Once again, the best laid plans have gone awry in the world of the Lunch Box! I had originally planned to leave Billings and head south for Florida the first of September but the unexpected need to have cataract surgery in both eyes (a two month process) delayed my departure until the first week of October. Because of a self-imposed need to return back to Billings before Thanksgiving in order to put the Lunch Box to bed before the below zero cold and snow of a Montana winter sets in, I am no longer planning on heading to Florida this year. Instead the plan is to head southeast down to “The Big Easy”, New Orleans. Depending on the weather, somewhere in Nebraska on the way back I will have to drain the water system in the Lunch Box, run anti-freeze through the system in order to avoid frozen pipes and “dry-camp” the rest of the way back to Billings. Since I’m not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, this will be another new experience. Come along for the ride!
Billings, MT to Black Hawk, SD (I-90 with a brief detour via Hwy 14 and Hwy 24 to see Devil’s Tower)
The thin, dark line of the Pryor Mountains lurks to the south as I head east on I-90 out of Billings. 50 miles later at Hardin the interstate turns south into Wyoming and we pass by Sheridan, where the Big Horn range of the Rockies loom to the west. I didn’t actually stop in Sheridan this trip but am including my account of an earlier visit in the Lunch Box a couple of years ago to bring newer readers up-to-date. Sheridan, WY, is a great little town of 17,000 where you can really see that working downtowns can still exist without sacrificing history on the altar of tourism (thought they clearly want the tourists!) This is definitely cowboy country. The main street of town is the old highway as the interstate skirts the eastern edge of the valley. The only big box store in evidence is a new Home Depot, and the downtown area stretches for at least 20 blocks. This is the real west that works and plays in a community they are obviously proud of. The JC Penney’s is in the same downtown building that it’s been in for years, and there are very few empty store fronts in evidence. On virtually every street corner in the central historical district that is the core of downtown there are various works of art. It’s really impressive.
But here is my favorite memory of Sheridan. I went into the High Mountain Mercantile to browse at about 1:30pm in the afternoon, and was the only person in the store. Millie came up and introduced herself and talked a bit as I wandered around. Then Millie asked if I would mind watching the store while she ran next door to get lunch. It had been busy and she was starving! Of course I said yes, and she just left! About 10 minutes later Millie returned with a sack lunch. Fortunately, only a couple of people had come in and the woman who wanted to purchase something was willing to wait for Millie, so my period of “guard duty” was successful. Here’s Millie and her store!
My father drove truck for Burlington between Billings and Sheridan (135 miles one way) daily for years before he got ill, and it turns out that Millie’s husband also drove truck and has just retired (at 80 years old). He didn’t know my father, but certainly remembers the old truck docks down by the train tracks. South of Sheridan the interstate separates, with I-25 heading south to Denver and I-90 turning east to South Dakota. The landscape is barren, wrinkled and covered with sage brush. Gillette is the big town in this stretch and is the center of the Wyoming energy boom. North and east of Gillette are massive coal deposits and oil fields. Out of sight to the north are the beginnings of the Black Hills. While most people think of the Black Hills as the area around Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, they are actually much larger than that. Stretching in a gentle arc from southeastern Montana through northeastern Wyoming and into the northwest corner of South Dakota, the Black Hills earn their name because the swath of forested hills rear darkly from the beige prarie that stretches to the north, east and south. At Moorcroft, Wyoming, I leave I-90 and head north on Hwy 24 on a 50 mile loop north that will take me to Devil’s Tower National Monument and the town of Hulette before reconnecting with the interstate just shy of the South Dakota border.
Devil’s Tower National Monument
The Black Hills held a number of spiritual centers for the Native Americans of the plains, and one the western edge sits one of the most significant, Devil’s Tower. Abruptly piercing the sky 1,127 feet above the Belle Fourche River Valley below, the rock formation is visible for miles at the crest of the rises experienced on the roller coaster of a highway as it curves through the jumbled mass of lower, pine-covered hills that is northeastern Wyoming. While it looks like it is the center of an extinct volcano, it’s not. The tower of basalt is the result of hardened magma being exposed by erosion of wind and water over millions of years. The tear-drop shaped top is approximately 1.5 acres in area. The western side (left) is much more eroded than the east as, of course, the weather comes from the west.
The KOA campground that I stayed in sits in a curve of the river right at the base of the national monument. Across the river is a stretch of stunning red rock cliffs with the tower looming above. A herd of white-tailed deer were enjoying their evening in the campground!
The office of the KOA sits right at the entrance to the national monument (Devil’s Tower was the nation’s first national monument, established in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt). It’s late in the season so the campground is virtually deserted and the adjoining café and outdoor deck are deserted.
It’s cold and drizzling the next morning as I head up to the visitor center, which sets right at the western base of the tower. Again, I note the blessing of travelling in the off-season. Minimal crowds, ample parking and restful quiet! As is often the case in national parks and national monuments throughout the west, the primary facilities were constructed during the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government program put in place to employ people during the Great Depression. The original log building has been in continuous use since that time.
The tower is encircled by a 1.2 mile path that climbs sharply from the visitor parking lot and then rises and falls and is goes around the tower. Since my brother Mike bragged that he had walked the entire circle, how could I not do the same? The next six pictures were taken as I walked around the circuit. The starting point at the visitor’s center is on the west side of the formation, which is much more eroded with fields of huge boulders at the base. As I traversed the trail the different characteristics of the tower came into sight. Here it is, going in a counter-clockwise direction around the tower.
A close-up of the west base shows various people climbing amongst the boulders gives some perspective of the size of the rocks that have fallen off of the tower. Part of the path that goes around the base of the tower is in the lower section of the picture.
After descending the two miles from the visitor’s center to the grasslands along the river bottom the road passes through a large prarie dog town. Prarie dogs are the “rats” of the prarie, once widespread and numbering in the millions but now their population has been decimated by the plowing of the grasslands. A very social animal, they live in large colonies and in this case, clearly are not intimidated by the people stopping to take their picture (probably because many ignore the “do not feed” warnings posted along the road).
Leaving the national monument I turn left and continue northeast on the loop which passes through the town of Hulett, home to one of the few operating saw mills that I have seen in recent times. Hulett is small, isolated and has a quirky “Wild West” flavor to the couple of blocks along the highway that constitute “down town”.
I continue east and rejoin I-90 before entering South Dakota. The road crosses the northern Black Hills on its’ way to Black Hawk. our next destination. Black Hawk is about 5 miles west of Rapid City and will serve as base camp for our exploration of the Black Hills.
Next up: Gold!
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