Taming the Wild West

Thursday morning we set off for Devil's Tower. On the way the road passed through Sturgis and Deadwood and since neither of us had ever been we decided to go. The Sturgis bike rally is going on this weekend and subsequently we have been inundated with bikers our entire trip. We agreed a roadside souvenir stand was enough to satisfy our desire for Sturgis. As we arrived into Deadwood, we had no idea what to expect. We both thought it was a giant tourist trap, and since neither of us really care too much about the old west, we figured that we would be out of

there in about 20 minutes. We parked the car and headed down main street to hit up a few souvenir shops. One of the big debates of our trip, and still an unsettled one, is what to name our van. Amongst the discussion Katie came up with the name Calamity Jane, a Deadwood legend. Though we both agreed that naming our already seemingly ill-fated vehicle Calamity Jane was too

much of a jinx, I think that overall the name fits pretty good. I say seemingly ill-fated because already twice now on our travels the check engine light has come on and then randomly gone off a day or two later. So instead of Calamity Jane (CJ for short) being the name of the van, we have decided to make her the vans role model type character. We found a pretty nice size post card of Calamity Jane to fix to the front of the van in honor of its role model in one of the Deadwood shops. Just as we were about to turn around, head back to the car, and leave Deadwood, we came to the Deadwood Tobacco Company. It is a basement bar / cigar shop underneath the streets of Deadwood. Immediately I knew we had found a gem and a place that we would need to spend more time at then the meter would allow. Katie ran up to fill the meter while I stayed and made friends with the owner, bought a new pipe, and browsed the rest of the shop

while enjoying a cold brew. The atmosphere was very welcoming and everyone knew our names within a few minutes of entering the place. Katie and I stayed there for a couple hours, enjoying the music and our newly purchased tobacco. If you ever happen to be passing through Deadwood, I highly recommend making this place a stop on your trip. Anyway

after we left Deadwood, we headed back to the highway and made our way to Devil's Tower. We visited the ranger station and got our second stamp in our National Parks Passport, then headed out on a 3 mile hike around the base of the tower. After the hike we loaded up the car and headed for big sky country. We didn't really have a plan for Montana besides eventually making our way to Glacier National Park before exiting the country into Canada from here as well. We took back roads through Montana which were full of deer and pronghorn everywhere we looked and ended up meeting I-90 again right at the Battle of Little Bighorn site. Unfortunately, we got there 10 minutes before the site closed so we did not get to go in. The skies were clear all day until right about sunset when again the clouds came rolling in. We were really

looking forward to enjoying a night under the big sky and stars that this state is known for, but we were cheated by the weather again. We were especially sad of the cloud cover because we had heard from my Dad that the northern lights would potentially be visible. Looks like we will have to be patient and wait until Alaska after all. Although we didn't get to see any stars or northern lights, we were treated to an amazing lightning show that seemed to be taking place all around us. We finally settled down for the

night after a long day of traveling in another rest stop. It was packed with fellow travelers and we were lucky to get a parking spot for the night. This morning we made our way through the foothills of the Rockies to Butte Montana where we have been spending our morning / afternoon at Starbucks getting all of our things in order before we take the plunge into the great Canadian wilderness!