Wyoming - Day 1 - to Devil's Tower

Devil's Tower/Black Hills KOA, Devil's Tower

Wednesday, 1 September 2021

As soon as we left the RV for early morning walks, we were swarmed by a zillion bugs.  Very uncomfortable.  I think it was because there wasn't any wind to blow them away, but it made walking a real chore.  And when we went back to the RV, they followed the light inside and harassed us in there.

today's route

On the road

Coming into Belle Fourche, we passed a goose farm.  And right in town we passed Dakota Mill and Grain, a facility I remember seeing my first time through town.  To me it looked dilapidated to the point I thought it might have closed, but an online check told me it's alive and well.  It's a well-established, South Dakotan-owned business with 9 locations, and their business is (as the name says) gathering and handling grain.

I crossed the Red Water River and saw that it wasn't.  It's a pretty blue color.

As I went south, the Black Hills started showing up on the horizon.  Nice to see such genuine mountains after several weeks of nothing more than rolling hills.

I crossed into Wyoming but turned back at the first opportunity so I could go back to the South Dakota Welcome Center I visited a month ago.  I had a stack of brochures and booklets and tourist information that I'd never even looked at and it seemed wrong not to return it.  I figured even putting it in the recycling pile would be a waste because someone else would be likely to enjoy those things.  I've begun to learn what kinds of tourism materials I'm likely to use and what I'm not, but I've found that tourism officials are quick to give me a pile of things I don't want unless I'm firm with them.  It was worth a few extra highway miles to me to recycle them properly.

As I was renegotiating the entrances to the highway, I saw a bull alone in an enormous field.  He was lying down and I wondered if he were lonely and what he'd done to get put in solitary confinement like that.

And Welcome to Wyoming.

Wyoming - my 32nd state

Now that Wyoming is connecting the Dakotas with the other states, it's easier to see the gaps I've had to leave in my travel plans.  I'll pick up the 3 Midwest states after Montana next year, and then pick up the 4 Southeastern states on my way to Washington, DC, after that.

The Wyoming Welcome Center was at a rest stop, and I tried to walk the dogs there.  We had a little trouble, though, because somebody or other obviously lived just below the parking lot, and this somebody had 3 loud dogs tied up outside his (it was surely a him) trailer.  They were very territorial, and had very expansive views on where their territorial boundaries were.  The result was that a big chunk of the parking lot was hard for us to negotiate, and the opposite side had signs saying no dog walks here.  My poor puppies.

At the Welcome Center, I found that they were out of their brochures about state campgrounds overall, and all they had were brochures about individual state campgrounds.  Actually, they weren't even all campgrounds - they were state parks, some of which had campgrounds.  I looked at those thinking how on earth am I supposed to know which brochures might be useful to me when there's no map.  

Even the official state map the nice Welcome Center folks gave me was nearly useless.  It was a full relief view of the state, which is helpful, but which also made it hard for me to read any information buried among the mountains pictured, especially because that information was printed in red ink, which blended in with the background.  The WC folks pointed out that the state parks were shown on the map, but as I said the information was buried in the clutter and, also as I said not all parks have campgrounds.  Maybe I'm at fault for not coming in the middle of full tourist season along with a million other people, but the experience was still more frustrating than I'd hoped.  They too tried to press extra information on me, but I was a bit more successful at refusing than I'd been last month.

Very close to the Welcome Center is something called the Vore Buffalo Jump National Historic Site.  Despite having now found their website, I couldn't quite figure out what had happened here until I found the Wikipedia page.  Basically, this location was used by Native American buffalo hunters, who drove herds of buffalo in the direction of a sinkhole about 40' deep.  The fall killed or maimed the buffalo, thus allowing the Indians to feed their tribes.

It was discovered by accident: in the 1970s when I-90 was being constructed, engineers wanted to know how stable the soil was in the area and drilled holes to check soil composition.  Those drills came up with quantities of buffalo bone, they notified Univ. of WY archaeologists that a cultural site may have been found, and they routed the highway just south of the area.  Due to lack of funds, only about 10% of the area has been excavated so far, but they think there are bones of 20,000 bison in this sinkhole.

I passed by the turn for the town of Sundance, which advertises an attraction called The Sundance Kid and Old West Museum.  They claim to have an extensive gun collection there.  The real Sundance Kid, Henry Longabaugh, stole a gun, horse and saddle at a ranch near Sundance in 1887.  He was caught and jailed for 18 months.  During this period he took on the name of Sundance Kid, which is apparently the claim to fame for the town of Sundance.  Sundance, WY, is not the site for the Sundance Movie Festival; that takes place in Park City, UT, but the movie festival's founder, Robert Redford, named it after the Sundance Kid.  

From I-90, I turned north onto US-14, heading toward Devil's Tower.  Turns out it's easy to see from a distance.

The day was overcast, so the horizon is hazy,
but you can see it in the center of this photo.
That view is about 20 miles away.

Somewhere on this road, a sign warned me of a 9% grade.  I will be forever thankful to the state of West Virginia for inuring me to driving in mountains.

This road also climbed a lot, and I saw a sign that read: "Caution: Sharp Curves Ahead."  Considering the number of s-curves I encountered routinely on this road with only ordinary s-curve signs, that sign gave me pause.

I passed horses and cows, grazing land and hills.  Magpies.

I stopped at a historic marker for Devils Tower.

I had no idea they still don't know how this thing was formed.

From this rest area I got the following view:

Devil's Tower

Actually, I used the telephoto feature on my camera for that photo.  What it really looked like is this:

Still looks pretty close, doesn't it?

From this rest area, I was only another 10 miles and a 7% grade away from tonight's campground, which turned out to be right at the entrance to the monument.  So, more on this thing tomorrow.