I was having my morning coffee looking at this view when the duplex cabin neighbors pulled up.
They were a couple from Alabama and greeted me with “Hi there, neighbor.” As is my pension, I chatted with them for maybe fifteen minutes before they went in to relax. It turns out Jane is from Birmingham and JB is from Tuscaloosa. I’ve spent many weeks in Alabama during my tenure at 3M and we chatted about Guin, Gu-Win, Winfield and people that we both knew from the 3M Guin plant. Actually he knew children of parents I knew that worked in the plant. That was approximately our age difference.
Anyway, they flew into Rapid City to see some sites and do some Turkey hunting. “My goodness, what will you do with a turkey if you get one?” I asked. JB said their original plan was to cook it here and eat it. Since they were leaving the day after tomorrow I suddenly became nervous that we would be invited to a thanksgiving dinner on the front porch of our cabin later, but JB said they found a better option. They drove around Sundance (which doesn’t take that long) and found a taxidermist that would pluck and clean the turkey, freeze it, and send it to them in Alabama. I was a little taken aback, but said that was a stroke of good luck. Jane said they would need additional good luck to actually see and shoot a turkey since so far they’d only heard them.
I showed them this picture from Paul’s backyard to remind them what live turkeys look like in the trees.
After I was done teasing them I finished my coffee and Dan and I prepared to go see Devil’s Tower National Monument.
Devil’s Tower was the first US National Monument, established in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It is an imposing sight, visible from many miles as a barren, flat-topped, butte sticking out of the rolling Black Hills. This tower is sacred to Native Americans and there are many stories about how the tower and its deeply etched sides were formed. The walls of the tower are marked with hundreds of cracks and make Devil’s Tower one of the finest, and busiest, crack climbing areas in North America. There were lots of visitors on the day we went and also lots of climbers. It was easy to tell the difference because the visitors were generally pudgy and wearing sandals and the climbers were not and carried lots of rope.
Once inside the park, we made our way by car up to the parking lot for the visitor’s center. We met these guys along the road. I’m not sure if Longhorn cattle are common in Wyoming, but why not, it is the wild west.
The climb around the base of the tower was quite easy and paved. The hard part was avoiding the other people. We did get a couple of good pictures at the base of the tower in the boulders strewn around prior to the crack marred tower stone. In order to climb beyond these stones at the base you are required to get a permit from the rangers. As I mentioned earlier, the tower is considered sacred to Native Americans and their prayer cloths tied to trees were pretty common on the trails.
There is also a large community of prairie dogs living inside the National Monument. These furry little busybodies are constantly coming to the top of their burros to stand on their hind legs and look around at their village and anyone or anything close to it. In our case, people didn’t seem to bother them at all, but if one of those people had a dog with them, several prairie dogs would stand and scold them the entire time they were around. It makes sense because prairie dogs would more appropriately be called prairie squirrels since they are in the ground squirrel family, not the canine family. If you ride horse here go very slow. Holes abound.
After our visit to Devil’s Tower, we stopped at the Trading Post for a soda and a rest. This is my last funny story, I promise. As I was sitting in the back picnic area eating my ice cream cone I noticed a group of college-age guys go back to the fence and hop up on it to take a group picture. Devil’s Tower is the back drop (of everything here) and I said to Dan, “You go over there and get on the fence and I’ll take your picture.” Well, sure enough he did and afterwards he asked me if I wanted my picture there as well and of course I said yes. When I got to the fence I’m like, “What the heck, I can’t hop up there.” I could get up but it would not be pretty, or easy, so this is how our last pictures at Devil’s Tower turned out.
Please come back tomorrow for Wind Cave and Jewel Cave in Keystone, SD. They promise to amaze!
