Wild and Wooly Steer
While others slept in a bit high in the Black Hills National Forest, I woke at 6:45 to the sound of 4 wild and wooly steers outside moovin intently toward our van. Always alert to secure the perimeter and protect the slumbering, I risked life and limb to shoo them back into the forest a short distance away toward their cohort then echoing from the deep woods. Realizing that they belonged there and perhaps we didn’t and that so many other dangers could also be lurking, we struck up the band with Roy Brown’s Roc’in Tonight and pushed onwards and downwards. After a little additional fun with boulder harvesting for the trip home, we departed for the very interesting cowboy hitch’in post town of Hulett, Wyoming, pop 365 (for now) in route to revisit Devil’s Tower by day. After nice but slow “cakes on the griddle” with the country boys at the Red Rock Cafe, we wandered down the street a piece to a must see (next time you’re in town there) native American artifact and photo antique establishment, Bob Coronato’s Fine Arts & Antiques (.com). Bob has been a collector for decades and favored us with additional native American history and stories beyond the exhibits. Impressed with the authenticity of Hulett, we drove off recounting Rocky Raccoon (“Doc it’s only a scratch ….I’ll be back as soon as I am able”) until glimpsing Devil’s Tower (DT) with nearby Missouri Mesa down the road a piece. Arriving to a big crowd at Devil’s Tower, and with a perceived long and likely restricted hike to the base of the Tower, we opted to avoid a “Close Encounter(s) of the Third Kind.”
Having climbed DT a thousand years ago with climbing partner Jim Books, it was great to revisit one of my special places and national monument by day. That said, few things compare to our fortuitous arrival there at dusk the night before with an amazing sunset backdrop and 4th of July fireworks blazing - a lifetime memory. Next, we sadly departed Wyoming with a brief, relatively unproductive stop at the General Store in Aladdin, Wyoming, pop 15, before taking refuge for muni-park lunch in iconic but then biker-free, uncharacteristically lethargic Sturgis, South Dakota. Changing course, we moved on to the surprisingly lively and prosperous casino town of Deadwood and visited the well hyped gravesites of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane in Mt. Moriah Cemetery. Next, we enjoyed the scenic Spearfish Canyon highway from Lead with stops at it’s pleasant falls and recreationally impressive and scenic Pactola Dam & Reservoir. Then near Keystone, we paid homage to Mt. Rushmore, visited just the day before by the current U. S. presidential contingent with the usual media coverage and critique. Among ourselves, we enjoyed viewing and discussing the nation’s stoney faces of leadership as well as the state flags and plaques showing the sequence of their admittance to the union, then had a nice dinner at the Powder Restaurant in Keystone. Needing a place to rest heads with early starts and much windshield time upcoming the next few days, we tented together late night at the upscale Buffalo Ridge Camp Resort in Custer, South Dakota.
