the queen travels: The Devil's in the house

Saturday, July 18 was the run to Devils Tower. Jaz hadn’t been there before, and it’s one of my favorite places to go when in the Sturgis area.

Aladdin General Store. I had to buy something, an embellished denim vest.

Out behind the store was a pile of antlers/horns. There were lots inside the store for sale.

This guy was at the store. He and his Indian were all decked out. It was spotless. Did he ride from Arizona?

This is a new style of haystack I've not seen before. I like haystacks ... little bales, big bales, round ones, rectangular ones, bread-shaped. They're too cool.

We rolled up to the entrance, and Jaz showed her park pass. I again purchased a senior pass, for the third time, as I keep forgetting to bring it with me. However, unlike Jaz, I have a pool wrap. She told the ranger, but the ranger still made me pay. Good thing I like the parks and don’t mind supporting them.

Before you arrive at the Devils Tower parking lot, you ride by a prairie dog town.

They're cute little varmints.

The tower was out, with brilliant sunshine showing the markings running vertically up to the top. There were lots of climbers, in red shirts, blue shirts. That’s not for me and I wonder how they can get up there in those cracks in the tower. We took the 1.3-mile walk around the base and thoroughly enjoyed it. Except for the bull snake someone saw in the pile of rocks next to the path. I’d have never seen it on my own.

The first look at the tower.

Devils Tower was named the first national monument by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. It rises 1,267 feet above the terrain, but 5,114 above sea level, was used in the sci-fi classic “Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and is considered a sacred worship site by many Native Americans, who have left many colorful prayer cloths tied to trees.

We would never disturb.

Native Americans offer prayer ties and bundles to the Great Spirit in exchange for blessings.

There are multiple legends about the tower, depending on the Indian tribe. One of the most common legends has some girls playing when they were spotted by a bear. In trying to escape they climbed a rock and fell to their knees, praying to the Great Spirit to save them. The Great Spirit heard them and made the rock rise from the ground towards the heavens so that the bear could not reach them. The bear, in an effort to climb the rock, left deep claw marks in the sides, which had become too steep for it to climb. Those are the marks you see today on the sides of the tower. The girls reached the sky and were turned into the star constellation, Pleiades.

Even in black and white the tower is spectacular.

Another legend is that there were eight children playing, seven sisters and their brother. The boy was struck dumb, and ended up as a bear who chased his sisters, trying to kill them. The sisters came to the stump of a tree. The tree spoke to them and told them to climb upon it, and as they did it began to rise into the air. The bear couldn’t reach them and kept rearing against the tree, scoring the bark with his claws. The sisters were borne into the sky and they became the stars of the Pleiades.

Sometimes you just see cool things on rocks. These two Harley folks were enjoying the view. Maybe they were even discussing one of the many legends.

While the legends differ, they are also much alike, and I like the legend.

Setting a fashion statement at Devils Tower.

We finished our visit, continuing to marvel at the tower, the surrounding area, the robin’s egg blue sky, the gorgeous cloud formations. Then it was back to the bikes and on down the road.

One last photo of Devils Tower. There are no bad shots which is why I have so many in this blog. It's a favorite place for me as it has a special feeling, a uniqueness to it.

We ended up in Buffalo, Wyoming. A nice little town where they were holding the Fourth Annual Longmire Days. Of course, we walked around. This is the biggest event of Buffalo’s summer season, named after a local author, Craig Johnson, who wrote books about life in Buffalo and the surrounding area, bringing popularity to the small town after the hit TV show, “Longmire.”

I posted about being in Buffalo, and wouldn’t you know it, I received a post from a former co-worker and friend Gene who was also there helping his friend, Robert, drive to Colorado from Alaska. They, too, had been walking around, and it was hard to believe we’d not run into each other. We made plans to have breakfast the next morning before we all got on the road. Better yet, Robert is the significant person of someone else I knew at my workplace, Chugach Electric, Dawn. It’s a very small world, and way smaller due to Facebook.

Wandering around town and there was a new use for a cart. I liked it.

Sunday morning, July 19, we were up and ready to go, heading to the restaurant to meet Gene and Robert. We breakfasted, caught up on our lives, and then everyone got on the road, heading to their destinations.

Robert, Jaz, me and Gene. Happy breakfast.

Our destination was Rock Springs, Wyoming. We were continuing to head west, but still in a leisurely fashion. Mostly we’ve run about 300-mile days, nothing hard, with the intent of leaving us time to walk around town to stretch our legs and see a little of the local area. Besides, how would we find blog fodder if we didn’t do that?

Some of our blog fodder for the day was riding through the Wind River Canyon to Thermopolis, where there are the world’s largest mineral hot springs. Thermopolis is from the Greek and means “hot city.” There are numerous natural hot springs with mineral-laden waters. We just wandered around a bit because mostly we were just going there for the ride through the canyon along the river.