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THE GREAT CROSS-COUNTRY CAMARO TOUR
By Susan Wade. Photos by Susie Q and Mom.
DAY 6
We awoke in Sheridan, Wyo., ready to head into Big Sky
Country. We discovered just how big and desolate Montana is when we
learned, well out of the range of turning around, that our gas gauge
pointed to empty. We passed a half-dozen exits from I-90 that led to
nowhere -- literally, without even an abandoned barn in sight for miles.
Finally, at a shameful 50 miles an hour in our gorgeous speed machine,
we limped into Lodge Grass, Mont.
We pulled up to the town's lone gas pump -- which was
padlocked. Turns out we were on the Crow Indian Reservation. We flagged
down Johnny Angel -- Johnny Castro, the town maintenance worker, who
was posting a campaign sign for wife Lola Plenty Hawk. She was running
for town alderman, on a write-in campaign with mayoral candidate Antoinette
Left Hand. Johnny Castro, a father of five, is a practical man. He buys
cheaper gasoline from nearby towns and has his own stash. So he sold
us enough to get us to Garryowen for a thankful.
Garryowen is named for the Irish tune which was the battle
hymn of the 7th U.S. Cavalry, General George Custer's command. The tiny
town, little more than a convenience store, museum and post office,
is the site where the Battle of Little Bighorn began in June 1876. Down
the highway three miles is the national cemetery and battlefield where
the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes made mincemeat of Custer and his outmanned
soldiers. Tall grasses sway around the tombstones of the fallen cavalrymen,
and markers recount the unsuccessful maneuvers of Majors Reno, Benteen
and Gibbon as they tried to help Custer against Chiefs Gall, Crazy Horse
and Two Moons and the Medicine Man Sitting Bull.
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