In an effort to promote a culture of openness and historical accuracy as well as honoring those individuals like Crazy Horse that walked this earth with honor and in service of their people I must issue a correction. One of the images in my videos that is implied to depict Crazy Horse actually depicts Chief Joseph the Nez Perce. At some point in time this photo was mixed up and confused for Crazy Horse. I apologize for this error. You can find the image below that depicts Chief Joseph the Nez Perce.
youtube.com/live/mjtPxfpgmvk?si=HtQSD7VvJB3Ze-iv Hello Everyone! On May 23rd 10 AM Mountain Standard Time I'll be hosting another live event here on YouTube with a short talk some Q&A! Make sure to CLICK ON THE LIVE TAB UNDER MY PROFILE PICTURE if you can't find my live video! I can't wait to see you all there.
This is a topic that can easily arouse anger and dismissal by Native groups today as their history is a component of their culture that for years, was subject to omission and distortion by Euro-American domination well into the 1950's.
In the 1960's, the pendulum of historical interpretation began to swing toward a deeper examination of the unsavory realities of America's treatment of Native American people.
Over the course of nearly four hundred years of westward expansion and conquest, the American Indian was bludgeoned onto reservations and stripped of their language, their dress, their customs, and their religion.
No factor however, had a greater impact on paralyzing the freest people on earth, than the elimination of the buffalo. Once their primary source of food, shelter, clothing, bedding, utensils, fuel, medicine, and fifty other uses disappeared, their traditional way of life was doomed. Herds once numbering in the millions were reduced to below five hundred by 1890.
The seemingly infinite numbers of these shaggy beasts, and how they were vanquished, is the focus of this narrative. The explanation offered here today, will fly in the face of current opinion and declaration, particularly with Native Americans, but if fact is seldom black and white, in truth, the white man DID NOT KILL all the buffalo.
The massive buffalo herds were assaulted by a combination of factors, when taken in totality, insured their near extinction. Demand for hides and meat were the primary daggers that eviscerated their existence. Trade was one of the routes toward the abyss.
The monarch of the plains could exceed a ton in weight, and estimates of their population ranged from sixty million at the end of the seventeenth century to fewer than five hundred left on the planet in 1890.
Trade around the world has existed for centuries and it didn't take long in the new world for trade relationships to develop that concentrated on the hide business. Trading posts sprang up west of the Mississippi and out across the plains, bringing with them all sorts of items that would be of value to indigenous people.
If Chief Mountain Thunder came to a trading post with his wife Running Water, and the post trader displayed a copper kettle that could cook soup without coming apart like a buffalo bladder, that pot is a big improvement in helping Running Water feed her family. She can have it in exchange for two brain tanned buffalo hides. As a hunter and a warrior, Mountain Thunder in providing for his family, is going to procure those hides and make his wife happy in the teepee.
The trader has a preference in the hides he takes in on trade. He wants the female (cows) hides because they are lighter and softer than that of the bulls. So Mountain Thunder harvests cows when he can, and he does so in late fall, as the tribes prepare for the onslaught of winter on the plains. The cows that he has killed have been impregnated and when they are slain, the reproductive cycle has been crippled. Multiply this activity by the thousands.
As businesses, trading posts kept records of their transactions. These records for example, reveal the volume of these trading transactions.
Some posts secured more than fifty thousand hides a year for decades. These hides were exchanged for cooking utensils, knives, shovels, axes, gun powder, lead, ammunition and GUNS which were the most highly sought after item.
Eight buffalo hides would get one a Henry repeating rifle and a box of shells. It's a lot easier to kill a buffalo with a gun than a bow and arrow, when riding amidst a herd of thundering buffalo at twenty miles an hour across the vastness of the great plains.
Hide hunters, (professionals) harvested millions of the creatures. Buffalo Bill Cody shot 4,280 buffalo in eight months to feed workers along the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad route. As railroads expanded across the west, the buffalo was like a TV dinner for the work crews.
Buffalo hides were utilized to make items of clothing and apparel, particularly coveted for their warmth in cold winter months. The industrial revolution with all of its improved mechanization, demanded leather to produce belts that propelled machinery in the manufacturing process. The buffalo became a source for this operation.
One of the myths often propagated is the accusation that the U.S. Government was in the business of killing Buffalo. I have found no record of this endeavor. The government did not have to participate in the pursuit because they didn't have to. There were plenty of entities willing and able to do the killing.
That is not to say however that the U.S. government did not proclaim an interest in the demise of the herds. In fact, presidents, numerous army commanders, politicians and dozens of others strongly advocated for the death knell.
William Tecumseh Sherman, Lieutenant General of the army and General Phil Sheridan both were directly outspoken in their desire to eradicate the buffalo. Both did all they could to promote their destruction.
Sheridan organized and invited royalty from Europe, business tycoons and other mucky mucks to participate in several "grand" hunts. Sherman made bold statements, essentially proclaiming that the sooner the buffalo were gone, the quicker the Indian would become a pauper and be forced to surrender to reservation life or face extinction. He preferred either one. Thousands of Buffalo were killed for sport. Often, only the tongues and choice cuts of meat were all that was retrieved from the stricken beasts, the carcasses left to rot.
Over the decades, besides the wanton annihilation of the majestic beasts, climate and disease took their toll. Drought in particular tormented the herds. Disease, imported from domestic cattle sickened the hapless animals causing the aborting of calfs. Severe winters also battered the beleaguered masses.
In summary, this is an agonizing story regarding indigenous people of the Great Plains. With the buffalo gone, Indians became paupers with no choices left but to succumb to the scourge of reservation life. The buffalo was a resource that one culture coveted and another depended on.
Before the white man ventured west from the Atlantic coast, Indians tribes traded with each other and killed each other, often for resources and war honors.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT This summer, June 25, 1876, will mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn where the Lakota and Cheyenne fought Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and twelve companies of the U.S. 7th Cavalry resulting in the death of Custer's and 263 soldiers under his command. The battle would become infamous as Custer's Last Stand, but it was not just his last stand but the last stand of a way of life for Indians under the influence of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall and others who desperately fought to preserve their traditional way of life.
Little Bighorn Tours under the guidance of retired National Park Service historian Steve Adelson will lead enrolled participants on an epic adventure as we travel in the footprints of Custer's Last Command from their discovery of the massive village at dawn until his final moments of destruction on Last Stand Hill.
We will closely examine the characters and events that shaped this legendary confrontation. We will seek the truth beyond politics, beyond legend, and beyond race. A truth shrouded in fallacy, haunted by mystery, eroded by time and tormented by revisionism.
A huge thankyou to everyone who came to my tour this early September. I really enjoyed sharing the little Bighorn Battlefield with you. Below is a piece I've written that describes how Little Bighorn invokes the emotions and brings you into contact with the depth of the tragedy that struck the people that walked this ground so many years ago.
Little Bighorn Battlefield summons the state of being that catapults your emotions, launching your imagination into overdrive. The stillness is penetrating. The tombstones, erected over a grave-less killing ground, magnify the ferocity and finality of the fight. The aged granite obelisk looms under sporadic moonlight as the Indian Memorial whispers a story never told for over one hundred years, and all of it, never ceases to gnaw at the American conscience.
All tours for 2025 Calendar Year have been FILLED! I am accepting people for tours in the 2026 Calendar year on my website steveadelsonlittlebighorntours.com/.
Thank you to everyone who signed up to take a tour with me this year!! I'm happy to add another date for a large group!
In the foreground about five hundred yards out from where this picture was taken, Custer rode off to the side of the regiment and Custer and Lt. W.W. Cooke wrote calculations in a notebook regarding estimated times and distances regarding the projected locations of the Gibbon and Terry forces. In addition, Custer and Cooke were dividing the regiment into four segments.
Cooke’s notebook is in the possession of a friend of mine who has shared with me the specifics of these calculations.
Contrary to the dominant belief of most LBH historians that Custer was intent on striking the village on his own and disregarding other military forces in the field, these actions by Custer clearly reveal a different hope.
From the Crow’s Nest on, the fate of Custer and the 7th Cavalry was sealed.
I will take you to these sites and more as we follow the regiment to partial destruction.
This is a story from the twilight zone. In August of 2017 as my season at LBH
was approaching the end, I experienced an event that still baffles me to this
day.
The ring pictured below was given to me twenty years ago by a life-long friend
Robert Peretto, whom I began my teaching career with in Whitefish, Montana
in 1975. It probably is my most valued personal possession in this world. I
take the ring off in the evening at bedtime, placing it on the nightstand next to
my bed. I have followed this routine religiously for years.
On the morning of August 18th, 2017, I awoke at 6:00 am and began the
morning routine. After showering, I returned to my room and got dressed for
work. I pinned my NPS badge on my uniform and placed my name tag one
quarter inch above the right pocket as regulations specify. Slipping on my
brown shoes and tying them securely, I picked up my watch off the nightstand,
buckled it and then glanced down to pick up my ring. It was not present.
I moved several books and other small items around on the stand but did not
locate the ring. Slightly concerned I went into the kitchen, then living room to
no avail.
Repeating this search pattern several times, I returned to the bedroom, the
level of concern beginning to rise significantly. Still no ring. I had a troubled
breakfast. Ten minutes later I had to report to the VC and begin my shift. It
was now 8:00 am.
I returned home for lunch at noon, inhaled a sandwich and began the search
again, this time throwing couch cushions on the floor, looking under tables,
and over counters. No ring. Back to work.
That evening I tore the covers and sheets off the bed, emptied out clothing
drawers, turned over shoes, looked in jacket pockets. No ring. This went on
for a week. The ring had vanished!
During that summer season, I kept a motorcycle at the battlefield, storing it in
the garage at our ranger quarters. I periodically rode the bike on the tour rode
or into Hardin after work.
One evening around 7:00 pm, I decided to wash the bike and so I got it out of
the garage and parked it on the patio overlooking the river and the Bighorn
Mountains to the west. I then proceeded to wash my ride.
I got a bucket of hot soapy water, attached a hose to the outdoor faucet,
turned on the nozzle and blasted the bike with high pressure water from bow
to stern. I then proceeded to wash the rocket ship on wheels with a big
spongy wash mit, dripping with white suds. After a thorough scrubbing I again
sprayed water all over the machine until the bubbles departed and the bike
stood dripping. I then went into the house to grab a bath towel to dry off the
metal steed.
I gently spread the towel over the bike and carefully moved the white cloth
over the tank, handlebars, instruments and chrome fenders, paying close
attention to detail. This procedure taking about five minutes. Then inserting
the key into the ignition switch, I pressed the starter button and the throaty
engine came to life.
Standing back for inspection, I admired my work as the gleaming exhaust
pipes spewed out the last remnants of water from a bath now completed.
Time now for an excursion across the battlefield.
I again went into our quarters to grab a light jacket, I stepped back outside
and climbed aboard. I kicked her into first gear, launching the bike forward,
accelerating up to and past the stone house, quickly rocketing upward toward
the monument on Last Stand Hill.
After gaining the rise, I opened the throttle, glancing down at the tachometer
and speedo, which soon reached fifty mph in seconds. Calhoun Hill, Medicine
Tail Coulee, Weir Point, Reno-Benteen Entrenchment, flying by all the
landmarks on a road less traveled. I was all alone in the park.
Returning to quarters after a twenty-minute sortie, I parked the bike and went
into the house to get a drink of Gatorade. After gulping a few sloshes of the
green liquid, I went back outside to put the bike away for the evening.
Glancing down to turn the ignition key, my heart nearly stopped. There,
resting on the speedometer gauge lens was the ring. A week had gone by
since I had last worn the precious keepsake.
How did this happen? A ring kept by a bedside. A motorcycle in a garage. A
power-wash and a fifty-mph ride that would have blown off an anvil on the
passenger seat!!! I only have one answer.
A residence next to a graveyard where five thousand slumber. At least maybe,
most of the time!
Check out my October 2,3,4th 2025 LBH Tour folks. I still have seven seats left. You will never have a clearer understanding of what happened during those two fateful two days along the Little Bighorn River where Custer and 265 soldiers are crushed as they attempted to bludgeon the Lakota and Cheyenne back onto reservations. steveadelsonlittlebighorntours.com
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
In an effort to promote a culture of openness and historical accuracy as well as honoring those individuals like Crazy Horse that walked this earth with honor and in service of their people I must issue a correction. One of the images in my videos that is implied to depict Crazy Horse actually depicts Chief Joseph the Nez Perce. At some point in time this photo was mixed up and confused for Crazy Horse. I apologize for this error. You can find the image below that depicts Chief Joseph the Nez Perce.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 9
View 2 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
youtube.com/live/mjtPxfpgmvk?si=HtQSD7VvJB3Ze-iv
Hello Everyone! On May 23rd 10 AM Mountain Standard Time I'll be hosting another live event here on YouTube with a short talk some Q&A! Make sure to CLICK ON THE LIVE TAB UNDER MY PROFILE PICTURE if you can't find my live video! I can't wait to see you all there.
1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 0
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
THE VANISHING OF THE BUFFALO - THE REAL STORY
This is a topic that can easily arouse anger and dismissal by Native groups today as their history is a component of their culture that for years, was subject to omission and distortion by Euro-American domination well into the 1950's.
In the 1960's, the pendulum of historical interpretation began to swing toward a deeper examination of the unsavory realities of America's treatment of Native American people.
Over the course of nearly four hundred years of westward expansion and conquest, the American Indian was bludgeoned onto reservations and stripped of their language, their dress, their customs, and their religion.
No factor however, had a greater impact on paralyzing the freest people on earth, than the elimination of the buffalo. Once their primary source of food, shelter, clothing, bedding, utensils, fuel, medicine, and fifty other uses disappeared, their traditional way of life was doomed. Herds once numbering in the millions were reduced to below five hundred by 1890.
The seemingly infinite numbers of these shaggy beasts, and how they were vanquished, is the focus of this narrative. The explanation offered here today, will fly in the face of current opinion and declaration, particularly with Native Americans, but if fact is seldom black and white, in truth, the white man DID NOT KILL all the buffalo.
The massive buffalo herds were assaulted by a combination of factors, when taken in totality, insured their near extinction. Demand for hides and meat were the primary daggers that eviscerated their existence. Trade was one of the routes toward the abyss.
The monarch of the plains could exceed a ton in weight, and estimates of their population ranged from sixty million at the end of the seventeenth century to fewer than five hundred left on the planet in 1890.
Trade around the world has existed for centuries and it didn't take long in the new world for trade relationships to develop that concentrated on the hide business. Trading posts sprang up west of the Mississippi and out across the plains, bringing with them all sorts of items that would be of value to indigenous people.
If Chief Mountain Thunder came to a trading post with his wife Running Water, and the post trader displayed a copper kettle that could cook soup without coming apart like a buffalo bladder, that pot is a big improvement in helping Running Water feed her family. She can have it in exchange for two brain tanned buffalo hides. As a hunter and a warrior, Mountain Thunder in providing for his family, is going to procure those hides and make his wife happy in the teepee.
The trader has a preference in the hides he takes in on trade. He wants the female (cows) hides because they are lighter and softer than that of the bulls. So Mountain Thunder harvests cows when he can, and he does so in late fall, as the tribes prepare for the onslaught of winter on the plains. The cows that he has killed have been impregnated and when they are slain, the reproductive cycle has been crippled. Multiply this activity by the thousands.
As businesses, trading posts kept records of their transactions. These records for example, reveal the volume of these trading transactions.
Some posts secured more than fifty thousand hides a year for decades. These hides were exchanged for cooking utensils, knives, shovels, axes, gun powder, lead, ammunition and GUNS which were the most highly sought after item.
Eight buffalo hides would get one a Henry repeating rifle and a box of shells. It's a lot easier to kill a buffalo with a gun than a bow and arrow, when riding amidst a herd of thundering buffalo at twenty miles an hour across the vastness of the great plains.
Hide hunters, (professionals) harvested millions of the creatures. Buffalo Bill Cody shot 4,280 buffalo in eight months to feed workers along the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad route. As railroads expanded across the west, the buffalo was like a TV dinner for the work crews.
Buffalo hides were utilized to make items of clothing and apparel, particularly coveted for their warmth in cold winter months. The industrial revolution with all of its improved mechanization, demanded leather to produce belts that propelled machinery in the manufacturing process. The buffalo became a source for this operation.
One of the myths often propagated is the accusation that the U.S. Government was in the business of killing Buffalo. I have found no record of this endeavor. The government did not have to participate in the pursuit because they didn't have to. There were plenty of entities willing and able to do the killing.
That is not to say however that the U.S. government did not proclaim an interest in the demise of the herds. In fact, presidents, numerous army commanders, politicians and dozens of others strongly advocated for the death knell.
William Tecumseh Sherman, Lieutenant General of the army and General Phil Sheridan both were directly outspoken in their desire to eradicate the buffalo. Both did all they could to promote their destruction.
Sheridan organized and invited royalty from Europe, business tycoons and other mucky mucks to participate in several "grand" hunts. Sherman made bold statements, essentially proclaiming that the sooner the buffalo were gone, the quicker the Indian would become a pauper and be forced to surrender to reservation life or face extinction. He preferred either one. Thousands of Buffalo were killed for sport. Often, only the tongues and choice cuts of meat were all that was retrieved from the stricken beasts, the carcasses left to rot.
Over the decades, besides the wanton annihilation of the majestic beasts, climate and disease took their toll. Drought in particular tormented the herds. Disease, imported from domestic cattle sickened the hapless animals causing the aborting of calfs. Severe winters also battered the beleaguered masses.
In summary, this is an agonizing story regarding indigenous people of the Great Plains. With the buffalo gone, Indians became paupers with no choices left but to succumb to the scourge of reservation life. The buffalo was a resource that one culture coveted and another depended on.
Before the white man ventured west from the Atlantic coast, Indians tribes traded with each other and killed each other, often for resources and war honors.
7 months ago | [YT] | 2
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
This summer, June 25, 1876, will mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn where the Lakota and Cheyenne fought Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and twelve companies of the U.S. 7th Cavalry resulting in the death of Custer's and 263 soldiers under his command. The battle would become infamous as Custer's Last Stand, but it was not just his last stand but the last stand of a way of life for Indians under the influence of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall and others who desperately fought to preserve their traditional way of life.
Little Bighorn Tours under the guidance of retired National Park Service historian Steve Adelson will lead enrolled participants on an epic adventure as we travel in the footprints of Custer's Last Command from their discovery of the massive village at dawn until his final moments of destruction on Last Stand Hill.
We will closely examine the characters and events that shaped this legendary confrontation. We will seek the truth beyond politics, beyond legend, and beyond race. A truth shrouded in fallacy, haunted by mystery, eroded by time and tormented by revisionism.
8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3
View 4 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
A huge thankyou to everyone who came to my tour this early September. I really enjoyed sharing the little Bighorn Battlefield with you. Below is a piece I've written that describes how Little Bighorn invokes the emotions and brings you into contact with the depth of the tragedy that struck the people that walked this ground so many years ago.
Little Bighorn Battlefield summons the state of being that catapults your emotions, launching your imagination into overdrive. The stillness is penetrating. The tombstones, erected over a grave-less killing ground, magnify the ferocity and finality of the fight. The aged granite obelisk looms under sporadic moonlight as the Indian Memorial whispers a story never told for over one hundred years, and all of it, never ceases to gnaw at the American conscience.
9 months ago | [YT] | 6
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
All tours for 2025 Calendar Year have been FILLED! I am accepting people for tours in the 2026 Calendar year on my website steveadelsonlittlebighorntours.com/.
Thank you to everyone who signed up to take a tour with me this year!! I'm happy to add another date for a large group!
In the foreground about five hundred yards out from where this picture was taken, Custer rode off to the side of the regiment and Custer and Lt. W.W. Cooke wrote calculations in a notebook regarding estimated times and distances regarding the projected locations of the Gibbon and Terry forces. In addition, Custer and Cooke were dividing the regiment into four segments.
Cooke’s notebook is in the possession of a friend of mine who has shared with me the specifics of these calculations.
Contrary to the dominant belief of most LBH historians that Custer was intent on striking the village on his own and disregarding other military forces in the field, these actions by Custer clearly reveal a different hope.
From the Crow’s Nest on, the fate of Custer and the 7th Cavalry was sealed.
I will take you to these sites and more as we follow the regiment to partial destruction.
10 months ago | [YT] | 1
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
I still have 4 spots left in my Oct 2nd-4th tour of Little Bighorn!
Please enjoy a poem I've written about Sitting Bull the Lakota Chief and prophet.
SITTING BULL
Your body thrown into a pit
Bludgeoned by police
Executed by your brothers
Forbidding your release
Decades you resisted
Said no to white men’s ways
Gathered up your people
Counting their last days
You spoke and others listened
A warrior counting coup
Then a spirit legend
Seeking visions that came true
You listened to the meadowlarks
And knew when they would speak
Understand his language
That came forth from their beak
And when the order issued
Told your people where to go
Back to the reservation
You stood and told them no.
They were sick of being hungry
And tired of being cold
Let’s leave the reservation
Sitting Bull is bold
You took part in the great sun dance
Drew blood with your own knife
Until you had a vision
Of soldiers and their strife
They gathered by a river
A gurgling mountain vein
A stream called Little Big Horn
Arrows soon would rain
You saw it all was coming
For your vision promised true
The bluecoats they were hunting
That you surely knew
You saw the soldiers falling
Into camp, they had no ears
All of them had died in vain
You quelled the people’s fears
Wankan Tanka warned the people
You told them a dream story
Soldiers falling into camp
Seeking fame and glory
And in the final battle
Custer on the trail
Down the rolling hillsides
Toward the village he would sail
But warriors stopped the onslaught
Just when the soldiers sought
To charge down on the village
Hoping women, children caught
And when the fight was over
And blood had soaked the ground
All the soldiers lying dead
Upon the lofty mound
Today the scene of carnage
Stands quietly alone
Now a silent witness
Monuments of stone
I know your spirit lingers
Cause I’ve heard you there
When meadowlarks are singing
People ask me where?
#tourmontana #historical #historyfacts #outdoor #adventures #educational #montana #grouptravel #nationalpark #nationalparkgeek #generalcuster #littlebighorn #tour #stateparks #custer #custerslaststand #sittingbull #poem #poemoftheday
10 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 2
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
PHANTOM RING AT LITTLE BIGHORN
This is a story from the twilight zone. In August of 2017 as my season at LBH
was approaching the end, I experienced an event that still baffles me to this
day.
The ring pictured below was given to me twenty years ago by a life-long friend
Robert Peretto, whom I began my teaching career with in Whitefish, Montana
in 1975. It probably is my most valued personal possession in this world. I
take the ring off in the evening at bedtime, placing it on the nightstand next to
my bed. I have followed this routine religiously for years.
On the morning of August 18th, 2017, I awoke at 6:00 am and began the
morning routine. After showering, I returned to my room and got dressed for
work. I pinned my NPS badge on my uniform and placed my name tag one
quarter inch above the right pocket as regulations specify. Slipping on my
brown shoes and tying them securely, I picked up my watch off the nightstand,
buckled it and then glanced down to pick up my ring. It was not present.
I moved several books and other small items around on the stand but did not
locate the ring. Slightly concerned I went into the kitchen, then living room to
no avail.
Repeating this search pattern several times, I returned to the bedroom, the
level of concern beginning to rise significantly. Still no ring. I had a troubled
breakfast. Ten minutes later I had to report to the VC and begin my shift. It
was now 8:00 am.
I returned home for lunch at noon, inhaled a sandwich and began the search
again, this time throwing couch cushions on the floor, looking under tables,
and over counters. No ring. Back to work.
That evening I tore the covers and sheets off the bed, emptied out clothing
drawers, turned over shoes, looked in jacket pockets. No ring. This went on
for a week. The ring had vanished!
During that summer season, I kept a motorcycle at the battlefield, storing it in
the garage at our ranger quarters. I periodically rode the bike on the tour rode
or into Hardin after work.
One evening around 7:00 pm, I decided to wash the bike and so I got it out of
the garage and parked it on the patio overlooking the river and the Bighorn
Mountains to the west. I then proceeded to wash my ride.
I got a bucket of hot soapy water, attached a hose to the outdoor faucet,
turned on the nozzle and blasted the bike with high pressure water from bow
to stern. I then proceeded to wash the rocket ship on wheels with a big
spongy wash mit, dripping with white suds. After a thorough scrubbing I again
sprayed water all over the machine until the bubbles departed and the bike
stood dripping. I then went into the house to grab a bath towel to dry off the
metal steed.
I gently spread the towel over the bike and carefully moved the white cloth
over the tank, handlebars, instruments and chrome fenders, paying close
attention to detail. This procedure taking about five minutes. Then inserting
the key into the ignition switch, I pressed the starter button and the throaty
engine came to life.
Standing back for inspection, I admired my work as the gleaming exhaust
pipes spewed out the last remnants of water from a bath now completed.
Time now for an excursion across the battlefield.
I again went into our quarters to grab a light jacket, I stepped back outside
and climbed aboard. I kicked her into first gear, launching the bike forward,
accelerating up to and past the stone house, quickly rocketing upward toward
the monument on Last Stand Hill.
After gaining the rise, I opened the throttle, glancing down at the tachometer
and speedo, which soon reached fifty mph in seconds. Calhoun Hill, Medicine
Tail Coulee, Weir Point, Reno-Benteen Entrenchment, flying by all the
landmarks on a road less traveled. I was all alone in the park.
Returning to quarters after a twenty-minute sortie, I parked the bike and went
into the house to get a drink of Gatorade. After gulping a few sloshes of the
green liquid, I went back outside to put the bike away for the evening.
Glancing down to turn the ignition key, my heart nearly stopped. There,
resting on the speedometer gauge lens was the ring. A week had gone by
since I had last worn the precious keepsake.
How did this happen? A ring kept by a bedside. A motorcycle in a garage. A
power-wash and a fifty-mph ride that would have blown off an anvil on the
passenger seat!!! I only have one answer.
A residence next to a graveyard where five thousand slumber. At least maybe,
most of the time!
10 months ago | [YT] | 2
View 0 replies
Steve Adelson’s Little Bighorn Battlefield Tours
Check out my October 2,3,4th 2025 LBH Tour folks. I still have seven seats left. You will never have a clearer understanding of what happened during those two fateful two days along the Little Bighorn River where Custer and 265 soldiers are crushed as they attempted to bludgeon the Lakota and Cheyenne back onto reservations.
steveadelsonlittlebighorntours.com
10 months ago | [YT] | 0
View 0 replies