Sunday, October 28/2012

Heading out

Interstate 15 South - part of the Nez Perce' Trail

This cute little river flowed along side the interstate today

Coming into Butte, Montana

Our spot for the night - Blackfoot, Idaho sitting beside the Snake River

love the patterns of the snow

Cows

Definitely, snow in the hills

Finally, out of Montana - Welcome to Idaho

It was quiet here last night and there was no gun fire this morning!!  I heard rain on the roof early this morning and the ground is wet although it looks like we are headed into another nice day.
We got started on our journey today, heading towards Butte, Montana and hopefully, we will be out of this state today and into Idaho.  Montana is a large state and it does take a couple of days to travel through it.  It really is vast and I guess "Big Sky" Country is more than fitting.
We stopped at the Walmart in Butte as there was one thing I forgot in Helena and while I was in the store, I found a couple of can coolers with the hard liner so that the melting ice stays in the cooler and not in the box of the quad.  I hate when that happens!!
On our way out of town, we found diesel for $4.09 a gallon so stopped and filled up.  It was $4.19 the other day so today's price was even better.
Once we were filled up we hit the interstate again and continued south.
Our travels today took us past the Big Hole Battlefield National Monument.  It is here, on August 9th and 10th, 1877,  that the Nez Perce' Indians fought a battle against the U.S. 7th Infintry Regiment in a failed attempt to escape to Canada.  This battle was the largest one fought between the Nez Pearce' and the U.S. Government forces in the five month conflict known as the Nez Perce' War.  Basically, the U.S. government, changed their minds about where the Nez Perce' should settle and wanted them to move to an Idaho Reservation (which was much smaller than their current Reservation).  Chief Joseph wanted to move his tribe to Canada where he believed that his people would be treated differently and where they could unite with Sitting Bull, the leader of the Lakota there.  Six weeks into their journey to Canada, the U.S. cavalry launched a predawn attack on the 800 men, women and children encamped at Big Hole.  The Nez Pearce'  mounted a fierce resistance and during the day and a half battle lost an estimated 60 to 90 men, women and children.  The Cavalry lost 28 men and suffered approximately 40 serious casualties.  After the battle, the tribe fled East into Yellowstone then North towards Canada.  In October of 1877 (about 2 months after the battle) the starving and exhausted Nez Pearce' surrendered to the U.S. forces.  They were 40 miles from the Canadian border.  Approximately 150 Nez Perce' managed to make it into Canada before Chief Joseph surrendered where he was reported to have said, "Hear me my chiefs.  I am tired.  My heart is sick and sad.  From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever".
There is such incredible history in so many of the areas that John and I travel to that if one takes the time to "google", one finds out some amazing information.   Thanks to Google and Wikipedia, I can share this with the readers of this Blog.
We also travelled past the small town of Spencer, Idaho today.  This town of 38 people claims to be the Opal Capital of America.  Once again, thanks to "google", I found this in fact to be true with the quality of the opals rivalling the quality of those found in Australia.  Now isn't that interesting!!
We stopped for the night just outside of Pocatello Idaho.  We have travelled a "long" day today and both John and I are tired.  I had a roasted chicken in the slow cooker while we travelled and that is what we had for supper.
We watched some TV and had a few refreshments before calling it a day.  Oh, ya..... I saw a Walmart  just down the street from where we parked tonight so will have to make a quick stop there tomorrow before heading further south!!  I will be saving John more money!! He should thank me!!!