We are still buzzing from our visit to Yellowstone, mostly because opportunities to see big game animals are nonexistent around the Portland area. We see the occasional deer and the rare cow elk, but the others are basically nonexistent for us outside Yellowstone. We’re grateful to have visited our favorite park once again.

At the end of our time in Yellowstone, we were reluctant to leave, but excited to head into Cody for some family visits. The Ponderosa Campground was a great place to set up for the stay, with remarkable green grass, friendly staff, a laundry, and a general store. We had a great site on the corner with a general lawn area.

We all grew up in and around Portland, but my sister went to college in Klamath Falls where she met her future husband, and ultimately moved with him back to his hometown of Cody, where they raised two kids. We have spent significant time in Cody over the last 25 years, appreciating its scenic mountain backdrop combined with its strange mix of tourism and natural resource economies. More recently, my mom and stepdad moved to Cody to spend their retirement years enjoying the dry climate and quiet surroundings.

We spent five nights in Cody visiting with family and enjoying the scenery, although we did not do any of the typical tourist activities one might expect from a visit to Cody. We’ve done most of those in the past and don’t feel the urge to repeat those experiences. Instead, we spent the weekend doing laundry, gathering with family around meals, playing a round of disc golf, and even doing some grunt work to help prepare the base for a masonry path at my sister’s house.

After the long Labor Day weekend, it was back to work Tuesday morning, and back to the routine of relegating all travel and trailer-related activities to non-work hours. Tuesday night we finished final preparations for travel in advance of the Wednesday morning travel. We woke ourselves at 4:00am (Mountain), hitched up, and headed east, making it to Gillette by 9:15 (Mountain) in time to park in a Walmart parking lot and set up my computers for the start of work at 8:30am (Pacific).

At the lunch hour, we finished the short remaining stretch to a campground just outside Devils Tower National Monument.

We spent a quiet evening in the trailer enjoying a sunset screened by smoke from a recent fire.

The next day during lunch, we drove into the Monument briefly, although Micki got to spend additional time after dropping me back at the trailer. We went back in the evening and enjoyed the views of the Monument from the Visitors Center.

One of the initial surprises of the Monument is the prairie dog town. For some, these little things are fairly routine, but we’ve never experienced them. For us, prairie dogs exist primarily within the realm of colorful verbs and adjectives, best used to describe unique and playful actions. Our tour bus operator in Glacier used the phrase “prairie dogs up” as permission to stand inside the bus to gain a better view from beyond the line of the convertible roof. Everyone on the bus knew what he meant. But before now, I could not have told you anything about real prairie dogs, but now I can.

These little cuties live in flat fields with light grass and dry soil, into which they burrow, creating tunnels that connect the various holes and mounds on the surface. They are smaller than squirrels, perhaps the approximate size of chipmunks, with thin tails and cute little cheeks. They group themselves together in communities, meaning they do not often stray from the “town” created by the community of prairie dogs. This means if you see one prairie dog you are likely to see quite a few within the surrounding field.

These are genuinely cute animals. Their little faces bear a natural inquisitiveness, which is amplified by that iconic prairie dog posture when they stand on their hind legs to take in the surrounding noises. They also make this tiny noise that is best described as something between a bark and a squeak. Within the town, we heard many of them sounding off in a chorus of little “squarks” that was enrapturing in a childlike and unexpected way.

Devils Tower itself was also strange and wonderous in its own way. Mostly, I found myself asking why this monstrosity exists in an area of otherwise gentle rolling hills. It is prominently featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I’ll now need to rewatch.

Micki watched climbers traverse the surreal vertical straked columns that flank the exterior of the Tower. She heard that a climber had fallen earlier in the day, but details were few. The Tower is unexpected and strange and entrancing in a way that is difficult to describe, and the effect was amplified by the remarkable sunsets.

After two nights at Devils Tower, we packed up for a relatively short drive to Rapid City, South Dakota, which is close to Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Custer State Park, and a host of other sights, not to mention expected visits with longtime friends.