I know what you're thinking. You think I should have an apostrophe in "Devil's" but you know what, you would be wrong. Geographical place names do not use apostrophes in the United States. You're welcome.
See, I told you.
Now, who remembers this:
The thing is, I never recognized this as Devils Tower in Close Encounters and I never really had this place on my radar as somewhere I would like to visit. I just think it was hard to get a perspective on how big this thing is from a mashed potato mockup in Richard Dreyfus' living room.
It's huge. We camped inside the park, well technically it's a National Monument, and all the spots have views like this:
So, the indian legend goes something like this, and I might be paraphrasing. The daughters of the Lakota chief were out playing one day and a bear shows up. They scream and run around and try to get away and ask God to help them and God shows up and says "Hey, climb up this tree stump". So they do and then the stump starts rising up and the bear is like "What the hey", and starts clawing like crazy at the stump and God turns all the daughters into the Pleaides constellation. I think the moral of the story is that you should be very specific when you ask God for help.
It is hard to give any perspective on how big this thing really is, if only there were a person climbing on the side for scale. Oh, wait it's my lucky day.
This guy was stuck doing the splits for the whole time we watched him.
Doh, I forgot my shoes.
See, claw marks.
You know what else they have here. A big 'ole prairie dog town.
And, you know what else they have here. Nothing, which is why we only stayed one night.
One last shot one the way outta town.
Doo Dee Doop Dee Doo
Well, ok it really looked more like this.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Estes Park, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Ugh. So crowded here. No vacancy signs at every hotel, motel, shed or lean to that could support a tent camper.
This is our view from the Bambi door:
There is just nothing like camping in the wilds of a KOA, sleeping under the stars near a major tourist destination, in summer, when school is out.
Yep, it's crowded here. But being the intrepid pioneers that we are, we got up early and got into the park so we could get some shots like this:
We have visited here once before so we headed straight up the Trail Ridge road to get some wildlife shots and freeze our tender bits off, cuz ya know what? It's cold at 12,000 feet.
Man, these antlers are so heavy
This guy would never fit between the Winnebagos at the KOA.
Look at you, you cute little hantavirus carrier.
Frozen ears, frozen toes, frozen fingers but who's complaining? Um, me.
Nom, nom, nom
What you cannot see in this photo is that there are a gazillion tourists walking around this lake, that smile does not reflect my annoyance with tourist overload at this point. When I head out into the wilds my hope is to actually be in the wilderness. Not gonna happen here and despite lovin' every minute of it, Fred and I are pretty pooped so we're ready to hightail it to our over heated home in Austin.
Summary
Miles Traveled - Approximately 5,000
Best Part - For me the buffalo in Yellowstone, For Fred it was the Beartooth Pass
Worst Part - Worrying about the compartment over the bed falling after the screws broke
Most Expensive Gas - $4.79 in Aspen, Colorado
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