Devil's Tower and snow on July 4!

Some pictures from yesterday's visit to Devil's Tower:

This place is a must-see! Trying to give you some idea of the size of it through a few pictures is quite difficult. The first here was taken from the front seat of the van while we were still about five miles away - yes, five miles! It almost doesn't look real in these photos!

Our campground was at the bottom of the mountain leading up to Devil's Tower. Here, the kids have a "cargo chain" going to get the bags and equipment unloaded. We needed to make camp before we actually went up the mountain. You would be amazed at how quickly they can now unload, unpack, and set up our portable city!

Once at the monument, we were able to walk completely around it on a trail built right below the boulder line at the base, still quite a ways below what you see exposed at the very bottom in the above photos. The walk around took about an hour without dallying- at least 1.5 miles, I think. We took pictures all around it, and the view and shape changes as you circle. These next two photos were taken just as I ended the trail, about to return to the start at the visitor's center. To give you some perspective of size, the first one was taken from the trail below the boulders at the base. The second is at the same place, but zoomed in as far as my camera lense would go. Note the rock climber right above the top of the dead tree - still tiny as an ant in this picture! We saw climbers in two places. There were actually two where this one is pictured - an amazing thing to watch- thanks to Mr. Oakley for bringing his binoculers.

Abigail shot the last photo using our van as a tripod while the rest of us were watching the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was after 10 pm and the sky was beautiful! I thought I remembered this movie from my teenage years when it was new, but seeing it again now, in the shadow of Devil's Tower and after just having toured it in person, was really a treat! You may remember that the climax of the movie involves the aliens coming to make earth contact at this very location. Seeing the exact places we had been all day in this film was really fun. Not sure what all the kids thought about it (those who could stay awake!) the sci-fi special effects are probably a little "quaint" compared to what they see nowadays. I heard some say they really liked it.

No doubt, your kids have many, many pictures from this little piece of our trip. This blog application will not let us post more than five photos at a time, so showing you as many as we'd like will have to wait till we get home.

Right now, we are a little past Cody, WY, at Buffalo Bill State Park, on a reservoire formed from the Shoshone River - it is just breath-taking scenery. Actually, this whole day was a rollercoaster of seasons and topography! The vistas before us were stunning all day long, but never the same for more than a few minutes. We've traveled about 2/3 of the way across Wyoming from East to West so far. When we left Devil's Tower this morning, we were in lush, rolling hills. As we moved along, the hills smoothed out just enough that you could see forever, and the green gave way to more brown, red rocks and red dirt hills in a sea of gray-green sagebrush. At times you could see no tree in any direction and it resembled a desert in the mountains.

We stopped for lunch in Buffalo, WY - a beautiful little town which was green and lush with summer trees and flowers but was pretty quiet for the afternoon of July 4. It was 77 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze. From there we immediately climbed into the Big Horn mountains. In 16 miles, we ascended about 6000 feet and temperature dropped from mid-70's to low 40's! The grasses and deciduous trees of the town below gave way to evergreen spruces and pines, aspen trees with their pretty white trunks and spring-green leaves for contrast. The sides of the road were like a purple carpet of wildflowers most of the way up - but, all of this in driving rain! So much for the sun that had been on us a few miles earlier.

Just as we neared the top, we came out of the clouds to beautiful sky and snow still in the shady spots and where it had been deepest and not yet melted. We have a great picture of the kids, freezing as they posed, at 9,600 feet. The views from the top of the peak, a few more feet above the altitude marker were unreal! Nobody lingered long, though - we had to have some snowballs from the bit of snow left.

Upon heading back down the other side of the pass, all of the scenery, weather, temperatures, and views played out like a movie viewed in reverse - gone were the evergreens and flowers and back was the rock, but this time with a raging creek (looked more like a river to me!) along the roadside and sheer cliffs of rock on either side of the rock gorge our road snaked through. All of this accompanied by the unmistakable odor of burning brakes from various folks managing the 6% grade that went on for over 15 miles. Wyoming posts roadside markers identifying the type of rock exposed at various points along the roadside along with the historical epoch - how many millions of years old it is - pretty neat to see these change every mile as we came down the mountain.

Coming into Cody, later in the afternoon, we ended up in heavy traffic - hundreds of folks lined up in the right hand lane to get into the Cody Stampede - a huge rodeo going on tonight. It didn't start til 8:00 although it was barely 5:00 when we passed through. The stands were already packed with people and no parking in sight, so needless to say, our tentative plans to go to the rodeo tonight changed. The kids have been running around playing ball with some other camping kids next to us, having a blast. We got our tents pitched right when we arrived, despite an hour or so of 30mph winds to complicate that task, so there was some welcome down time after the work was done. This is the first campsite we've been to that did not have showers or sinks. The toilets are latrines in a little concrete enclosure - two potties in one little room, no partition in between, no sink or anything else in the room except for pungent air (for the girls, anyway) so you can imagine the reaction to this! There is running water from a spigot though, which we can heat for washing. We're only here for one night, so we'll manage just fine and enjoy the showers all that much more when we get to Yellowstone tomorrow.