asked where in Australia we were from and we said "about 100miles north of Sydney" (cause no one knows where Newcastle is!) and then the husband of the other couple says Oh I took my daughter over there just north of Sydney to a place called Newcastle LOL turns out she was doing a short term mission with YWAM!
After learning about the history of the battle, why it happened and why Custer died it just reinforces my belief in the futility of war. One mans need to conquer another so that he can possess what the other owns.
On the way back to Billings from the site we rode completely around a MASSIVE storm! As we rode along the highway another biker pulled up beside us on the left and gave us the thumbs up and was smiling (not unusual for bikers to acknowledge one another but he seemed to want to talk) then he pulled over to the right of us (the side our flag is on) and was smiling and pointing to himself then our bike so I reached back and touched the flag and he nodded. Not far up the road was a rest stop so we pulled in and he pulled in behind us. Sure enough he was an Aussie from WA named Ashley he came to the USA 28 years ago first of all as a shearing contractor and now he's a builder and married with kids. He was heading to Billings to meet up with some other Aussies. He too plans to ride down Bear Tooth Pass tomorrow so we may catch up with him.
We get a recommendation for dinner from the yound woman at the front desk of the hotel. She suggests Montana Brewery so we go up there and have pasta for dinner it was very good with the local brew.