Devil's Tower and Deadwood

Today began with a lovely, early morning hike around Legion Lake to say goodbye to our lovely cabin in the woods. The resident Osprey was making is morning circles searching for some breakfast, the mallards were quacking away and there was a noisy woodpecker that was a fantastic escape artist avoiding my cameras capture of him. Oh well, he was cool looking with a huge plume on his head, and we awoke to him pecking away at our cabin's walls.

Our next stop was Devil's Tower, which is actually in Wyoming. I drove today and it was a pleasant, and remarkably fast, drive into Wyoming via the scenic route rather than the interstate. Wyoming seemed even more cowboy country-ish than the Black Hills, and there's red clay ridges cutting into the grassy countryside everywhere that is rustic and pretty. We pulled up to the massive tower awestruck by this thing which is incorrectly attributed to the Devil. If there were a devil, it most certainly couldn't be responsible for this wonder smack dab in the middle of an environment that seems to be mismatched; they believe it was once a volcano, or the inside remnants of a volcano, or just a bubble of magma that popped up. Whatever it is, it seems as if it should be sitting in Hawaii and not in Wyoming! On the long, slow ascent up to the visitors center where you start the walking path around it, there's a village of prairie dogs that skitter and chirp and do cute little doggie dances with each other that are worth a stop of the car to snap photos. They seem to communicate to each other the ever-present danger of golden eagles circling overhead, they are fast and have many underground tunnels to take refuge in. The walk around Devil's Tower is not too long, a mile and a quarter I believe, a bit of a challenge but there are many places to rest, and there is a unique sound that surrounds the tower: the wind. I've never heard wind like this, it's almost like invisible water falls crashing down around you, but yet it's still. It's both sunny and shady, hot and cold along the trail of trees and massive rock. The forest surrounding the tower is a silent beauty, it smells of pine strongly but not overpowering. The rock that has fallen from the tower are huge columnar formations that have broken away and look as if they could kill an entire village in one swoop. After our walk, we shared a little picnic and took a load off, then headed onto Deadwood, SD.

Deadwood, if you've not heard of it, was a gold rush town that has an interesting history. John got into a tv series called "Deadwood" that's based on the whole story, but it was too realistically gory for me to watch so I don't know much about it, other than what he's told me. Most people seem to have an ideal about these cowboys as silent, stoic and honorable men like in old John Wayne movies. They were anything but. It was a grizzly time, so it's definitely an interesting history, but again, it's a pretty disturbing, lawlessness which I find difficult to comprehend. The town today looks a lot like the old west, one story towns from the movies, so much so it almost looks like a movie set. It's filled with casinos, there are slot machines in every window, there are even fake prostitutes in the second story window of the building across from our hotel window, how quaint! But....a little creepy.

Our hotel is the highlight so far, though. We were planning on spending only one night here, so we booked Room 218 of the Celebrity Hotel along Main Street, and upon seeing this grand suite, we promptly went back downstairs to secure it for a second night. It is the largest, most tasteful and extravagant hotel room either of us have seen, and for the low low price of $99 per night, (that's right, $99) we decided to extend our trip another day to enjoy this great escape. I can't even describe it, so we will let the pictures do all the talking.