Trish & Anne RV Adventures

I gave you a tease of our next stop last time, which was the area around Devil’s Tower – we arrived there on Monday, August 28.

The above photos were taken of the sunset, from our campground! Not sure what that piece of equipment is, but it looks old and adds some interest to the photo? Update: My brother found out that it is a horse drawn oil delivery cart.

I tried to get up for sunrise, but I was a bit late, but here are a couple of shots anyway.

We played our Wyoming golf that morning at the Sundance Country Club. The greens were very small and tilty, so it was tough putting. Other than that it was a nice little course with great views. Neither of us had a par, and we ended up tied after our 9 holes.

We then went into the town of Sundance for lunch at the Longhorn Grill & Pub. The parking for long vehicles was a lane in the middle of the road – not the best photo to illustrate but just imagine another travel lane to the right of the RV. After lunch we took part of a walking tour of the town, but it was in the low 90’s so we didn’t do it all.

The Sundance Kid, got his nickname from this town in Wyoming, because it was the only place where he spent anytime in jail. I read he was born in Mont Clare, PA – which is near where some of my cousins live.

We took the long route back toward Devils Tower, which took us by some great scenery and the Aladdin Coal Tipple, used to load the hand dug coal onto trains in the late 1920’s – but we didn’t see any remnants of the railroad tracks.

Before heading back to camp, we stopped by the visitor center at Devil’s Tower to check it out. We learned a bit about the geology that formed the tower – magma cooling underground formed the jointed columns. They are the largest columns in the world – some 200′ high and 8′ wide. Surprisingly they can be 4 to 7 sided. We decided it was too warm (lower 90’s) to attempt the hike around the tower that day and decided we would head over early the next morning instead.

I got up early enough on Wednesday, August 30 to get some better sunrise photos.

There are many stories from the first Americans about how the tower was formed, including one of a bear-girl scratching the tower to create the columns. Most of the local tribes call it Bear Lodge, due to the grizzly and black bears in the area.

You can read all about the physical dimensions.

Selfie and tower views taken on the walk around the base. The boulder field is from columns that have broken off, but there have been none that have fallen in recorded history – not sure if that means one is due to fall soon.

You can see the climbers in the photo on the right, but can you pick them out in the photo on the left? Just look for that turquoise jacket. My brother and his wife have both climbed here – but not while we were there.

Views over the Belle Fourche River valley from the trail. The right photo is looking down on where our campsite was.

The “back side” of the tower, finally a sign about how far we had gone.

This model shows the top of the tower. It is about 100 x 300 yards – the size of a football field. In 1941 a parachutist landed on the top – but the rope he was planning to use to climb down didn’t land with him There were several ideas about how to get George Hopkins down – helicopter, blimp, etc., but the ordeal ended happily 6 days later when the technical climber Jack Durrance and his team were able to help Hopkins down.

We knew we were getting close to the end of the trail when we were able to see our RV through the trees.

Final view of the tower.

There were more cute prairie dogs on the way out of the park.

We drove through some small towns and flat country on the way to our next stop, which was Dickinson, ND. While we were sitting in the RV that evening, we heard some weird sounds on the roof – sounded like something might have fallen on the roof. It turned out to be some penny sized hail – but there were just a few pieces before we had a regular thunderstorm. We were relieved that was all it was.

You’ll hear all about our North Dakota adventures next time.

Til then, safe travels.