Devils Tower and Deadwood Gulch

Prairie dogs!!!

Our Labor Day Monday was a day for wildlife. After we packed up and headed out of Sheridan on our way to Sundance, Wyoming, we saw hundreds of pronghorn antelope among the cattle and horses of the ranch lands along interstate 90. After we set up camp at the nice and clean Mountain View RV Park in Sundance, we drove toward Devils Tower, and then the cute began.

So many prairie dogs!!

No sooner had we passed the entrance booth to the Devils Tower National Monument as we noticed a black-tailed prairie dog just off the road. As our eyes adjusted to the meadow, we saw literally hundreds of them popping in and out of their burrows, running around, standing on their haunches and generally being adorable. Yikes. It was cute overload. We stopped to take a million pictures of the little guys and to let them entertain us with their chicanery. What fun!

Eventually, we continued up the hill to Devils Tower where we parked and then hiked around the Tower Loop, a 1.3 mile trail around the base of the monument. Devils Tower, we learned, was formed by the erosion of the softer soils and sandstones around a chamber of cooled magma. As the magma cooled it formed into hexagonal columns separated by vertical cracks, the largest such columns found in the world. A light green-gray color, the igneous rock forming the tower is known as phonolite porphyry, according to the NPS brochure about the area's geology.

When the softer soil eroded, the unusual column was exposed, and the action of the nearby Belle Fourche River continues that process. At over 865 feet above the base and some 1280 feet above the Belle Fourche River, Devils Tower is a favorite spot for rock climbers. As we hiked the trail, we noticed several climbers about halfway up the shady side of the tower, tucked into one of the many vertical cracks. It was thrilling to watch them slowly making their way up or down though neither of us wished to take their place.

Turkey vultures

Over the millenia, as the tower has been exposed, an extensive boulder field of giant rocks has accumulated at its base. As we made our way around the base, we saw huge turkey vultures flying around the top of the tower. Shortly before the end of the trail a group of 20 or so of them had congregated in a couple of dead trees nearby. Wow.

More prairie dogs!

All along the path we saw little bits of cloth tied to tree branches here and there. Signs mentioned that these are prayer cloths, the physical representation of prayers by Native American people who consider the tower sacred. Several stories as to the origin of Devils Tower (called Bear Lodge by Indian nations) abound in Indian culture. With a few variations, the legend says that a bear chased 7 sisters onto a low rock. The girls prayed the rock would save them, so it grew skyward until the bear couldn't reach them. As the rock grew, the angry bear clawed at its sides forming the long cracks we see today. The rock grew so high the girls were turned into the stars of the Seven Sisters constellation called Pleiades.

Wild turkeys

After our healthy hike through the woods, we returned to the car and drove back to watch the silly prairie dogs again. Shortly after leaving the park, I caught sight of two buffaloes lounging in a fenced yard near a barn.

Not far way, as we headed back toward Sundance and the RV, we noticed some wild turkeys strolling in the grass on both sides of the highway. We stopped to watch them picking at the ground in the sunshine and laugh at their goofiness. Still further down the road we saw deer everywhere...a couple here, three over there, a dozen off in a field, and so on. There must have been close to 50 of them on our way back to the RV. We polished off the day with dinner and happy hour before heading to bed at 2am after entirely too many episodes of Downton Abbey (with a hearty thanks to Nene and Joel for lending us the discs).

Cheyenne Crossing Cafe

On Tuesday, September 4th, after a leisurely morning, we drove east along a scenic byway into South Dakota and through the north part of the Black Hills. We continued through the steep canyon walls of the Black Hills National Forest and stopped for lunch at the Cheyenne Crossing Cafe. After the best hamburgers we've had all year, we had our first taste of delicious Indian fry bread. Fry bread is a traditional bread used as a dessert with cinnamon and sugar or as a taco shell with savory ingredients. We likened it to a cross between a fluffy Greek pita and a fried Mexican sopapilla. At the server's suggestion, we ordered ours with half powdered sugar and honey, and the other half cinnamon and sugar. It was delightful.

Deadwood, SD Main Street

Saloon #10
Where Wild Bill was shot
August 2, 1876

We drove on to Deadwood, South Dakota, whose tourist brochures mostly mention that the town is where Wild Bill Hickok was shot. In reality, the town offers a lot more history than that isolated event. Deadwood was founded by gold seekers during the Black Hills gold rush in the 1870s, springing to life from the tent camps and temporary buildings to wooden homes and businesses. After a series of fires, the shanties and wood clapboard structures were replaced by brick and stone buildings, many of which remain today.

Bullock Hotel

We began our tour of Deadwood at the visitor center, housed in the former rail station in the center of town. The self-guided walking tour led us first to an enormous silver corrugated metal building that once housed the Homestake Mining Company's slime plant. Tons of gold were extracted from the thick mud of crushed ore for over 126 years when it finally closed in 2002.

We walked along the sidewalks and past countless hotels and storefronts each with a gaming parlor. More smokers in one location we had not seen in all our travels around the country. Despite all the smoke, we continued our tour along Main Street and then to Sherman Street, the two parallel main drags through town. Deadwood was established along both banks of the Whitewood Creek whose occasionally torrential floods were finally controlled by routing the creek under Pioneer Way, now a third parallel main drag between the other two.

Cupola of the
Lawrence County Courthouse

The Adams Co. Wholesale Grocers

We learned about W. E. Adams, a successful grocer and six-time mayor, who, during the Great Depres- sion, spent his own money to establish a museum for the historical artifacts of his beloved town. The construction cost $75,000, well above the original estimated budget of $49,000. The Adams Museum, dedicated in October of 1930 and filled with historic items from the townspeople over the next several months, still stands free to all thanks to an endowment by Mr. Adams. We strolled around Sherman Street where Mr. Adams' former 4-story grocery building stands across from his museum. Next we poked our heads into the impressive Lawrence County Courthouse whose cupola sports intricate paintings by E.A. Soderberg surrounding a stained glass window at the top. The courthouse was constructed in 1907, condemned in 1985, saved from demolition by majority vote in 1986 and restored beginning in 1990.

Wild Bill Hickok's grave

We drove to the famous Mount Moriah Cemetery, up the very steep hillside to the east of downtown Deadwood. The cemetery houses over 3,400 graves, only a third of which still have gravestones. The most famous (and infamous) folks buried here were described in a cemetery walking tour pamphlet. We started by heading to the grave of James Butler Hickok, aka "Wild Bill" Hickok. Apparently, he wrote to his wife that he was hard at work mining each day, though he could usually be found only in the gambling parlors. He was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall and killed instantly. A miners court was quickly convened, which found McCall innocent on the basis that Hickok had killed McCall's brother. A regular court later retried the case, found McCall guilty and he was hanged. Besides his penchant for the tables, Wild Bill also served variously as a marshal and an Army scout.

Calamity Jane's marker

Just next to Wild Bill's grave we saw a marker for Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Burke), whose wild life included turns as a bull train operator, performer in a wild west show, prostitute and so on. She also claimed to have been a lover of Wild Bill's, though most historians believe this occurred only in her imagination and that the two barely knew one another, if at all. She died in 1903 at about 53 years old from acute alcoholism and other mitigating ailments. Her dying wish, which was obviously granted, was to be buried next to Wild Bill.

Also near Wild Bill's grave we found Potato Creek Johnny's marker. John Perrett was a colorful Deadwood prospector who claimed to have found one of the largest gold nuggets ever panned in the Black Hills area. Though some think it was several nuggets melted together, it now resides in the Adams Museum as part of the town's mining history.

At Brown Rocks Overlook

We walked further into the cemetery and out to the Brown Rocks Overlook, near the Civil War Soldiers' graves. The overlook provides a sweeping, if slightly tree covered, view of Deadwood and Deadwood Gulch. We admired the American flag standing over the Civil War graves and read a sign indicating that, by act of Congress, the flag may fly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, one of only a few places in the country with such a designation.

We drove back toward Sundance along the highway and dinner and happy hour soon followed. With a few more episodes of Downton Abbey under our belts, we headed to bed. What a great day!