July 2017: Epic Road Trip I: Part I--Days 1 and 2. Cody, Wyoming and Devil's Tower

Who knew Wyoming was so cool?

I have taken a three year hiatus from this blog, but due to sheltering at home during the COVID-19 outbreak, I have decided to get back on blogging.  Since I can't travel, I can at least write about our travels.  Even though I haven't blogged, I have taken thousands of travel photographs in the last three years, so I have quite a bit of material to pull from.  I will start with an epic road trip we took to Badlands National Park and the Black Hills of South Dakota in the summer of 2017

Day 1:  Cody, Wyoming
In 2017, our son, Haydn came home from his missionary service for our church and we celebrated by taking an epic road trip.  In 2014, our son, Tyler returned from his mission service and we celebrated by taking an epic road trip to Glacier National Park.  It appears we have a family tradition going.

We have been to Yellowstone many times and I have dedicated many blog posts to Yellowstone on this forum, so I won't be spending any time on Yellowstone in this particular discussion.  Suffice it to say that Yellowstone was in the way of our trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota so we passed through.  We didn't stop for any photo opportunities, we just needed to make it to Cody, Wyoming before it was too late to eat.  We entered Yellowstone through the West Gate and exited through the East Gate.  I don't remember if we went through Canyon or Lake to do so.  Whichever way was the shorter time.  Don't get me wrong, I love Yellowstone and it is my first choice of where to go most days.  But on this day, it was in the way and we just shot through it.  We would have stopped for a bear or a wolf, but not much else.

When we got to Cody, Wyoming, we checked into our motel, which was nothing fancy, but it was a bed, and we took a walking tour of the city while we looked for a place to eat.  There was a cowboy shootout that was just finishing up as we got there.  Many western towns, especially tourist towns have cowboy shootouts.  I used to watch them in Jackson Hole, Wyoming when I was a lad.

We stopped at the Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyoming.  It is an historic hotel.  William F. Cody, known to history as Buffalo Bill founded the town of Cody, Wyoming in 1895.  The Irma Hotel was opened in 1902 and was named for Cody's daughter, Irma.  The centerpiece of the hotel is a cherry wood back bar that was given to Cody by Queen Victoria after she had seen one of his wild west shows in England.  At that time, William F. Cody was the most famous American in the world.

We ate in the Irma Hotel and I ordered bison in honor of Buffalo Bill.  It was very tasty.  Here are the only pics I took in Cody, Wyoming, and they are with my I-phone

Cherry wood back bar given to William F. Cody by Queen Victoria

Romantic style painting of Buffalo Bill painted from the period

Who doesn't need a chandelier made of elk antlers?

Stairs and period wallpaper

Moose and tin ceiling 

Exterior of the Irma Hotel

  Cody, Wyoming is a quaint western town that still has the flavor of the old west.  They have a rodeo every night in the summer.  They also have several museums including a gun museum that has over one million guns on display.  The other two thirds of the collection is archived.  I would like to go back to Cody and spend some time there and visit the museums for real.  This time, though we were just passin' through.

Day 2:  Devil's Tower, Wyoming
I have always been a geology nut.  I stumbled into a rockshop when I was eight years old and have been hooked on geology ever since.  I'm 58 at the time of this writing (2020) and I'm still hooked on geology so it doesn't look like it will end soon.  Back in 1988, on our way to Minnesota for graduate school, we passed to within 52 miles of Devil's Tower National Monument and didn't stop.  I had always wanted to go there because geology.

I don't know, maybe we were in a hurry to get to Minnesota, maybe my parents who helped us move were in a hurry to get back, maybe this was in the days before mapquest so we didn't know how actually close we were to Devil's Tower, maybe I don't remember why we didn't go.  I do remember that it always irked me that we didn't.

When my son mentioned that he wanted to go to Badlands National Park for his post mission trip, it was up to me to plan the route.  As I was working with my sextant and my chronometer to plan the route, I noticed that we would pass very close to Devil's Tower National Monument.  I convinced the family that we should stop there and spend the night in the campground.  Everyone was glad we did.

Devil's Tower is a large tower of columnar jointed basalt standing more than 1200 feet above the Belle Fourche River in the middle of otherwise flatish ground.  All the rock surrounding Devil's Tower is sedimentary while Devil's Tower is of igneous origin.

Geologists fall into two camps about the origin of Devil's Tower.  One camp believes it to be an igneous intrusion that never expressed all the way to a volcano.  It cooled slowly and formed the columnar jointing.  The other camp believes it to be the core of an explosive volcano that hardened up as the volcano became extinct.  Either way, both sides agree that the rock that makes up Devil's Tower was molten at one point and both camps believe that all the softer rock surrounding the basalt eroded away, leaving the tower exposed.  What I want to know is what does the rock look like that hasn't been exposed.  There is that whole "tip of the iceberg" thing going on there for me.

The Native Tribes, Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa have a different origin story of Devil's Tower.  Some of the tribes refer to it as Bear's Tipi, or Bear's Lodge.  Most of the Northern Plains Tribes origin stories involve children who were being chased by giant bears.  The children prayed to their deity and the rock they were on rose up a thousand feet into the sky.  The bears still tried to get to them, but could not reach them as they were protected.  For hours the bears tried to climb the rock but finally gave up and went to rest over near the Black Hills.  When the children looked at the sides of the rock the next day, the bears' claws had carved deep grooves into the side of the rock.  That is why Devil's Tower appears the way it does today.

Devil's Tower is a sacred site to the tribes of the northern plains, and they worship there throughout the month of June each year.  Since the late 1800's, Devil's Tower has been a popular climbing destination.  The tribes believe this is a desecration of their sacred site much as climbing Uluru is a desecration of a sacred site for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.  A compromise has been struck in recent years that most climbers honor.  Most climbers will not climb during the month of June when the people are worshiping at Devil's Tower.

We arrived at Devil's Tower in mid-July.  When the native people worship at Devil's Tower and other sacred sites, they tie colorful ribbons or pieces of fabric into trees which represent physical prayers for the site.  Sometimes other offerings such as beads or feathers are left.  I asked my friend, who is Lakota if it was okay to talk about this and to show photos so long as I was respectful and he said it was ok.

We arrived at Devil's Tower with several hours of sunlight left and hurriedly made camp so that we could explore.  We did an evening hike all the way around Devil's Tower.  Everybody in the family enjoyed this part of the trip.  Time for some pictures.  There have been too many words without pictures, I'll provide more narrative shortly.

Driving into the campground

First view of Devil's Tower

There was a young deer wandering about in the campground.  Wasn't too alarmed by the people.  Ignored us mainly

Vultures circling

Golden hour light on Devil's Tower

I don't get tired of this stuff

The trail.  There rocks were once on Devil's Tower

Prayers left by native worshipers 

Another prayer

More rocks that used to be on Devil's Tower

Everybody but me

Another prayer

From a different direction

Overlooking the valley from the base of Devil's Tower

There were interpretive signs around

I like this place

Another view

When we got to the backside of Devil's Tower, there were climbers all over it.  There was one group in particular that we were watching.  On the side we were on, the acoustics were amazing.  We could hear the guys a thousand feet above us speaking as if they were right next to us.  Voices carry really well there.  There were three or four in the group.  One guy, whom I will call "Dave" is the guy that no one will ever invite back to climb.  Dave literally got to within ten feet of summiting and then panicked.  Two of the guys had already summitted, but Dave was paralyzed with fear.  The last guy didn't get to summit because he had to help Dave down.  They finally had to tie ropes around Dave and belay him down.  At some point one of this group got cut on the rock and it seemed to be serious.  Dave won't be invited back anytime soon.  I'm not really trying to make light of a phobia, if they knew Dave was afraid of heights before they took him up, shame on them.  The Hot Chick wanted us to leave that side of the rock because she didn't want any of her children witnessing someone fall to his death.  Luckily Dave made it down safely and so did his comrades.  We made it back to camp after dark and watched people descend the rock using flashlights.  It was an amazing day.

Dude climbing

More climbing

This is a large rock

Dave is one of those guys on the ledge just before summitting

Dave again

I like this view

The boys, on a rock, in the dark

Day 3.1:  Devil's Tower and the Prairie Dog Town
Normally, on a multi-post trip like this, I would separate the posts by days, but this time I thought I'd keep all the Devil's Tower stuff together.  We struck camp and decided to make one more trip around the tower before we went to The Black Hills.

Our camp in the morning.  Beautiful campsite.  Very enjoyable

Sedimentary rocks in morning light

Devil's Tower in morning light

Ranger station/gift shop

Tyler and Haydn in front of the rock

As you can see, I was on this trip too, and Haydn carries a light saber in his pocket

Tyler and me

My boys and me

Leaving Devil's Tower

Random buck in the forest

Every time we turned around we got a different angle and view

Igneous and Sedimentary living together, mass hysteria!

As we left Devil's Tower we came upon a prairie dog town.  We were aware of this feature before we started on the trip and we didn't have very high expectations for the prairie dog town because rodents.  But we stopped anyway.  Prairie dogs are awesome!  They are funny.  They are delightful.  We stayed far longer than we had anticipated because we enjoyed them so much.  For my daughter, Ashley, they became her favorite animal because of this trip.  One of them, and I wish I had caught it on video, appeared as if he were praying to the sun god.  Literally genuflecting all over his mound.  They had no fear of humans.  Even though the sign said don't feed the prairie dogs, it was very apparent that most people ignored the order.  I unrolled my window to get a better shot of the prairie dogs and several of them ran over thinking they were going to get a handout.  When no food was forthcoming (I obey the rules) they looked at us with disgust and turned and went away.

Who let the dogs out?

I call this one Ralph

Head rush

Doing the slap dance

Marvin lost

This one was doing Tai Chi 

No food for you

Last view of Devil's Tower

As we drove away from Devil's Tower we reflected on the beauty of this site as well as it's uniqueness.  The pleasant camping experience and the prairie dogs.  I would love to return to Devil's Tower some day and camp again.  One of the most relaxing nights camping I have ever spent.  Every now and then, as we drove away we saw a glimpse of Devil's Tower as it shrank from view and finally it descended below the horizon.  It was worth the wait!

For part II of the Epic Road Trip, click this Link

For Part III of the Epic Road Trip, click this Link

For Part IV of the Epic Road Trip, click this Link

For Part V of the Epic Road Trip, click this Link