Devils Tower

Devils Tower, Wyoming

44 34.923 N 104 42.347 W

 

At the beginning of this trip, I hoped to see lots of small town Americana. As it turned out, we've seen move natural beauty and less human interest. But yesterday, we got a taste. We stopped in the city of Gillette, Wyoming for gas. Before leaving, I clicked on the "local attractions" button of Google Maps. It told me about The Rockpile Museum, close by.

We went to the museum (free admission) and it turned out to be a delight. It was chock full of artifacts of local interest. It reminded us of The Skenesborough Museum in Whitehall, NY that we are so fond of. Guns, saddles, mining equipment, a huge collection of spurs. Information about homesteading. We learned a lot about life on the prairie.

The engineer in me was greatly entertained by the Linotype machine, complete with a detailed step by step description of how it worked. I had no idea how sophisticated that mechanical monster was. But I clearly remember the bitter fights between newspapers and unions in the 60s and 70s as the Linotype machines were retired.

We try to avoid the most crowded tourist places, but we made an exception for Devils Tower. It was well worth it. The campground was very pleasant. We took the 1.3 mile trail around the base of the tower.

Beside the campground was a prairie dog city. We enjoyed that very much.

Lots of great pictures to post later.