Secondary highway 18 beckons as we cross the Missouri River towards Wounded Knee and Hot Springs across the state. At Wounded Knee, Rick walks the area, takes a 180 panoramic set of photos over the flat where Chief Big Foot's band was camped after surrendering to the US Calvary the day before. In July, it is very hard to imagine the late December cold, two weeks after Sitting Bull was killed at Standing Rock on December 15, 1890.

Harder still to imagine the US 7th Calvary (with infantry), outnumbering, surrounding and outgunning the Sioux, losing control and massacring fleeing Indians (over two miles of terrain) after one shot rang out. These were tired, hungry, cold Indians with hatchets and some pistols - 146 men, women and children died, 20 troopers that day and 16 more from wounds (most from their own crossfire). Fortunately, it was the last in a string of infamous conduct including the Washita and Sand Creek "battles".

By contrast Custer, who has been immortalized, stupidly and stubbornly led his men to their death at the Little Bighorn, when readily available evidence of a very large Indian gathering and military orders not to engage, until his "hammer" could concert with the larger "anvil" of infantry moving up the Little Bighorn from the Missouri, were in his hands. The irony today is that the Custer Battlefield is in a lush valley in the Crow Indian Reservation (neither Custer "white" nor Sioux "red").

At 6 p.m. we reached Hot Springs found the little Wayside Motel, walked the main street, checked out the "springs" (only 87 degrees), dined at the Elkhorn and crashed. Looking forward to the morning, the Mammoth Site and the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Pooh performed faultlessly, but disclosed another big oil loss at mid-day, after steady 55-60 mph travel on an empty highway, nothing unusual but the opposite of a stop/go crawl on the bumper to bumper interstate. We topped up the oil (and it never happened again before home). We are 114 kms. short of 10,000 on the 'Expotition' at day's end.