The Circle of Sacred Smoke @ Devils Tower National Monument
It’s been one thing after another – poorly written papers, late papers, requests for incompletes, advising sessions with students who have grade point averages that don’t even register as whole numbers, hiring adjuncts, dealing with silly colleagues, thoughts of irritation, grief, and rage. I haven’t had a chance to work on my research, my classes, or the journal. Last night, as I walked to the car, I found myself thinking “I have sacrificed my research on the altar of administration.” I guess it could be worse. A friend of mine is currently stuck in an airport somewhere in middle America with a lost passport. More accurately, I guess I should say that it’s a stolen passport – as in, stolen right off the ticket counter at the airport.
Even so, I still wish I was on vacation.
Devils Tower was an amazing experience. People told us that we would be disappointed, but they were wrong. Sure, it’s just a “monolithic igneous intrusion,” but it was also the first national monument in this country (thank you, Teddy Roosevelt). It’s also the star of one of my favorite films [1] and I made many, many quips about aliens and Richard Dreyfuss while we were trotting around the base of the tower.
But, hey, I’m getting ahead of myself here …
As you know from the last installment of Dr. Disenchanted’s Vacation Memories, we drove back into Wyoming after spending a day in the boonies of Montana. Our border crossing was rather uneventful – no close encounters of any kind (LOL). Hell, we didn’t even get lost because, first, there was a lot of signage (Shortest Route to Devils Tower), and two, you can see that “intrusion” from quite a distance.
And the KOA? It did not disappoint. The campground was located right outside the gate to the National Monument. No shit! Here we were, sitting on our Kabin’s little porch with the Tower towering over us. (Get it? It’s Punny!) Behind us was the Belle Fourche River, its banks covered in these cute yellow flowers. [2] The campground was so nice that we spend the first night just hanging around, eating buffalo burgers in the restaurant and making s’mores over a campfire.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the Tower disappeared. I know this because I had to walk across the campground to “find the facilities” and I did a double-take because I couldn’t see the darn thing. Fear not! It was not stolen. [3] It had just disappeared into some of the densest fog I’ve seen in a while. It was fog like we saw in France about 10 years ago – the fog that ruined all of my pictures of the Eiffel Tower because I couldn’t see the top.
So, after a cool-ish night curled up under a blanket (in July!), The Coach and I got up early to spend the day at the Tower. We presented our national parks passport (handy!) at the gate and drove into the park. [4] We didn’t make it very far before The Coach came screeching to a halt.
There it was. The prairie dog town.
For those of you who have met The Coach, you probably wouldn’t figure him for a fan of the prairie dog. Wolves? Sure. Cougars? Definitely. Anything of large scale? Yep. But prairie dogs? The Coach loves them more than any other creature on this planet. I suspect he loves them more than our own little crew of critters.
Me? I kinda’ like the black-footed ferret, but that will have to wait for another blog entry.
We spent a good deal of time gazing out at the prairie dogs. They bobbed up and down, scurrying from hole to hole, barking (if you can call it barking) an alarm every time a new car pulled up. The Coach – big nerd that he is – read all the signs while I walked back down the road to take a picture of the admonishment not to feed the wild animals.
After a while, we drove up to the visitor’s center where we realized that we had left our blue passport book back at the campground – you know, the book that you put the national park stamp in. D’oh! So, we made a plan. First, we would walk the trail around the base of the Tower, then we would go back to the campground to eat lunch and get the book. [5] Problem solved!
It was an easy hike along the trail. We had no plans to scramble up the rocks at the base of the Tower, although we saw a bunch of teenagers roaming around the boulder field. We stopped here and there to look at interesting things. You know the drill: “Hey! People are climbing the side of the Tower!” “Look! There’s a wooden ladder on the side of it!” “Cool! There are some prayer bundles!” At one point, we caught up with the Ranger Walk, so we stopped and listened to the lecture, peering out into the valley below.
I won’t say it was all sunshine, rainbows, and cute little puppy dog tails. Holiday weekends make for crowded trails and some of the little kids were not happy hikers. There was a crying kid behind us at one point, which really pierced through my meandering, meditative thoughts. Hey, it happens. Kids get tired. We just waited (patiently for us, I might add) and let the family go past.
Lunchtime came and went. The passport was retrieved from the campground, the visitor’s center was revisited (where we learned that Gerald Ford was a park ranger, just not at Devils Tower), and we found ourselves sitting through an afternoon lecture on the mythology of the site. It was wide-ranging talk that included everything from Native American legends to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The ranger even delved into the politics of renaming the Tower “Bears Lodge,” bringing the Little Bighorn Battlefield into the conversation.
During the late afternoon, The Coach and I wandered along the Valley View Trail to get better pictures of the prairie dogs. Unlike the trail around the Tower, the trail behind the prairie dog town was completely abandoned until just before we left. That was when this family came bopping down the trail, their teenage boy waltzing right up to the holes to take pictures – which only chased the prairie dogs away. If only he stuck his hand in a hole, maybe he could have found a rattlesnake or a black widow.
Again, I wondered – why don’t people read the signs?
As for the evening, we cooked steaks and corn on the grill, made another batch of s’mores, drank beer, threw on sweatshirts, and watched the fireworks. Later, when we went to the restrooms, we noticed little lights moving down the side of the Tower. You guessed it – people had actually climbed up the Tower to see the fireworks. Talk about nuts!
Next Entry: Black Hills, Gold Mines, and Rachel Ray
Notes:
- Although this is one of my favorite movies, I still laugh about some of the early shots. Having been to Muncie, Indiana, I can tell you that it’s located among corn fields – and a couple hours south of the Ohio Turnpike!
- Well, they were cute until I found out that they were an invasive species.
- Hey now, don’t laugh. I just saw the preview for a children’s cartoon where the Egyptian pyramids had been stolen!
- Okay, I suppose we could have walked up the 3 mile road to the visitor’s center, but crazy drivers plus big campers plus holiday traffic equals dead pedestrians. Even though I make cracks about dying before I pay back all of my student loans, I would like to live long enough to enjoy some of the perks of having tenure.
- See, isn’t it a good thing we were camping right outside the entrance to the park?
