Hello from Devil's Tower, WY

Hello from Devil's Tower, WY

Tuesday Evening July 13, 2010 (First travelogue of this trip).

We are at the Devil's Tower KOA campground (map). As you will see from the picture, we are right at the base of this magnificent formation. There are a large number of reference sites for Devil's Tower, but the National Park Service site is: http://www.nps.gov/deto/index.htm. A couple of interesting facts from that site: 1) Devils Tower rises 1267 feet above the Belle Fourche River; 2) President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower the first national monument in 1906. Words simply can't describe how majestic this rock formation is, nor do pictures do it justice. Today we went up to the visitors center and then another fellow and I took the 1.3 mile hike around the base.

Four Eagle Buses with the Devil's Tower in the background

This trip is to attend a Eagle Bus Rally in Custer, SD. However, several Eagle owners decided to make a bit of a detour and travel to this location prior to the actual rally. There are four Eagle buses here (see photo with Devil's head in the background).

We left Evergreen Sunday at about 8:30 AM and drove to Casper, WY where we met up with two other chapter member couples. We all stayed in the Wal Mart along with several other RVs and trucks. We all went to the Olive Garden for dinner. Yesterday we drove here and arrived about 2:00 PM. We sort of took it easy and then went to dinner at the KOA restaurant. At 9:00 last night we went to the showing of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind “(shown at an outside deck area on a big screen TV with a great sound system) . This is a 1977 Stephen Spielberg movie about UFOs that centers on Devil's Tower as the landing site for a UFO. Kind of a strange movie, but it was fun to see the area in the film.

I want to digress and talk about a fun day we had on Saturday. The family got together for a celebration of Pat's birthday and Father's day (we were out of town for both). In the morning, Pat had a Stampin' UP! party so Kelly, Damon and I rode our bicycle up Waterton Canyon – close to their house. This is a very scenic ride along the South Platte river ending up at the Strontia Springs Dam. The ride is 6.5 miles each way. The route up the river is a steady, moderate climb, which makes riding back a piece of cake. We got to see quite a bit of wildlife, but the best experience was seeing very young mountain sheep up on the rocks very close to the road. I have included pictures of the mothers and the lambs.

Mountain sheep in Waterton Canyon

Mountain sheep lambs on the rocks close to the road

 

As an added note, I have changed our blog picture to show the bus in front of Devil's Tower.

Tomorrow we will head for Custer, SD for the official rally.

That is all for now.