Montana - Doing the tourist thang!

Monday morning, I woke up to a text from Henderson saying his flight from Houston was delayed and he would most likely miss the flight in Denver. So, all day was spent texting back and forth and worrying that he wouldn't make it to Billings in time to enjoy Monday with us. When he got to Denver, he had 15 minutes (from wheels down to wheels up) to make his flight. Luckily, he did! He was the last person on the plane. I'm so glad that he made it. Unfortunately, his luggage didn't!

The picture below was taken on the back porch of the house we rented Monday morning. Luckily, Dad bought us some plane tickets to get back home with! It took a lot of worry off everyone's shoulders!


We skipped breakfast since we had woken up so late and headed to Fuddrucker's for some hamburgers. They had a little pond in the back of the restaurant that was full of ducks! They let us get so close and there were some super cute babies!




We left Fuddrucker's and headed to the sight of Custer's last stand. We got there in time to hear the park ranger talk about the Battle of Little Big Horn. I really wish Henderson had been there for this because he loves history (a lot more than I do...)! One of the really cool things about this site is there are markers where actual soldiers died. They've also started putting markers where they believe Native American warriors died.

The park ranger discussing the Battle of Little Big Horn

While we were listening to the park ranger, a bull snake made its way up to the patio area. There were signs of everywhere warning us about snakes. But a bull snake isn't poisonous, so another ranger just took it across the street.

Some of the museum inside.

Mama, me and Cheyenne in front of the memorial.

They even had a memorial for the horses killed during Custer's Last Stand.

Beautiful views!

Next, we headed to pick Henderson up (yay!) and headed to the rodeo in Red Lodge.

Dad enjoying the rodeo.

There were barrel racers and bull riders. In fact, one of the bull riders there was from Philadelphia, MS! We were so excited and cheered him on; however, he got a NT :(.

They had a couple of events you don't see in rodeos down south. One was sheep riding, where little kids got strapped onto a sheep in the hopes of staying on for 8 seconds. Some of those kids took it very seriously! They also had an event called Wild Horse Racing. Basically there were teams of three men and they each had a wild horse. They had to saddle their horse and ride the horse across the finish line. It was really neat and only one team was successful!

Self-portrait time!

Me and Daddy enjoying the rodeo.

So glad he made it!!

All of the family at the rodeo.

We headed to downtown Red Lodge to get some dinner. Since everyone had just left the rode the wait times were pretty long. So, some of us headed to this diner where I ordered pancakes (of course!). When I ordered a full stack, I was expecting pancakes like at IHOP. What I got was three pancakes the size of a dinner plate! I only ate one...

Some more pictures of the scenery....

We had such a great Fourth of July just celebrating with family. We headed back to the rental to get a good night's sleep. We had a long day ahead of us as Tuesday was our first day at the ranch...

More to come!