Awoke earlier than usual in an attempt to get an early start on the longest driving day of the trip. I tried to avoid a day of this much driving but aside from two quick stops in the beginning there just wasn’t much to do between A and B (or, in this case, almost-B) but grind out miles. Thankfully, as has become typical on this trip, the terrain defied expectations and kept things interesting.
After our breakfast we checked out. Less than a mile from the hotel a turkey and her chick picked the worst possible time to fly across the road. Luckily we narrowly missed them. Pro tip for any birds reading this blog: You have three dimensions you can travel in — USE THEM ALL. Having dealt with the suicidal wildlife, well at least the suicidal wildlife so far, we headed north to Deadwood.
It’s no secret I’m a big fan of the HBO series by the same name and despite the knowledge that the series embellished a ton of stuff I still couldn’t come to South Dakota and not see Deadwood with my own eyes. The problem is very little of the original city (at least, the original city of 1876 — when it was a rough-and-tumble town of gold miners in Indian Territory) remains. Deadwood burned in 1879, 1899, and 1959. Second pro tip of the day: Move out of Deadwood before years ending in nine. To stem the decline of the city gambling was allowed recently and while I guess that is keeping in with the history of the place it just doesn’t appeal to me.
Deadwood, South Dakota
We did, however, visit the Mount Moriah Cemetery where many notables are interred including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock, the Reverend Smith, and others. The cemetery lies on a hill overlooking town and walking about it was quite tiring, particularly the walk up to Seth Bullock’s grave site. It technically isn’t in the cemetery proper but rather well above it further up the hillside. Seth Bullock was one of those rare all-around Americans — lawman, businessman, great friend of Theodore Roosevelt (in fact, Roosevelt sent his sons to visit with Bullock in Deadwood). He died in 1919, shortly after completing a memorial for his friend Theodore Roosevelt. The kids were struck by how young many of the people buried in the cemetery were — it really drove home that just a century ago life was much harder. Rather than post images of grave sites (which kinda weirds me out, to be honest) I figured I’d show the logo for Mount Moriah Cemetery — a logo I feel is just incredibly awesome.
Mt. Moriah Cemetery logo, Deadwood, South Dakota
In the visitor’s center for the cemetery they had many of Reverend Smith’s items. He was the first preacher in the hill country of South Dakota and a Civil War veteran. He was killed in that bloody summer of 1876 (as was Wild Bill Hickok by McCall while he played poker — his hand of Aces and Eights is still known as the Deadman’s Hand). Initially Indians were suspected, as attested to by Bullock’s touching letter to Smith’s family back in Kentucky notifying them of his death. Letter writing sure is a lost art, sadly. There is now some speculation that it was not Indians but rather those unhappy with his preaching on the corners of Deadwood. I guess we’ll never know.
We left Deadwood and headed into Wyoming on I-90. Our first Wyoming stop was to be Devils Tower National Monument and I figured we could get a bite to eat in Sundance. Wrong on that account. I thought that Sundance was the site of the Sundance Film Festival and therefore there would be plenty of places to eat. Sundance has only a Subway and a stoplight — turns out that the festival is in Utah, not Wyoming, so any hope of a decent lunch were dashed.
Hungry, we decided to press on to Devils Tower National Monument. The monument rises over 1,200 feet. Sioux legend has it that seven sisters were being chased by bears and took refuge on a low rock outcropping. They prayed to escape the bears’ clutches and those prayers were answered when the rock rose rapidly. As it rose the bears’ claws cut the vertical ridges in the rock. The rock kept rising, however, until the seven sisters were launched into the sky where they can still be seen today as the Pleiades constellation. Now I don’t know about that, but I do know that it is a very impressive sight.
Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
At the visitor’s center we learned that Devils Tower was the first national monument, set aside in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt. It had been climbed many times by early climbers using crude wooden ladders (cuh-razy!) but now it is climbed with technical rock climbing techniques. It was being climbed when we got there, in fact. Check out the center of the photo below — see that little bump with a shadow? That’s a person!
Climber, Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
Climbers typically take three to five hours to get up and back down. They are not permitted to stay up top overnight. Addison was telling me the story of this guy that had parachuted on to the top but was stranded for six days until a group of climbers could get him down. I found this very hard to believe — why didn’t he just call a helicopter or something? Turns out it was in 1941 — no way to call the helicopter (that hadn’t been invented yet!).
Incredibly hungry by this point (as the visitor’s center had no food) we stopped by to see the prairie dog town on the grounds. What amazingly cute creatures! Addison and I got out of the car and walked down a trail for a bit. We took some really close pictures (can get to about four or five feet away without spooking them — though that is fun in its own right because they start doing a high-pitched bark to their buddies).
Prairie dog, Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
Just outside the entrance to Devils Tower NM there was a KOA restaurant that we weren’t brave enough to try (and couldn’t find parking, regardless) earlier. We were hungry enough now that we didn’t care. It turned out to have reasonably priced good food — Michelle and I both had an excellent BBQ beef sandwich with potato salad (kind of a mustard / mayo mixed type) and I had a tasty green apple shake. It was nearing 4 o’clock, however, and we had a ton of driving left to do so we ate quickly and hit the road.
The road to Buffalo along I-90 was relatively flat with prairie extending in all directions. It was even more treeless and desolate than in Nebraska. We saw a dust devil kick up and when we drove through it the car was shaking it the wind was blowing so hard. The temperature was in the mid-90s and the wind felt like a furnace blast.
Once we got beyond Buffalo and started climbing over the Bighorn Mountains, however, the temperature plummeted to the upper-60s / lower-70s. The vegetation was lush forest, mostly evergreen with beautiful purple flowers in their shadow or stands of birch. Not one, but two, suicidal beavers cross the road right in front of us. Sadly not a bighorn sheep in sight, not even on the slopes of the snow-capped 13,000+ foot peaks we passed.
Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming
We crossed over the Powder River Pass (and passed the amusingly named “Crazy Woman Creek” — Michelle and I enjoyed that one) at 9,666 feet and descended down to the town of Ten Sleep through a beautiful canyon with many switchbacks. The town was named Ten Sleep because it took the Indians ten days (or, ten “sleeps”) to get there from their base near Casper, Wyoming.
What is amazing about this trip is how it continues to defy expectations. I didn’t expect to be greeted by what was essentially a moonscape, or at least badlands, on the other side of the mountains. This terrain continued all the way on to Cody, our destination, with only a few towns (and surrounding irrigated fields) breaking up the spectacle. Well, that and a final suicidal critter, this time a rabbit. Silly rabbits!
Moonscape west of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming
Tomorrow we drive through Yellowstone National Park to our lodging of the next five days in West Yellowstone, Montana. Stay tuned!
Route for July 13, 2010