gardenofwine.com

KOA Campground, Buffalo, Wyoming, Tachometer – 4284 miles

Click here for Pictures

Today we started a 400 mile journey westward to Yellowstone National Park. Basically we have to cross the whole of Wyoming. We accomplished about 40% of the distance today, detouring from the shortest path in order to visit America’s first national monument called Devil’s Tower.

The park is all about a huge rock formation that towers 1200 feet (~400 meter) over the surrounding area. Geologists have 3 different theories how it was created. The Native Americans (Indians) have more interesting stories though. The one Ron can now tell all of you talks about 7 Indian girls who were chased by a big bear. They climbed on a little rock and prayed to the spirits to save them. As the bear approached the rock started to grow upward into the sky. The seven little girls were saved and today are seven stars shining in the night sky over the tower. The bear claw marking can still be seen on all sides of the tower today.

We arrived at the park just before lunch. I went for a 3 mile trail run around the tower while Paola prepared the food. When I got back we went on a short 1.3 mile walk around the tower as well. It is very impressive. The only to get up is by using professional climbing equipment. Since the rock is holy to Indians, they don’t like people climbing it. The park service has asked climbers to avoid climbing in June, which is an especially holy month for the local tribes. This voluntary ban has reduced the number of climbs in June by 85%.

Another fun fact – in 1941 some guy parachuted onto the top of the tower and was stranded on top for 6 days until rescued. When asked why he did it he answered that he wanted to prove that he could land on such a small thing.

We left the monument in the early afternoon and all the kids fell asleep rather quickly. They slept for almost 2 hours and let us reach tonight’s resting place in relative quiet. When we got here we settled into the usual drill – asap to the playground with the kids. While Paola was with the kids I prepared supper, but instead of the RV, I used the common kitchen, which is right next to the playground. This was a first for us. Advantage is that the RV does not get messy with the preparation. Disadvantage is the several times I had to run back to fetch stuff I forgot (salt, water bottles, etc..).

Tomorrow is a long driving day. We hope to make it to Cody, rodeo capital of Wyoming.

Good night.

Hemi

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 7:02 am and is filed under Big Trip, North America RV 2007, Wyoming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.