"I'm on the Highway to Hell"

Day 6

Spearfish, SD to Cooke City, MT  (406 miles, 2,231 total)

Departing our charming Airbnb in Spearfish, we set off for the four hour drive to Crow Agency, Montana to walk the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn where we learned that kicking a hornets' nest is never a good idea. Though my recollection of the battle was that Custer and his men had been unfairly ambushed, the reality is that they had quite invited the slaughter upon themselves. 

 

Driving out of the battlefield and through the surrounding area, it became abundantly clear that, though the Native Americans had summarily won the battle, they had tragically lost the war. Mile after mile of reservation land left a terribly depressing impression; this once great culture has been relegated to truly squalid conditions in ramshackle double-wides along the road. From conversations shared along the way, it seems that their immensely corrupt tribal governments do little to help but rather allow petty disputes and grudges to halt any progress forward as a people, either by elevating their own culture or choosing to assimilate.

Knowing that we were heading into some challenging weather on our way to Cooke City, Jon thought it best to dump our tanks and refill our propane before the final leg of the trip for the day. We pulled into the first RV park that we came upon.

Why, yes! That is someone's skinned game hanging in the sun to dry in the middle of the RV park! What's not pictured is Elizabeth shitting her pants, convinced that she's about to live through a scene of The Hills Have Eyes. Needless to say, we left and looked for another RV park...quickly.

I scarcely had time to recover from that panic attack when another was thrust upon me. As we drove towards Cooke City and the sun began to set, I Google-searched our route to make sure there were no road closures along the way. Good news, there weren't. Bad news, there weren't.

We had one and only one route into our destination - the Chief Joseph Highway. When you search "US 212 Montana," one of the first articles to come up is titled "Eastern Montana highway known for deadly crashes." Spectacular.

Note to self - never take a road that looks like it was drawn by a five-year old. Never, never take it at night when winter weather is expected. I took the below screenshot of our route on Waze around 9pm local time:

That was right around the same time that our visibility looked something like this:

When, at long last, we pulled into the driveway of our chalet, my legs were so wobbly I could scarcely stand upright. As the snow continued to fall along with the temperatures, we hobbled up the steps to the front door where we were greeted by a bobcat and a fox. Just par for the night's insane course.