I headed out from Conrad fairly early, confident of making Devil's Tower well before sunset. I chatted a bit more with some other Albertans, waited for the lawn sprinklers to stop spraying the bike, mounted up and headed out.
There were more land features than I thought there would be and a lot more round hay bales. Even the grass along the medians and shoulders is harvested into the round bales. I guess here they cows don't get a square meal but do have a well-rounded diet.
I stopped out in the middle of nowhere (there's lots of that around) out of sheer boredom, thirst and need for a snack. I reviewed the carnage the bike and trailer has caused in the insect community. The windshield had been cleaned to like-new condition by my Dad in Victoria.
Practicing my "STOP - NEED HELP!" routine - luckily everything has been running fine so far.
I had remapped my route last night since I had resigned to bypassing Glacial National Park and Yellowstone as well. I will save those jewels for another trip. I took the byways of Montana to travel diagonally across the state (Great Falls, Lewiston, Grass Range, Jordan, Miles City, Broadus) and other than the self-amusement above, not much to report.
I stopped for gas just north of the Wyoming border. While outside, eating the usual ice cream sandwich, I heard an odd whistling. It was a construction cone that had a hole in the top. It was almost tuneful. I uploaded the video (MOV), if you're interested. It is 21MB.
I was excited when I got in sight of Devil's Tower. I was really hoping that camping wouldn't be an issue, especially when I was getting there with plenty of time to spare - an unusual situation for me...
I paid the park admission fee ($5) and the camping fee ($12) and went to pick out a spot. It was getting close to sunset, so I wanted to setup the tent quickly and then go take some pictures around the Tower. The campground was about a mile from the gate and the Visitor's Center was another 2 miles into the park, around to the west side of the Tower.
I took a couple shots of the Tower along the way as well as some of the prairie dogs that had overtaken an entire field. They were quite friendly (I took a shadow shot to show how close they come) but seemed no more than fat squirrels with tiny tails. I was here for the Tower, not a little rodent.
I took some pictures from the Visitor Center parking lot and then went in closer.
There is yellow moss/lichen on the boulders and on the Tower itself, sometimes it is quite visible up from the ground too.
There is a 1.3 mile paved trail around the base of the Tower so I took the walk around the whole thing. Each view presented a different aspect of the Tower. Quite impressive. Thirty million years ago, the Tower was formed by magma about a mile and a half underground. The columns you see are 4, 5, 6 and 7 sided. The boulders at the bottom of the Tower are broken off from the columns. No major boulder has fallen since the Tower became a National Monument in 1906 (the nation's first).
Oh, I have lots more pictures of the Tower but enough is enough!
The campsite was all setup, the battery supplying my power once again (I think I'll watch "A History of Violence" tonight) in view of the Tower. Later on, on this totally cloudless night, when the stars came out, I had a good chuckle. Right behind the Tower, right out of the movie, was the Big Dipper. I half expected its stars to start moving in unison.
Tomorrow, it is off to the Black Hills, probably Deadwood, Mount Rushmore, maybe Crazy Horse and then points east.
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