The Devil's Tower is a 1,000-foot anomaly in the high plains of eastern Wyoming, towering over the scrub like the mashed-potato model Richard Dreyfuss made in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Geolgists believe the odd landform is the remains of an ancient volcano. Magma was forced upward into a layer of sedimentary rock as many as 50 million years ago. The softer sedimentary rock eroded over the millenia, exposing the harder volacnic rock below, and leaving the monolithic Devil's Tower for people of the 21st century to marvel at. Unless you are 12 and 10, and then climbing on the boulder field around the tower is way more interesting.
Devil's Tower
Along I-90 en route to Devil's Tower we observed another geological anomaly: a series of rocks in the highway median that looked exactly like a giant herd of poodles had used the area as a litter box.
After a brief stop at Devil's Tower we continued east to what is easily the most commercial stop on our quest -- Rapid City, home to Mount Rushmore, along with mini golf, chairlift mega-slides, a water park and every one of the national restaurant chains (Applebee's, Olive Garden, Chili's, Arby's, McDonald's, etc., etc., etc.).
The waterpark was a huge hit with the kids, who spent three hours running up 70 stairs to spend about 30 seconds careening back down in a water-filled tube. And in the waterpark, I was struck yet again at one of the universe's most inexplicable questions: why do ugly people continually seek to make themselves uglier with tattoos and piercings?
The kids didn't want to climb to the top? There were so many climbers when we there in May last year. Did they like all the prairie dogs on the way in?
ReplyDeleteDo Needle Highway too! It is the coolest and the lake down at the bottom (forgetting the name right now) is just surreal.
ReplyDeleteMelissa (remc)