Mystery Road Trip, Day 7

Today we drove 316 miles, heading east from Billings with stops at Pompey's Pillar National Monument east of town; at Miles City and Glendive, MT to see some local attractions there; at Beach, ND to watch an outdoor performance of a Shakespeare play; and finally back to Dickinson, ND.

Before the play, we ate supper at Buzzy's Cafe in Beach. Great "small-town cafe" type of cooking and friendly atmosphere.

On July 25, 1806, Captain William Clark carved his signature into the sandstone pillar at this site, a rock outcropping where he and his crew (from the Lewis & Clark Expedition) stopped. With him were his guide, Sacagawea, and her toddler son, nicknamed Pompey.

Looking down and northeast from the top of the pillar. You can see the Yellowstone River with the tree-covered hills on its north bank.

Gratuitous selfie with Pompey's Pillar over our left shoulders.

This to-scale metal sculpture of a Triceratops is in a public park near Hollecker Lake in Glendive and is named Glendisaurus after the town.

Our timing was great because Beach had booked a performance by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks for tonight. This summer the theatre troupe is traveling Montana (and border towns in neighboring states) and offering productions of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello and his comedy Love's Labour's Lost. Tonight's show happened to be Othello, and it was done so well! The actors, costumes, sets, and sounds were polished . . . and the weather couldn't have been better. It was a great ending to our mystery road trip vacation!

Here's an overview of our route for the seven-day mystery road trip. With our side trips through towns, to/from various sites, and backtracking through the national parks, it ended up being just over 2,000 miles of driving!