Me and My Magnum Hit The Road: Smoke, Antelope and Little Bighorn

I’m on a week long trek through Wyoming that started this morning in Billings Montana. I’m going to end up in one of my favorite places on earth, Jackson Hole, on Wednesday, but I needed to visit a few other places first. Today I stopped in Sheridan, Gillette, and Casper - about 380 miles of driving.

My “wheels” for this trip is a Dodge Magnum - I’ve included a picture of this little beauty. I can’t say I really like the look of this car. OK, I hate it. It’s not really the look I was shooting for as a service company executive criss-crossing the state.

It’s a one way rental however, so I really didn’t have much choice. Me and my Magnum are just going to have to get along.

My trip today had three prominent features - smoke, antelope, and Little Bighorn.

Little Bighorn is the battlefield, about 50 miles southeast of Billings - this was the location of “Custer’s Last Stand” in 1876. I’ve driven by this place several times now, and each time I never fail to think of Custer and the decisions he made that fateful day. I think of the hubris he must have had to take on a force that vastly outnumbered his. Was it valor? Or was it just stupidity?

Historians have debated this for many years, but whatever the reasons for this battle the fact remains that many people died on this spot, and that also never fails to give me pause as I drive by.

Around Sheridan I encountered something which reminded me of the powerful force of fire - a lot of smoke from forest fires that have occurred all over Montana and parts of Wyoming. This area has suffered from a long drought, so it doesn’t take much for a blaze to start. The smoke obscured what normally are great views of the surrounding mountains.

I thought of the ranch and home owners that worry their properties will be consumed by one of these infernos, and hoped and prayed that they would be spared a catastrophe like that.

Eventually the skies cleared as I made my way further east to Gillette, and then south to Casper. The terrain on these drives is what I affectionately call “a whole lotta nuthin’“. Lots of amber colored grass and some exposed rock. And antelope.

LOTS of antelope. I would say that the antelope surely outnumber people in this part of the world, because I couldn’t drive a quarter mile without seeing packs of them prancing around that amber grass. They are an amazing sight, these animals, standing tall with miles and miles of nothing around them.

As I made my way to Casper it was late in the day, and the afternoon sun cast a glowing light on these grass fields and the antelope. I sat in my beloved Magnum and I soaked in this scene as deeply as I could, and wished that people who think our country is overcrowded could spend a few hours on these roads.

It was a day of splendid isolation - just me and my Magnum, the antelope, the smoke, and those poor souls buried at Little Bighorn. I wish you all could have been caravaning behind me, tapped into my iPod and knowing that this was a day well lived.

Stay tuned for more adventures as the week goes on. And yes, you WILL get pictures of the Tetons!