We left the Billings Hotel, found some breakfast, and headed out for some touring of the Billings Montana area. We had lots of time to kill before the wedding and did some traveling.  Our first stop was the Pictograph Cave State Park.  I’ve been interested in these types of sites ever since I first visited Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. Seeing where people lived thousands of years ago and viewing the messages that they left for future generations is fascinating.

Pictograph Cave State Park isn’t too far out of town. You travel through rolling hills and ranches until you reach the parking area. They’ve got a paved trail that brings you to three caves. Well, they call them caves but from what I see they’re more like indentations with a rock overhang that could protect you from the elements depending upon which way the wind is blowing.

You can also pick up a guide that will let you know what kind of plants and critters you can see along the way. The path has numbered posts that correspond to paragraphs in the guide book.

The pictographs were very faint and it took some studying to make them out. They’ve put a display on the path that outlines the drawings to help you see the markings. When we got up to the cave we talked with an old guy who was up there. He claimed that his mother could read the drawings and claimed to know what some of them meant. I don’t know if he was full of it or not, but his description of the paintings describing a kill did make a bit of sense.

After Pictograph Cave State Park we hopped in to the car and headed out of town to the Little Big Horn National Monument.  It was quite a drive, maybe an hour or more to get there. Surprisingly, we didn’t lose the radio station (unfortunately the rental didn’t have XM).

Little Big Horn National Monument is an interesting place and you can feel the history around your but ultimately it’s depressing. There are so many markers where people on both sides died in the fighting. There is a nice collection of artifacts that give a good sense of how people lived during those days.

It was now early afternoon and time for lunch.