Sightseeing was the agenda for today so we drove up to Devil’s Tower taking the same route from Sundance as we did yesterday. We didn’t spot near as many deer this time but we did spot a big turkey herd and the drive is gorgeous taking us delighted gawkers over the ridge and down through a very colorful gorge to the park entrance. We got to use our access pass again and saved another entrance fee. We made a brief stop at the prairie dog town next to the road and continued up the hill into the facility parking lot. We were very fortunate in finding a parking place almost exactly between the trail and the visitor center.
Peg and I took full advantage of the government-provided restrooms and were only waylaid for a short time in the visitor center. We found one of the national park postcards Peg and I like and bought one. Then we sorted out our stuff and took off toward the trail around Devil’s Tower.
The trail is almost perfect for old farts like me. There is a little bit of climbing here and there and for some reason I don’t remember nearly as many descending sections although the trail is a loop and we finished where we started. There are very few sections of the trail without some shade. The best parts about the trail, however, are that the enormous monolith of the Devil’s Tower was on our left and almost primeval meadows and red gorges on our right. The entire circuit of the mountain is through stands of Ponderosa pine and a truly impressive boulder field.
Devil’s Tower, other than being pretty flat on top, is a geological idiot confuser for this part of the world. It kind of looks like Devil’s Postpile in California except it is about 1000 feet taller. After some very slow sauntering along the loop trail we got a glimpse of the what we think is the southern exposure. Since we were moving at a very leisurely rate we started to spot little shiny reflections off the Tower. After a modest amount of searching the wrong areas, we finally got the binoculars on several specks that turned out to be a bunch of climbers part way up the side of the big rock. The Tower fills up your view and the climbers look like the small end of nothing whittled down to a fine point. They are almost invisible against the giant columns of rock. The magnitude of the colossal cone thing of rock with the flat top is impressive, particularly from up close. As we wobbled around the loop we got pictures from all sides.
If we could quit looking at the Tower, the views out over the surrounding Wyoming countryside are breathtaking. The vistas of sky over pines over granite bluffs over gently rolling hills that are amply stocked with wildlife are memorable. We paused to be stoked by the great glimpses of the scenery so many times that it only took us about 2 hours to walk the 1.3 mile loop trail. It is gorgeous here. We arrived back at Charlotte’s preferred parking place, drank a river of our water and vamoosed from the park. We hung a left on WY-24 and pretty quick we were in Hulett.
Hulett has a terrific deli called R Deli right on the main and only road through town. They made me a roast beef sandwich with cheddar on a ciabatta roll, threw in a midget size bag of Lay’s potato chips and some good cole slaw all for $8. They even heated it up so it was filled with melted cheddar and it was terrific. Peggy got my pickle. Peggy ordered a Reuben on marbled rye and got the same sides for $8.50 and she said it was great. She got her pickle, too. The sandwiches are amply sized or we are getting to be even worse wimps because we each took half a sandwich home.
We waddled back to the truck and headed out of Hulett destined for Aladdin, WY. Aladdin has a population of 15, a general store/post office/liquor store/antiques dealer/ice cream parlor/trinket shop, a small vacant wooden motel, several mobile homes in various states of decay and a listed price, lock, stock and barrel of $1.5 million. The sign is still up so I guess there have been no takers.
We turned south off WY-24 at Aladdin and cruised down County 111 to close to something called the Vore Buffalo Jump which we ignored. West on I-90 to Sundance where we decided we had not wasted enough diesel yet so we turned south on WY-585 for about 10 miles to a road I can’t remember the name of where we turned west until we hit WY-116 back to Sundance. Back in our trailer we got the air conditioning, the ice maker and the CATV running and sampled some porter before calling it a day. We are scheduled to leave here in a couple days. I sure hope we come back to the Black Hills next year because we just don’t have enough time to see all we would like to see this year and the scenery and the wildlife are delightful.