Devil's Tower

Then it was on to Devils Tower in northeast Wyoming for one night. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt designated Devils Tower as our nation’s first national monument. It is actually the core of a volcano exposed after millions of years of erosion and weather. You might remember it from the1978 movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. They show that movie every night at the campground! The dogs really liked it there as there was a neat little pretty grassy area where they could run wild and we could look at the red rock formations or the horses in the surrounding areas of the campground; all while taking in the warm sun for the first time in awhile. One of the many legends surrounding this rock is “that seven little Indian girls were playing alongside the river when a bear began to chase them. They tried to outrun the bear but could not. They jumped on a rock about three feet high and began to pray to the rock to take pity on them and save them. The rock began to elongate itself upwards, pushing them higher and higher out of reach of the bear. The bear clawed and jumped at the sides of the rock and broke its claws and fell to the ground. The girls were pushed into the sky where they are to this day in a group of seven little stars (the Pleiades)!” The marks of the bear claws are still there yet. It is the only rock formation we have seen that the glacier marks go up & down rather than sideways as you will see in our photos. It’s neat to imagine the story of how this happened but there are at least another 6 different legends to entertain the mind about this unique place. But alas, the road calls yet again...