DAY 16: May 7: Cody, WY-Spearfish, SD

Woke up in my lovely, lovely humongous bed to warmth and a strange absence of elk butts. Do a bit of repacking, take advantage of the heart-healthy (free) breakfast of the big bear motel: coffee and doughnut holes. But did I mention it was free? There was a banana on the card table, too, so I took that as well. (Hope it was for me!)


First activity of the day: The Buffalo Bill Historical Center. I pull some mad money-saving skills at admissions by flashing not only my AAA card, but my (long expired, never really valid) University of Hawaii student ID. Booyah. The center is made up of five museums. A gun museum, a Plains Indians museum, the Buffalo Bill Cody museum, the Natural History Museum, and an art gallery (closed for construction, wah). Though myself not a gun enthusiast, I checked out that section (hey, when in Rome, right? Well, when in Cody...see left pic, becoming Western) Lots of really neat things in each section. Getting a better understanding of the “Wild West”. Sort of. At least now I’ve seen their guns, saddles, and taxidermy.



Onward to Devil’s Tower. Prretty boring drive. Had to break out my ipod NPR for this one; local radio really wasn’t cutting it. Highlight: I drove through a town with pop: 10 on the sign. Talk about small town. Once I hit the pass things got a lot more interesting. They have signs posted to all the rock outcroppings telling you how many millions of years old they are. Also: Saw my first marmot! They are so cute. And fat. So cute and fat. I want to snuggle with them, but they seemed more intent on snuggling with my tires and/or undercarriage of the matrix. Luckily I denied them the privilege, but they must be unhappy with marmot life they way they laze about in the middle of the highway. Beyond this, another high point of the trip was getting gas at less the $2/gallon. Yeah.

The closer I got to Devil’s Tower, the more I kept hoping the radio would skip to some obscure station and I’d be able to make out a song through the static. Anyone seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Please rent it. Although this natural wonder is plenty cool on it’s own, when you make it the central theme of an alien movie it becomes that much cooler. Also, the eerie alien song from the flick was STUCK IN MY HEAD. The ranger that admitted me looked like she could be twins with the ranger that admitted me in Yellowstone. (Does rangerism run in the family, or do those hats just play tricks with my eyes?)

Not only is Devil’s Tower an amazing display of geological magic, not only is it an pop culture movie icon, but it is also considered sacred by the Native Americans in the area. So, that’s pretty much a trifecta of power and amazement. Combined with the fact I got there late in the day, the sky was doing some weird cloud stuff, and I was almost completely alone when I did the 45 min. hike around the base, I was well freaked out. The turkey vultures that were circling overhead did NOT lessen the creepiness of the situation. All throughout the forest surrounding DT, the Native Americans leave little offerings of colored fabrics in the trees, so you’ll round a corner and see a big white figure out of the corner of your eye, only to realize it’s cloth hanging from a branch. I did manage to spot some climbers rappelling down the side. Made me dizzy just looking at them; I do NOT have the guts to do that kind of stuff. That is quite a literal statement, I might add, as I have 14 cm less of ‘em than most of y’all. (I had to work in a Crohn's/surgery joke somewhere!)
My photo challenge of the day was trying to get a self-timed photo of myself with the tower. It is so flipping tall that you can either get a) your face and the trees at the base or b) Possibly a few flyaway hairs from the top of my head and the top of tower. I shan’t post my miserable failures. My solution was to ask a Japanese tourist who had been in the middle of photographing his girlfriend on her motorcycle in front of it. He was happy to, and even counted to three in English for me!

Continued on to Spearfish, South Dakota to find a campsite for the night. My GPS felt it would be funny, as the sun was rapidly setting, to lead me to every dead end in the town, recommending I turn the wrong way onto/off of onramps, and then lead me in a repeating circle (I caught on before it happened twice, but still). Luckily for Garmin (my GPS), I had recently changed the voice accent from “American” to “British” so for some really I was a little more polite when I yelled at it. Finally found the Spearfish City Campgrounds which is SUCH a sorry, far cry from Yellowstone campgrounds. I miss bear danger. As I settled in, acutely aware of the teenagers-up-to-no-good I had passed in a nearby parking lot, I wished for rain as a soothing sound to fall asleep to. Unfortunately, I got my wish plus some. I’m not quite sure the source, I think it was drops accumulating and then falling in fat water-bombs from the tree I was parked under, but it sounded like somebody was dropping rocks onto the roof of my car all night. In my 2am delirium, I even considered getting out of the car to make sure my roof wasn’t dented. Please turn up the volume on your computer before you play the clip below. It’s pitch black, but all you really need is the sound anyway.