Adventure Vacations with the Yelton Family: Day Four~Devils Tower

Day Four~ Billings, Montana by Way of Devils Tower Wyoming

Long day of driving ahead, but a very slow start due to the late night at Mount Rushmore on Memorial Day. Packing up the camper is tedious and trying. Added to that torture, we realized Natalie didn’t get her tennis shoes and socks out of the camper before it was put down. I told her we would be riding in the car all day, but I forgot to mention hiking at Devils Tower. There was no way we were going to unpack and put up the camper again to get the socks. Mike found her shoes in the car. Mike said we would just buy some socks on the way. …….If we could find a store.

The kids got in a few minutes of jumping on the jump pad before we left. This was the perfect activity for just before a 10 hour car ride. It raised the grouchy teenage boy’s spirits.

We saw amazing scenery as we were riding along. One rather upsetting thing though was the desecration of the National Forest. The beetles are killing all the trees so a large area of the National Forest looks like wasteland.

As we drove along, it didn’t look like we were going to find a gas station let alone a place that sells socks. We finally did find a gas station. When I went in to use the restroom, I saw they had jewelry and scarves, etc. So I asked the boy if he had any socks. He pulled a box of what we call, crazy sox, out from the bottom of a shelf. They were “buy one of two different prints” so you had mismatched socks. So for 2.00 we picked up the ugliest pair of socks that Natalie had ever worn. It was a hoot.

Devils Tower was a big surprise to me. I thought it was going to be a rinky dink upside down garbage can in the middle of the desert. A ten minute attraction. No. No. No. This was amazing and beautiful. We could have stayed all week. However a long car trip to Billings, Montana lay ahead, so after we hiked around Devils Tower, we hit the road again.

We lunched by our parking spot on the side of the road. Strangely, a teacher marched her children right through the middle of where we were sitting having a picnic. I guess they were going to their bus. We couldn’t believe it. Mike made rolly eyes and weirdo gestures to signal to me that some people are so rude, stupid, crazy….fill in the blanks. He said the upside to that was that they weren’t on the trail when we were! It was a reminder to the kids that they have had at least a whole week of extra summer vacation while other kids are still in jail….I mean school. J

Prairie Dogs

Towering Monument

Hexagonal Grooves

Mountain Climber

We Hiked the Circle Trail around the Base

North Side

Tippy Top

Glorious Sky

Looking Up

I found a heart of moss for Michael.

Rattle Bear's Spine

Everything the Light Touches

High Elevation - Nice Socks - No Blisters!

I love this monument!

Devils Tower is a scared place to the Native Americans. Around the monument you will find prayer thing-ies hanging from trees.

More Prayer Thingy-s

The rest of the day was spent in and out of rain while driving to Billings. Harrison was back at the wheel for at least 4 hours of the drive. We arrived late. Had an even later dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, green beans, spinach salad, and popcorn for dessert. I had been promising microwave popcorn, but it was always so late that we kept skipping it.