Friday, June 30, 2017

Day 38- June 30- Devil's Tower

After we left our campsite last night, we headed to the Walmart in Billings to get some necessary groceries. On the way, we stopped at Little Big Horn Battlefield. We had stopped here at our trip in 2014, but I needed a new stamp in my national parks passport. Mom and dad had never been there before so we did a little bit of walking around where Custer took his last stand.

Below is the marker for the horses were buried that were shot by their own men. They were shot so that they could be used as a barrier for the soldiers to hide behind.

This is a metal monument to the Indians.
Below is a list of some of the names of the Indians that were killed during the battle of the Little Big Horn.
After this – we continue to drive toward Devils Tower national Monument. This is the first national monument site in the United States. The campground was on a first come first serve basis – which always makes us nervous… Even more so this time given the fact that we were going to arrive around 5 o'clock and it was the first day of climbing available on the tower for the season. In addition to that– it was also a Friday. Luckily, David went ahead of us and was able to get both of us a site.
After dinner, we headed out on the valley view Trail which walked through prairie dog town. The prairie dogs really like the sunny weather – so they were not as many of them out as we had hoped. The view from this trail however, was amazing.  These were black-tailed prairie dogs-  there are five different kinds in the U.S.

This monument was recently created to represent the cloud of smoke around the Devils Tower. During the month of June, there is no climbing on the tower in order to respect the Native Americans tribal and religious beliefs that are associated with the tower.

After our short hike, we went to a ranger presentation of a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator.  He was unbelievable – his knowledge, passion, and ability to answer questions on the fly showed how much research she had done in terms of Teddy Roosevelt. He also had a great sense of humor.

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