Keeping on keeping on

We left Spearfish this morning and headed northwest. Time to finally make our way to Wyoming. In fact, we are in Cody tonight, anxious for our time in Yellowstone area to begin and the opportunity to stay in one place for a little while!


But, on the way over, we took the time to stop at Devils Tower before going over the Big Horn Mountains. Hitch enjoyed this tremendously - a mile and a half hike around this hill was a welcome change from just being in the car!

Devils Tower is a very special place. Seems President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower in 1906 as the first national monument under the new Antiquities Act. Of course, scientists have their theories as to how the mountain pushed it's way upward in the middle of mostly grasslands. Hitch, however, prefers the Native American tale. As quoted in the Park Service brochure, the Kiowa people say, "Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper." (quotation from N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain, The University of New Mexico Press).

Just a little food for thought as we say...

Goodnight for now,
Traveling with Hitch