On the Road with Fred O'Rourke: Devil's Tower

With Mount Rushmore in the books, we charted a course north to Deadwood, planning a left turn that would take us to Devil’s Tower and ultimately the Little Bighorn Battlefield. I gave Gertie the coordinates for Devil’s Tower. She wanted us to head to Rapid City and pick up I-90 west (yes, that same I-90 known as the Dewey Thruwy back home). We wanted to do the scenic route up 385 so after several “recalculatings”, Gertie got with the program and we were on our way.
Deadwood is Vegas without the neon and the glamour; gambling casinos that look like bomb shelters. It is unimpressive and disappointing. We drove through in less than two minutes, and we had to stop two lights. We picked up I-90 west and got off at exit 199 in order to follow the scenic route to Devil’s Tower.

Our first stop of the day was the Vore Buffalo Jump, a sinkhole where Native Americans stampeded buffalo over the edge to kill them from approximately 1500 to 1800. Prior to the Conquistadors, there were no horses in North America. Hunting individual animals on foot with a bow and arrow is difficult and dangerous. As winter approached, tribes would join together in communal hunts to provide meat and skins for the harsh winter by driving the Buffalo over the edge of this sinkhole. Thick layers of butcher bone extend almost 20 feet below the present bottom of this sink.
Spectacular doesn’t quite measure up in describing Devil’s Tower.

And my pictures really don’t do it justice. It is an incredible site as it first appears on the horizon, and only becomes more breath taking as you approach.

Some 50 million years ago molten magma was forced into sedimentary rocks above it and cooled underground. As it cooled, it contracted and fractured into columns. Over millions of years, erosion of the sedimentary rock exposed Devil’s Tower.

It rises 867 feet from its base and stands 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River. Its summit is 5,112 above sea level.

It was proclaimed the first national monument under the “new” Antiquities Act in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt, whose face became a national monument in 1941 about 125 miles to the east.

Devil’s Tower is sacred to Native Americans and prayer bundles have been placed in many of the trees. Visitors are warned not to feed or disturb the prairie dogs; they bite and my carry disease (woodchucks in cowboy boots).

And their abandoned holes may be homes to rattlesnakes and black widow spiders. The brochure advises to avoid rattlesnakes under its “Safety and Regulations” paragraph. No kidding.
It was not quite six o’clock as we approached Sheridan, WY, 80 miles shy of Garryowen, MT and the Little Bighorn. There is a flood watch in effect for the area around the Custer Battlefield and it had been raining most of the afternoon. Given the hour and the weather, we decided to lay-up for the night in Sheridan, as we did not have a hotel reservation at our destination. Homer asked the woman at the desk where we could find a good place to eat and she said here at the hotel. Maybe so but Homer asked her “if you were going out with your boyfriend where would you want to eat?” She answered Olivers, but it’s downtown (2 miles and 3 turns). So after washing up we headed out.

I kid you not when I say this place could make it in New York (wine list would need some beefing up). I had Caribbean Black Bean Soup, medallions of beef with garlic-mashed potatoes and a red wine reduction and a spinach salad, Homer had butternut squash and pan seared trout, all local ingredients and superbly prepared. And the apple pie rivaled Judy O’s. Who would have thunk it in Sheridan, WY.