The Devil's Tower

We extended our stay in South Dakota for 1 day so that we could make the drive to see the Devils Tower in Wyoming without having to take the RV towing the Jeep over what looked to be pretty mountainous terrain. I know I have said that a lot on this trip but trying to stop or slow down when you are driving an RV and towing a Jeep can be a little too adventurous at times. Mind you climbing hills is not a lot of fun either. A friend of Rick's sent this picture of a spare tire cover for the Jeep that we could really use on these trips.

Ok back to the subject of this blog. The Devils Tower is, for lack of a better description, a huge vertical rock in the north eastern corner of state of Wyoming. It is technically a part of the Bear Lodge Mountains (part of the Black Hills), although the area around it it much lower. it stands out for miles. It stands 867 feet from base to summit and the summit is 5,112 feet above sea level. it is big. The tower and the park land surrounding it was the first declared US National Monument, earning that status in 1906. It was used as a central theme in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" which was released in 1977.

How it came to be, exactly is heavily debated by scientists, but they all seem to agree that it consists of volcanic rock. So it is an old, dormant volcano. Erosion has taken away the soil around it and what we see today is what is left. That is the main theory anyhow.

There are three native tribes that each have their own version of how it was created. There was one documented in the visitor's center that was interesting.

The Lakota, Cheyenne and the Crow Indian tribes all have similar stories to explain the creation of what they call  "Bear's House" or "Bear's Lodge"or "Bear's Tipi", "Home of the Bear", "Bear's Lair" There have been some attempts lately to have the name of the landmark amended to Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark
to recognize the significance to the Native American Tribes ties to the location, but each time it has been rejected - the main reason being it may hurt the tourist trade. There seems to be little respect for the Native Americans who once owned this land.

It is hard to describe what you think and feel the first time you get a glimpse of the Devils Tower as you are driving towards it. You see it for miles away. The picture below was taken when we were still 30 - 40 minutes away from the park.

You will notice from this picture that it is pretty foggy. When we left our camp sight to begin this trip the fog was very thick and we were worried we might not actually get to see the site. Turns out it is so big I think you would be able to see it regardless of the weather, just not from a distance. we were lucky, though, because the fog was lifting quickly and the sky was clear not long after this picture was taken.

 As we approached the park we saw a number of teepees along the side of the road. I am not clear if they actually belonged to some of the native tribes in the area or if they were just a tourist thing.

The last few miles were a little tricky as there was construction and cars slowing down to take a look and buses and cars turning in and out of lookout areas along the road. We navigated safely and finally arrived!

To be honest, I thought the best we would do is seeing the tower from a roadside look out. I did not realize that we would be able to go into the park and drive up, almost to the base of the tower. It was even more impressive close up.

Almost since it's discovery people have wanted to climb up this big tower.  The day we were there there were several people climbing up to the top. It isn't until you see these climbers on the Deveils Tower that you get a feel for just how big this really is.

With this site being sacred to several Plains tribes, including the Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa. Because of this, many Indian leaders objected to climbers ascending the monument, considering this to be a desecration. The climbers argued that they had a right to climb the Tower, since it is on federal land. A compromise was eventually reached with a voluntary climbing ban during the month of June when the tribes are conducting ceremonies around the monument. Climbers are asked, but not required, to stay off the Tower in June. According to the information in the visitors center, most climbers respect this. About 15% of the annual climbers disregard this request though and climb it anyhow. Some of them have sued the Parks Service for violating their first amendment rights. (separation of religion and rule). I find it funny that they find their rights have been violated while at the same time disregarding the rights of the Native Americans.

There is this big field that sits along the edge of the park as you come in.  The sign by the side of the road says:

On our way out of the park we just had to stop and have a look. First of all, Prairie Dogs are a lot smaller than I thought they would be. And they are cute! This bunch was clearly used to people and I suspect that some visitors have ignored the sign not to feed them They come right up to the side of the road and look at you like you should give them something,

So we headed back to our camp. We were going to stop in a little town that it is said serves the best bacon and tomato sandwiches, but the exit was not marked coming back so we missed the exit. Oh well. The drive itself was once again full of twisty turny roads and big hills. it is always fun when you are driving and suddenly you can not see any road ahead of you because it drops off. There was also a little airplane along the side of the highway. No advertisement around it so I have no idea why it was there.

And so ended our adventures for today. Time to get the RV ready to go for tomorrow morning. It is the day we return to Canada and probably the last day in 2018 that we will get to wear shorts.

Deadwood South Dakota

Anyone who watched the HBO show "Deadwood" will be familiar with the tail of this town that is tucked away in the Black Hills of South Dakota. For those who have not seen the show, think wild, wild west meets gold rush and throw in some Cowboys and Indians, some opium and prostitutes and there you have the story of  Deadwood.

The town itself started as a settlement - an illegal settlement as the land belonged to the Lakota Indians. But when gold was found there it is estimated that as many as 5000 people settled in the area - miners of course plus entrepreneurs who knew that saloons and prostitutes would be in high demand. Famous gun-slingers like Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp were known to hang out here. In fact, it is where Wild Bill was murdered. Calamity Jane, a well known character of the 19th century also spent a lot of time in Deadwood.

So why go to Deadwood today? Well, ever since seeing the show and reading about the town Rick has wanted to go there. We just happened to be in the neighborhood soooooo...there we were, heading for this famous town.

Deadwood was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961 for it's well preserved architecture and history from that era.

When we were planning our trip this year we were supposed to go to Oklahoma before heading up to Grande Prairie so a stop in South Dakota was really on the way. When we could not make the timing work around the dates we needed to be in Alberta, we dropped the Oklahoma part of the trip and decided on a travel break in South Dakota that would allow us to do some site seeing. Deadwood was always a part of the plan. We decided not to stay in deadwood because it looked like it was in the middle of the mountains and mountain roads in a 34 foot RV towing a full size Jeep is not an adventure we really wanted to try.

As it happened, the road to deadwood was cut through the Black Hills (very BIG hills) and, although very twisty and turny there were no really steep grades to deal with.

Not far from the town, we saw this road sign:

 I was really hoping to see a Big horned Sheep, but no such luck.

The approach to deadwood was pretty dramatic. The first thing you see on the right side of the road, just outside the historic district is rows and rows of hotels.

The visitor's center was on the left just past the hotels it had free parking and could provide us with all that we needed in terms of town history and how to get onto one of the town tours. There were 2 tour company's that, for a small fee would take you around town, show you the significant sites and explain about the history and the people. To get to the tours you had to walk all the way down the historic main street so we figured we would see everything we wanted.

The visitor's center had a lot of information in a fairly small space. It had old pictures of the town when it was a just a settlement and definitely part of the "wild" west.

The Visitor's Center also had some nice displays on the animals that were native to the area around deadwood.

The other thing that we saw at the Visitor's Center was a display of how the typical gold miner would live. it consisted of a small tent with a cot, his trunk with his belongings and some cooking things, like a frying pan.

With all the information we needed, we set out to go down the historic main street of Deadwood. The very first thing we saw was a statue of Wild Bill Hickok sitting down in a chair, perhaps waiting for a coffee. he was, after all, sitting just outside a Starbucks!

A view of historic Main Street

 As we moved further down the street, we found the Bullock Hotel. The locals say the place is haunted!

there was a little building that was supposed to be like the store fronts during the frontier days that sold wood carvings. examples of their work stretched down most of the block.

Down the road a little ways was a visitor information wagon. It mostly had pamphlets about the more infamous residents of Deadwood like Wild Bill Hickok and Seth Bullock.

We also noticed that they decorated their utility boxes with pictures of the old settlement. The only other place I have seen this done to utility boxes is in Grande Prairie. I have to admit it was a cool touch. Here is one of the boxes:

Now i should clarify that, although the outside of the buildings have been preserved more or less to the architecture of the late 1800's, in spite of 2 major fires that pretty much burned the town down, the inside of the buildings is another story.  The first fire was in 1879 and started in a bakery. That destroyed pretty much the entire town. it was rebuilt but another fire in 1899 destroyed much of the town again. Then in 1959 a wild fire came close to Deadwood, causing the town to be evacuated, but that fire did not reach the town and it was spared. Not much happened in Deadwood for many years and there was a big economic downturn. Ironically, it was another fire, this one in 1987 that destroyed only a couple of buildings that renewed interest in the old frontier town. In 1989 the town applied for and was granted a gambling licence. The application was made to revitalize the town and fund it's historic preservation. This decision would change the old main street forever. Now, as you walk down the street you are greeted with casino after casino behind the historic doors. If it is not a casino it is a bar. If you think about all of the Saloons back in the day I guess the bars do still fit in.

Some locations do have some historic relics inside the doorways. Take saloon number 10. This saloon was where wild Bill Hickok was shot while playing cards. There is a sign at the door that marks the location. Just inside the doors they have some old relics on display and the doors themselves, although not historic are cool. The door handles are revolvers and has been renamed the Wild Bill Bar with his picture gracing the door. Every day they do a re-enactment of the shooting for tourists.

A couple of blocks further along there is another sign outside of the building that notes the place where Wild Bill's killer was captured.  Like all good stories, the reason for the shooting has never been figured out. The most popular theory is that Jack McCall was a hired hit-man.

There were many other places noted with smaller plaques or just named after the historic saloon that had once stood there. For example the Gem Valley Theater with was the Saloon/Brothel/opium supply house opened in 1877 by Al Swearengen is marked by a hotel/Casino/Restaurant by the same name. They advertise that they have the best steak in Deadwood so that is where we decided to have our dinner. it was probably the best steak I have ever had in a restaurant.  A little note about The Gem. Our tour guide told us that most nights it took in $5000 and on really good nights it did $10,000 worth of business. think about those numbers. Today any bar/night club would be happy with that kind of revenue each day. I don;t know what the adjusted figure would be in today's money but it would likely be around a quarter of a million dollars per night. It is mind blowing. Yet Al Swearengen left Deadwood after the fire in 1899 and died penny-less a few years later.

We finally got to the place where we caught our tour bus. it was sort of like an old school bus painted dark green. it was parked right beside a statue. They seem to really like statues in South Dakota.

A  good part of the tour that we took focused on  Mount Moriah Cemetery. is up on a hill that overlooks the city and countryside and is both beautiful and huge. The story behind this cemetery, according to our tour guide, was that the town decided to make one big cemetery our of the 3 that existed in the area. The current site was the local "Boot Hill" so named because men were often buried in their boots up on the hill. There were 2 other cemeteries in town and it was determined that the land they were on would be better suited to residential housing so the graves were moved. One thing that continues to be a problem was there were many unmarked graves so the remains were never moved to the new location. Apparently it is not unusual for a home owner to discover remain when digging up their land to add a porch or garage to their property. Our guide said they found a couple of bodies just this year and the expectation was that there will continue to be remains found in the future.

There is a lot of history in this graveyard. They moved Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane's remains here and interred them beside each other. There is nothing in the records that show there was ever a connection between them as portrayed in the HBO show. Nevertheless both graves are a huge tourist draw so it made sense to bury them side by side. There are many sections to the graveyard and one is a  veterans section, where many Civil War and Indian War veterans are buried with gravestones supplied by the United States government at the request of their families.

You can probably see by the pictures that the graveyard is on a big hill. It was a steep climb up from the town center for the bus but it also afforded some amazing views.

As we traveled back through town the guide showed us an area that was to be developed, but in the course of excavation they found many artifacts for the Chinese population that lived and ran businesses in Deadwood during the settlement days. It quickly became an archaeological site and they removed over 15,000 artifacts as well as some human remains from the area. To this day they have not resumed commercial development of the site, even though it is believed all historic artifacts have been removed.

We finally made it back to the Visitor's Center and followed the nature trail around to the parking lot. Once more we were surrounded with some South Dakota beauty.

If you are ever in South Dakota it is well worth the visit to Deadwood. Be sure to take the tour to learn all of the interesting facts.

One final note. If you have ever seen the movie "Dances with Wolves" starring Kevin Costner, it was filmed in the area around Deadwood. There are signs on the way to the town that will take you to the main filming location.