28/29

We bought a new tire, went shopping for groceries, cleaned and did laundry on Monday.
Tuesday we went to see the old side of town and then out for a ride to a little town called big horn. Saw dozens of deer and some long horn steer.
Sheridan is a picturesque, historic, old west town. Speciality shops with cowboy memorabilia & antiques. The building that caught our attention was the Sheridan Inn being restored to its original condition. Sheridan is the home of Wild Bill Cody. He stayed at the large hotel when he came back home. It had 79 rooms and there is a story about a man hanging himself upstairs. It was Cody's brother in law. The size of the hotel surprised me. We could not go up stairs because they are working on it, but there was enough to see down stairs. It has the original huge wooden bar was beautiful. Even the bathrooms had beautiful murals. Yes, I went into both bathrooms.
Leaving tomorrow morning for Rapid City, South Dakota, to visit Gene's nephew and his wife living there that he has not seen in years.

27

July 27, 2008
Well we were on our way to Sheridan Wyoming when we had a major flat tire. Some bikers informed us that we had a problem. What a problem…the tire was disintegrated and it had cut into the propane line. When we stopped the gas was spewing out. As I am writing this it has been 3 hours waiting for road service.
Road service came after 4 hours. Good thing we had a generator we could plug into to air condition our rv. We played cribbage had lunch while we waited.
Got into a campground at 4pm and hooked into air. I was worried that all the fish we have in the freezer will thaw without the propane to keep the frig cold. Gene went to Home Depot and got the parts and fixed the broken gas line.

26

July 26
We toured Little Big Horn battlefield and found out some interesting facts that we never new.
1. Most of the men in the 7th Calvary could not understand or speak English. That was one of the problems during battle and that is why they used the bugle for commands, but the bugle was never used at this time. It was General Benton that got excited and caused the confusion.
2. There were 3 Indian nations represented. They far outnumbered the solders.
3. Army horses were purebreds and use to flat ground. The Indian horses were use to the rolling hills.
4. The army supplies were stuck in a swap so the solders did not have enough bullets.
5. It was very hot out and the solders wore wool uniforms and did not have water.
6. The Indians let 300 men escape in hopes they would tell the truth about what happened. The Indians did not attack first.

It was a very hot but rewarding day. It was also nice to hear the people in speaking in their native tongue. One ranger, who is also a crow graphical spoke of the whole battle and used the Indian sign language when she spoke,
We camped at an Indian owned campground with electricity. The only problem was I did not see the railroad tracks on the other side of the park. I will just say the tracks were in use often all day and night.

25

July 25, 2008
We are now wearing short sleeved shirts and have put away our sweatshirts. It is really sad to come back and see the pollution in the air and the traffic. There were days that we only saw about 10 vehicles.
Spoke to Dixie and Jim who are in Haines, AK, 52degrees, and going to Hyder to view the bears.
Animals of the day were Pronghorn and white tailed deer with fawns.
About 2pm we got to the Museum of the Rockies and saw mounted dinosaurs and their eggs. We have met Jack Horner and read his books which made it more interesting to us. He started the museum and was responsible for finding dinosaurs and egg nests in the area. They also explained about the histology of the dinosaurs and how they compare to modern day birds. Histology looks at bone cells from live birds and compares them with the dinosaur cells. We did not view the whole museum since the air conditioning was not on and it was very warm.
We are Camping in Livingston Montana at Osen’s RV Park and campground. It was a must to have air conditioning because it is so hot and wifi, but the wifi is not working. It is also the first time we had to run the trucks air.
We are heading to Little Big Horn tomorrow.
I am trying to get caught up on the blog so please excuse typos and grammar.

july 24

July 24
Went TO Alberta Canada and a place called Head Bashed-In Buffalo Jump. It is where the Blackfoot ran the buffalo off a cliff. They showed how complicating and dangerous it is to do. It would take the whole tribe of males to funnel the buffalo into an area to guide them to the cliff. When you are on top of the cliff you cannot see that it ends. The building was amazing. It was built into the cliff and has 7 floors of displays showing how the tribe used all of the animal. If you wanted you could rent a teepee and sleep overnight. Since we were not going to us the teepee we did not check details. There is a white mark on the cliff face that shows where they hearded the buffalo over.
On this day we saw Rocky Mountain Sheep, deer or elk we are not sure, and cows on the road.
We are now in Montana.
Drove till 9pm and then camped on the side of the road.

21&22

July 22, 23
It is time to be heading down to the states. We went through Jasper and Banff and Lake Louise, The scenery was outstanding. Hanging glaciers, different rock formations but to many people and cars. It’s like we have been on a private road all this time with little traffic and now all the vacationers have come up to these beautiful spots. We saw a dead black bear cub on the side of the road that broke my heart and a deer going into the woods
On the way down we camped in a rest area by a river and built a fire. Another rv came by and we invited them to join us. It was a real nice evening.
The next night we camped just outside of Lake Louise in a provincial park I hate to see this end.
We are now camped at Peter Loughead Provincial park in BC. It is part of the Kananaskis area a large wild life area. From Lake Louise we took route 40 on a whim. We have seen 2 females and 1 bull moose. There was also either a young elk or deer with horns. Prairie dogs are all over the area where we are camping. They are a joy to watch.
I am so far behind hope you can follow this. Can anyone identify the bird?

21

July 21
Got up on a rainy morning at 5:30 to go to Fish creek. Jonni and all the others met us there. One bear came down but with no fish in the creek it left. We got back to the rv about 8:30 and made breakfast and showered and left by 10:30. On the ride out we saw two black bears with one a real young cub. The drive was nice but we could have stayed at Hyder for a week. It is a real small town with friendly unassuming people. The roads were a mess with pot holes all over since there was rain yesterday and today. Speed limit in both Stewart and Hyder go from 30 in Stewart to 20 in Hyder. That is 20 if you can go that fast. Hyder has no property or sales taxes and the residence want to leave it that way. I could not count all the liquor stores.
We stopped for the night at a provincial park at Tyhee Lake. It is a beautiful park but dry camping for $22 is really high. We were paying $21 with electric, water, cable tv & sewer in Stewart.

July 19

July 19
Went up to watch the bears about 10am. Very few salmon in the creek so we decided to go where Jonni, a new friend, told us there might be some bear there. Well there were 3, a mom and 2 cubs. Took both video and stills of the cubs play fighting.
We had lunch at the bus and went back to watch for grizzlys. I saw a mink cross the road, but no bear, so we went to Hyder at stop at some of the stores and talked to the people that live there. They say there are only 70 people living there. They all are real characters.
We were complaining about the pot holes in the road, all dirt roads, and were told they were not potholes but speed bumps. People in Hyder pay no taxes, sales or property and they like it that way. Houses are small. They don’t get very cold here but they get 6 or 8 feet of standing snow and can have as much as 37 feet. We did not get home till 10:30 waiting for the bears. We made a pack to be back up there at 6 tomorrow morning to see if we can see any grizzley.