Tag Archives: Devil’s Tower N.M.

2013_06_26 (Wed) Devil’s Tower N. M.

We had decided last night that we would switch to tourist mode today and drive over to Devil’s Tower National Monument.  I had been there twice before; first with my parents when I was about 10 years old, and then with our son when he was the same age (25 years ago).  It was Linda’s first visit, however, and we were both excited to be going there.

Devil's Tower N. M.

Devil’s Tower N. M.

It is only 61 miles from Gillette to the monument, and we had a nice morning for a drive.  We headed out around 9:00 AM and were there by 10:30 AM.  We stamped our NPS “passport” and then hiked the 1.3 mile trail around the tower at the base of the boulder field.  This is a paved trail with some up and down.  It is mostly shaded by the pine forest that surrounds the tower, but there are sunny stretches as well.  The base of the tower is actually higher in elevation than the surrounding Belle Fourche river valley, and the trail afforded a number of nice vistas.  There are resting spots with benches and a couple of spotting tubes as well.  The weather was nice for hiking and photography, with blue skies and wonderful clouds.  We finished our hike around noon, and left the monument headed for Hewlett to the north.

A view of Devil's Tower from the trail around the base.

A view of Devil’s Tower from the trail around the base.

Hewlett is a very picturesque little town with an “old west” look to it.  We were there because we had a tourist map that showed a number of different loop drives in the area.  One of them appeared to use a road from Hewlett south to Sundance, but the map must have printed incorrectly as the road did not exist as near as we could tell.  Instead continuing on to Aladdin, whose main (only) attraction is the general store, we decided to back track past the monument to Sundance.  It’s always interesting driving a road in the opposite direction as the views are different, and we had some very good ones of the tower.

The Crook Co. Museum is in the basement of the county courthouse in Sundance.  A fellow RVer had been there early last week and recommended it.  It’s free, which is always a bonus.  Some of the exhibits have to do with Harry Longabough, AKA “The Sundance Kid”, who was tried and sentenced to 18 months in jail in the Crook County court.  This was the kind of small/local museum that Nick & Terry Russell often visit and write about in The Gypsy Journal, their RV travel newspaper.  The old high school building is being refurbished to serve as the new home of the museum.  It should be very nice when finished, and worth a return visit if/when we are back in the area.

We headed back to Gillette and decided to take a quick auto tour of the main downtown area.  In so doing, we came acres the Rockpile Museum, so named because of the large, natural rock formation at its entrance which served as a landmark for a nearby lake in earlier cattle-drive days.  This museum told the story of the settling of Campbell County, of which Gillette is the county seat.  It was yet another instance of a nice small/local museum with free admission.

On the drive back to Gillette I studied the official Wyoming state highway map (Linda is doing the tourist driving) and pondered how we would get from Sheridan to Wapiti (Waa pity) on July 21st.  The most direct route is US-14, but our neighbor John said they had been told to avoid US-14 and take US-16 out of Buffalo instead.  Both routes cross the Bighorn Mountains, and US-16 has the slightly higher pass (9,665 ft vs. 9,033 ft), but when it comes to mountain roads altitude isn’t everything.  We got online and searched for information and found the RVCruiser website, which had a detailed discussion of the various routes around and through the Bighorn Mountains.  The information there confirmed what John had been told; the grades on US-16 are long/gradual, the turns moderate, and there are areas to pull off and admire the scenery while the engine or brakes cool off.  Not so on US-14, which has hairpin turns, steeper grades, and few if any pull outs.  After US-16, the alternatives were end-arounds (very long detours) to the north or south.

While researching this route we also saw a reference to “three tunnels” as you head west on US-20 from Cody towards the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  Tunnels?  Yikes!  Again we went online looking for information on width and height restrictions but had trouble finding anything official.  I checked the website for the Green Creek Inn & RV Park where we will be staying, and it mentioned the tunnels as well.  A quick call to them confirmed that we would be able to clear the tunnels without difficulty.  With our minds put at ease, we turned in for the night.

 

2013_06_25 (Tue) Another Short Move

We knew we would be changing RV parks within the CAM-PLEX this morning, so right after breakfast I dealt with sewer, water, and electric hookups while Linda secured the inside for our short but potentially bumpy trip.  Bob Pinner came by around 8:00 AM to check on us, and came back around 8:30 AM to lead us to the appropriate area in Boxelder RV Park.  We had our choice of spots and picked one that was level and dry, indicating relatively good drainage, with a good stretch of road in front of it.  We chose site D-67 and pulled through into the site from the west so we would be parked facing east.  For the nine previous prior days we have been parked facing west such that the hot afternoon sun streams in our large expanse of windshield, making it difficult to keep the front of the coach cool.  It has been dropping into the 50’s at night, so the coach is cool by early morning and the morning sun on the windshield is welcome.

For some reason known only to Jasper (our 9 year old male mackerel tabby cat) our preparations to move the coach spooked him and he managed to get under the passenger-side built-in furniture (again).  We finally figured out that he was gaining access through a loose heat exchanger screen.  He also managed to get to a spot where we could not get to him to pull him out, so he stayed there while we moved to our new site and set up.  He decided to hunker down and sleep for a while, but we eventually coaxed him out of the spot to a place where we could get him out.  He had disappeared under this furniture once before.  Now that we knew his method of entry Linda secured the heat exchanger screens.  We think/hope we are finally done with this.

Before we were settled in to the new site, John & Cheryl pulled in next to us on the driver side in their Tiffin Allegro Bus.  They were also at Windmill RV Park yesterday and had also agreed to move to Boxelder RV Park today.  They were packed and ready to go when they saw us pull out, so they started up and followed us over.  Rick, our driver-side neighbor at Windmill, was almost ready to leave when we pulled out, and not long after John & Cheryl pulled in, Rick pulled his Foretravel U295 into the site on our passenger side.

As we were all getting set up in our sites and chatting, I was reminded of the degree to which RVers tend to be sociable and make friends quickly and easily.  This is not universally true, of course, but it is more often than not the case.  I suppose the obvious reason for this is the commonalities of the lifestyle, specifically the traveling experiences, destinations, and technology.  We also tend to be “people of a certain age”, retired with grown children and grandchildren.  Although we come from many walks of life, and are probably more different than we are similar, the moirés of the RV sub-culture emphasize and leverage the commonalities.

Based on the weather forecast we had originally planned to go to Devil’s Tower National Monument today.  Although we were set up in our new site by 10:15 AM, we decided to “stay home”, work on some small projects, and relax.  Our new 10 foot Camco water hose turned out to be defective, when the hose came loose from the barbed push-fitting (again).  Although I could probably fix it with a hose clamp, we decided to take it out of service and wait to see if the Camco vendor we bought it from at the FMCA rally would also be at Escapade and try to return or exchange it.  It’s a matter of principal.

After lunch we deployed the patio awning to shade the bus as the passenger side now faces due south.  I then went on an errand run to Home Depot, where I bought a hose clamp (just in case), a 10″ carbon filter element, a folding 2-step mini-stool (to make it easier to deploy/store the awnings), and some small plumbing parts I needed for a project in our shower.  I also found Eastside RV and purchased a 10′ fresh water hose so I could reconnect our water softener.  Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia is big on the idea of serendipity, and I had a small dose of that today, although technically it was more of a “silver lining” experience.  Since the water softener has a sediment filter on the input side, I decided to replace the sediment filter in the coach’s incoming water line with a carbon element.

Our new water softener with pre-filter

Our new water softener with pre-filter

Imagine my surprise when I unscrewed the housing and discovered that there was no filter element inside!  If not for the failed Camco hose, I might not have discovered this for quite some time.

I purchased an Oxygenics shower spray a while back to install as a replacement for both our shower head and body spray, neither of which worked very well.  The Oxygenics is really a hand held sprayer that comes with a holder that threads on where the shower head normally goes, allowing it to serve a dual purpose.  It is also designed to draw in air and mix it with the water (thus the name) which is supposed to give a more invigorating shower experience while using less water.  I capped off the other connection where the original body spray hose was attached.  The installation appeared to be successful; the water only comes out where/when it is supposed to.

Late in the afternoon we drove to the local Wal-Mart to buy some new work clothes (jeans and T-shirts) and pick up some grocery items.  We had a simple but delicious dinner of lentil loaf and fresh steamed asparagus, and then went for a walk.  I played some more with the front OTA TV antenna and picked up several more channels.  I also decided that the position scheme I deciphered for the rear antenna was almost certainly not correct for, and therefore not applicable to, the correctly functioning front one.  I came to this conclusion based on the fact that we can see (with our eyes) seven TV towers from our site, so we know exactly which direction the antenna needs to point in order to pick up their signals.  I will eventually have to remove the front antenna top cover to physically verify how it works, but with warm, sunny weather forecast for the rest of this week, that task will wait for more agreeable conditions.