As much planning as I did, there were still some great
surprises along our journey west. The cabin tops the list; checking out was a
little sad. But, like I told the kids, “You are going to be so tired of having
fun, that when we get home you’ll just want to sit on the couch and do nothing.”
Ha! Leaving the Hills early meant we could see more along the way. Back at the
Minuteman Missile National Park the “tourism counselor” suggested we drive
through Spearfish Canyon to see the Aspen trees turn gold. Well, we hadn’t thought
of doing this, and it would add a little time to our travels, but we’d missed
Needles, so a pretty canyon sounded like a worthwhile drive. Our primary
destination: Devil’s Tower. Our ultimate destination: Cody, WY.
But first we had to get there.
Somehow, we got lost in Lead (pronounced Leed). It was a
mountainy town that smelled like diesel. Way back in my original road trip
plan, Lead was our on the way home stop . . . but the reason I planned to stay
there was so we could explore Deadwood. But then I found out most of the stuff
we’d like in Deadwood happened during the summer, and it is definitely no
longer summer in South Dakota. Interestingly, after being lost in Lead (Leed)
we somehow landed in Deadwood by accident. We used their bathrooms (always
looking for good ones) and stopped at the tourist information center. It was
here I learned the proper pronunciation of the town that not only smells like
and mines lead—but is named after this substance, only . . . not. Ay-yi-yi.
The tourist counselor at this location pointed us in the
correct direction to discover Spearfish Canyon, but also highlighted two short
hikes to waterfalls of which we were previously unaware. So, our first
unplanned route led to more unplanned opportunities—which lead to further
unplanned adventures, of which I will recount here in a minute.
Our drive through the canyon was beautiful. When we reached
the trailhead for the falls, we were willing to stop and walk in the rain (with
possibly some mountain lions, but thankfully that’s the one animal we haven’t
run into yet). Getting close to the Aspen trunks proved photo worthy, as did
the waterfall tucked behind them. In fact, the first waterfall was so neat that
we decided to visit the next one! So we saw both Spearfish Falls and Roughlock
Falls in the rain. These hikes set us a bit behind schedule, so we tried to
catch a glimpse of Bridal Veil Falls from the road as we motored towards
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming.
You may remember the kids have kept their eyes open for
license plates during our drive; would you believe there was a double bingo in
the parking lot of this far flung national park? Hawaii and Rhode Island, if I
remember correctly—two very tricky states to find! Pressed pennies, check! Jr.
Ranger, check! (Below is a spot the national park challenge and another find the hidden animal picture--these animals made it easy for you ;)
We learned there are a variety of legends about Devil’s
Tower—which we’ll call by the much more pleasant Native American name . . .
Bear Lodge. The most popular revolves around a group of Native American
children who were out playing when one of them suddenly turned into a giant
bear! Soon the other children tried to climb a tree or hill to get away from
the bear, and to rescue them the tree/hill grew as fast as the bear. The bear
tried to climb up to eat them (they were his sisters in some versions—not cool
bear). Those weird vertical scrapes in the tower’s sides came from the bear’s
claws as he unsuccessfully attempted to munch the munchkins. Or . . . it is
cooled lava that quickly cracked and split when flood waters hit it. We’ll go
with that!
The walk around the tower base was another good chance to
stretch our legs. We climbed some of the tumbled rock for photos and peered
through the spy glass to see the original wooden ladder used to reach the top.
Spoiler alert: we couldn’t actually see it. Graysen walked around the back of
the mounted periscope, and announced, “Maybe we need to look at it through the other
side.” Ha! Funny kid.
Did I mention that it was still cool and rainy, weather
wise? For awhile, we couldn’t see the top of the Tower due to the foggy, cloudy
conditions. We decided to sit in the van and eat our pb and j sandwiches while
Graysen worked on his Jr. Ranger booklet. With a bit of sibling assistance, the
booklet soon reached completion and G$ and I hustled in to the ranger station
to do the pledge and get the badge. If I remember correctly, this one involved
a funny poem about not stepping on ants . . .
We were booking cross country, heading west to Cody (and the
weird hotel). The sun began setting as we reached the Bighorn Mountains. The
rain and fog were still with us, and here’s what happened next . . .
We’ve had some shaky moments on this vacation so far, but
nothing compares to the drive we took through the Bighorn National Forest last
night. You’ve heard of the point of no return? We reached it at dusk. A thick,
white fog settled over the road—quite suddenly. We were already heading up the
windy mountain road; there was nowhere to turn around. The misty rain that came
with the fog made the road precarious; so did the packs of wild deer that would
suddenly appear, just beyond the pavement—not just one or two, but half a dozen
at a time and at least half a dozen times. Add to that the “beware falling
rocks” signs. Only vaguely could we make out the guardrail, much less determine
what was on the other side of it—but we could FEEL the empty space and sheer drops
that surely were there. Even the mountain itself on the opposite side of the
road was barely visible.
In front of us, our headlights maybe reached three yellow
road divider marks, 25 feet? Then a pickup truck flashed its lights at us.
Expecting more deer ahead, we instead found a semi-trailer flipped on its side
teetering against the guard rail—mist enshrouded rescue workers everywhere,
including in the road with a stop sign. We soon proceeded forward and met
logging trucks, fully loaded with double trailers heading into that mess. And
the temperature kept dropping.
Our van’s freezing road warning alarm started to bing wildly
and flash red. Buck nervously noted the temperature dipping into the mid-30’s.
It was still raining, the fog still too thick to see the landscape around us.
Let me just tell you how hard I was praying, asking God to inspire other people
to pray for us at that very moment.
For twenty miles, we continued to slowly climb the mountain
to the pass. Finally, we broke into a clear patch. Plains and woods became
vaguely visible on either side of the road. In the odd landscape, the
evergreens looked like Christmas trees perched atop marshmallow roasting
sticks; all the lower branches were stripped away beyond the highest possible
reach.
These (still wet), but open roads didn’t last long. We
continued to climb, the temperature dropped to 33, and over the next rise . . .
we entered winter. Wind-driven snow coated the trees, the roadside, the fence
posts, and portions of the roadway signs. Still watching for deer, we were
startled when a gigantic owl flew across our windshield. This perhaps drew our
attention to the next sign—“open ranch land, watch for animals on the roadway.”
Buck says, “Great, now cows.” The snow was coming down hard, the kids were very
quiet, and the Vikings/Rams game was coming and going on the radio. I was still
praying hard.
Finally, the altitude began to drop. We cut through a second
pass at more than 8,000 feet and saw a warning sign declaring a steep downgrade
for the next 18 miles. Thankfully, as the altitude dropped, the temperature
rose. Our blizzard turned back into rain as we twisted down the mountain. And
then—I kid you not—a MOOSE stepped onto the road right next to Buck’s window.
“I could have slapped it,” he said later. We watched as the moose turned and
tried to run back up the mountain, its back legs slipping on the slippery
surface as it went. The moose couldn’t even walk on the roads we were driving.
But wait, we’re not down the mountain yet. Randomly in the
next section of our descent—a red stop light. Though now pitch black and fairly
deserted, a road construction crew at some point closed our path down to one
single lane, and we had to trust that whoever was possibly on the other side of
that single lane decided to obey the stop light. We made it cautiously through
the first red light, only to find a second farther down the road! By now our
brakes were smoking. The acrid smell was almost gagging inside the van, so
having to wait the five minutes (or whatever it was) at the stoplight on the
mountain in the middle of nowhere was actually a good chance for the brakes to
cool.
By the time we reached the base of the mountain it was 15
degrees warmer than at the top, but we still had more than an hour to drive to
our accommodation for the night. Buck spent 90 percent of this time (still in
the rain and occasional fog) getting blinded by people who thought our van’s
low beams were the high beams, and rudely “returning the favor.” And then there
was the little deer slowly wandering in our lane on a 65 mph road that burned our
brakes again as we veered onto the shoulder to avoid hitting the clueless
beast.
Let me tell you, this was not on my scheduled list of
adventures. I am praising God for a safe arrival at our destination after an
incredibly tense and stressful evening of driving in northern Wyoming. I’m also
thankful, again, for my mountain-raised husband who knew how to drive that
absolutely precarious path through the gnarly mountain weather and slick
switchbacks. We’d been seeing a lot of prairie settlement type history along
the way, and I told the kids their dad had just accomplished the equivalent of
outrunning a pack of wolves during a tornado with a blind ox pulling the wagon.
Or something to that effect :)
And to make the whole situation just a tinge funny, I
advised Buck and the boys that today would be ideal for wearing shorts because
the weather was going to be much warmer in WY than it had been in South Dakota.
We drove through a blizzard!!
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