Devil’s Tower

This has been - officially - my favorite day of the trip so far. I mentioned our cabin in yesterday’s post, and I can’t resist posting two photos – one from the outside showing the cabin in relation to Devil’s Tower, and the other showing the cute inside. We had breakfast –including super yummy biscuits with gravy - at the KOA café, before hiking, so all-in-all a great start to the day.




We then spent most of the morning doing an 8-mile hike around the base of the tower and the surrounding prairie. Including a walk through a prairie dog town. This was too cool for words… so I’ve included a picture below and a video so you can hear them “barking” at us (sorry for the shaky camera... this is really all about the sound).




The walk was so varied – pine forest, prairie, desert/canyon-like terrain – it was just great. And we saw at least 10 different wild flowers in all sorts of colors - purple, blue, white, yellow and orange. It would be really annoying to post them all here so I picked just one. The air temp was hot, but a near-constant, cool wind and the smell of sun-warmed pines made the hike insanely enjoyable. I was definitely on a nature high for most of it… and a few hours after.














Oh – and how can I forget – we met a RED SOCKS fan along the trail at DT who was so devoted to his team he had red socks tattooed on his left ankle (this gentleman appeared to be about my dad’s age). But he said to us, as we were chatting about baseball and of course… the Yankees, “I am a Red Socks fan first, but I am really a baseball fan, and I know which team is number one.” He couldn’t let the name of the team escape his lips, but he pointed to us. Swell fella.

We left DT around 1 or so and drove through some of the most beautiful country I have seen – spectacular rocky gorges, lush green prairie, dramatic sparse desert/canyon-like stuff. It was incredible. Met some nice bikers from SD at Powder River Pass along Highway 16.

We’re now in Riverton, Wyoming, which is within the Wind River Indian Reservation. (Staying at a hotel tonight.) Tomorrow we drive to Yellowstone.


This is for Scott - This board explained about the missing bark - porcupines EAT IT!!