We left Billings this morning and continued to head east along the Yellowstone River. As it was officially a holiday, and we were heading OUT of Billings, AND there are not very many people east of Billings, AND we were traveling a road that paralleled the interstate, we had a good day in terms of traffic...not much. We are certainly out of the mountains by now, but there was still one significant landmark that we were looking forward to...Pompeys Pillar along the Yellowstone River. It was about 30 miles into today's journey. It was at Pompeys Pillar on July 25, 1806 that William Clark (of Lewis and Clark) carved his name into the rock. His signature is still visible today! I was again able to tell the National Park staff member a bit about the purpose of our trip and give her a Venture card.
Back on the road, we had mostly tailwinds again, and we made good progress. Also, I (Tim) had no flat tires today, but Zach did have two. Around the 55-mile mark we got onto a very interesting road with a sandstone ledge containing some awesome erosional features to our left and agricultural fields to our right. Went the last 26 miles with Zach and Ben. We got to Hysham around 3 PM, and we are staying in the school. The K-12 school now has about 100 students...10 in this year's graduating class. The town appears to be fading away, with lots of empty storefronts along main street. I went for an easier jog in the late afternoon. No presentation tonight, but we had a spaghetti dinner prepared in the home ec room.
Today's totoal distance was 78 miles, and we officially went over 1,000 miles for the tour! Tomorrow we go on to Miles City, Montana, and finally get to another state (North Dakota) on Wednesday.
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