June 28
We left early in the morning headed to Devils Tower National Monument. Since we stayed an extra night at Wind Cave NP we decided not to stay at Belle Fourche Campground but to just view Devils Tower NM and continue on. The scenery changed to the more bleak, rocky and brown landscape.
At a gas stop William checked the camper’s tires and noticed one had only 15 psi! Yes, we had a nail. So we drove back to the nearest tire shop in the town we had just driven through, Sundance, WY. The “tire shop” was definitely interesting. An old, grimy guy with a long white beard appeared along with his old black “junkyard” dog that immediately approached William, barking menacingly. The dog turned out to be fairly friendly and immediately crawled under our camper to get some shade. The shop and lot were littered with old rusty machinery, trucks, mechanical junk, and an old Harley Davidson.. A prominent shop hours sign read: Open when I get up. Closed when I give out. There were handwritten signs with all kinds of sayings posted including: Unattended children will be sold to the highest bidder. Our tire was repaired for $18 dollars and the whole ordeal only got us about ½ hour off track.
After about 130 miles and 3 hours of driving we spied the monolith in the distance. It is truly impressive.
Several Indian nations have similar legends about how the tower came into being. They generally include a brother who was turned into a bear and chased his seven sisters up a great tree stump that began to rise into the air. The bear reared against the tree trying to reach the sisters and scored the bark all around with its claws. Scientists say about 50 million years ago magma was forced upward through sedimentary rock layers 1.5 miles thick. The magma cooled underground, fracturing into huge columns. Eventually the sedimentary rock eroded away, exposing Devils Tower. It rises 867 feet above its base and its top is roughly the size of a football field. Every year about 5000 climbers ascend the tower although it is sacred to the Native Americans.
We hiked the paved 1.3 mile Tower Trail around the base of the tower. Huge boulders and slabs of columns that sheared off the tower long ago form a large boulder field at the base. Liam and Ethan are always excited when they see rocks to scramble on. We saw many Ponderosa pines with parts of their bark stripped away by porcupines as they like to eat the softer cambium layers underneath.
As we approached Sheridan, WY the scenery started changing again, more green. We picked up Hwy 14 west and quickly started climbing in elevation. All along the winding road the various rock layers were labeled starting around 160 million years ago to 2.5 billion years ago. Our destination was the tiny first-come, first-served Prune Creek Campground in the middle of Bighorn National Forest, WY. It was intended to break up the driving distance on the way to Yellowstone NP. Wow, what a lovely little place we bumped into. It couldn’t have been a luckier pick. Our site was at nearly 8000 ft in elevation right along the Prune Creek and nestled in a pine forest. Wildflowers were everywhere, especially blue lupine which grows thickly almost everywhere in the meadows. The temperatures had dropped into the low 70s. We had a campfire for the first time along with smores.
The Davids' Cross-Country Trip 