That's A Big Rock

Today, we traveled to Devil's Tower National Monument. Ever since Close Encounters, I've been one of those people who vowed to one day see it in person and now I've done it. Pictures don't do it justice. It's very imposing in person, partly because by the time you can get out of your car, you're right at the base of it looking nearly straight up. The visitors' center has telescopes mounted so you watch the technical climbers making their way up the face.

The Indian creation story for the existence of the rock tells of some Indian maidens who were chased by a bear and climbed onto a large flat rock. They prayed for help and the gods elevated the rock so that the bear couldn't get them but he scratched the grooves in the sides with his claws. The girls went all the way up into the sky to became the stars in the Pleiades constellation. The visitor center has a painting illustrating the story.

The area is still held as a sacred site by the Indians and they have religious gatherings here during the year. There was a tepee that just fit Diane.

In the field at the base of the tower, there is a prairie dog town with signs posted to please not feed the prairie dogs. I'm not sure how much good it's doing as they are pretty approachable, not to mention fat.

This guy wouldn't quite come all the way out.

Visiting Devil's Tower was a detour that took us over 150 miles off our path but it was well worth the effort.

When I last posted, we had settled down for the night in Loveland, CO after visiting the Denver Zoo. The next day we left town Northbound and drove about 100 miles up the road to Guernsey, WY after stopping just out of Cheyenne for fuel. At Guernsey, we visited the Wagon Ruts and Register Cliff historical sites. This is at the location where the Oregon Trail crossed the North Platte River. The sandstone hills on the riverbank are deeply scored with the marks of the wagons being pushed over them. Some of the gouges are over four feet deep.

A couple of miles from the ruts is the Register Cliff where pioneers scratched their names and sometimes dates in the soft sandstone. Of course, now every yahoo that comes by thinks they have to do the same. But some of the originals have survived thanks to some chain link fence. Here's one with the date of 1859.

After leaving Guernsey, we returned to I25 North and continued on across some of the most barren ground we have seen on this trip. Eventually, we arrived in Lusk, WY and a modest campground to stay there for the night. It had been a long hot day with temps in the 90's and we had come 250 miles and we were beat. But a good night's sleep had us back on the road this morning headed North once more.

After leaving Devil's Tower, we returned Southeast to I90 and into South Dakota. It was still early in the afternoon so we took a little roundabout way that lead us down Spearfish Canyon and then into Lead, a former gold mining town, and then through Deadwood. Deadwood had recently been converted to a gambling destination and now mines gold from the tourists. We wound up in Sturgis, of motorcycle rally fame. Tomorrow we will head down to Rapid City and a fuel stop and then on to Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park where we hope to see some wildlife.