Clark, WY

Friday, August 14, 2009
(High 89, low 44, partly sunny)

Last night at the Devil’s Tower KOA, way back in the tent section was a teepee, with a number of Native Americans pounding their drums and chanting. I walked back to see them but it was after dark and I didn’t want to disturb them, especially since the Devil’s Tower is a sacred place for them. I enjoyed listening to them. They started up again in the morning. I could have been back in the 1800s except for all the cars and trucks parked next to the teepee.

Today we are going west to Clark, WY where my highschool classmate and quilting friend, Jeannette Jacobsen Brewster lives. We will overnite with her.

The pronghorns really like this area. We saw several groups along the highway. I think their markings are so pretty.

There were several drilling machines west of Devil’s Tower. I don’t know what they are drilling for. The machines are in the fields with the cattle and the pronghorns.

To get to Clark, WY, we had to go over the Bighorn mountains in the Bighorn National Forest. The pine trees on the eastern side of the mountain were very tall and green with nary a dead one in sight. The road winds and twists and there are many hairpin turns. Fred was worried about Dazy-D overheating so we stopped a couple of times and let her cool down.

At the top of the mountain, we ran into construction for 5 miles. They are making a new road up there. After a while the 2-lane road became a one-lane road. Talk about hairy, up there with an RV pulling a toad.

After all that, we finally started the descent. The western side of the mountains was much more baren, few trees, mostly rock. Saw a few more red beds and stopped to pick up a piece of red rock. Lots more twists and turns and hairpin curves.

At one point Dazy-D was starting to smell and Fred stopped at Shell Cavern lookout to let her brakes cool down.

We met two Italian fellows at the cavern and chatted briefly with them. They told us to stop at Dirty Annie’s at the bottom.

There is a small airport at Shell, looks like the planes are rather old. Saw an old schoolhouse also.

Riding along in our automobile (sounds like a song, doesn’t it), oops, our RV, we were enjoying the relatively flat land after that long, pleasant but a little worrisome, ride up and down the Bighorn mountains. Then looming ahead were two very large (you can really see a lot of the sky out here) black clouds. Lightening was in front of us and on the side of us. Luckily, we only got a few minutes of large rain as we went right between the two big clouds.

We arrived at Cody, WY and began another mountainous ascent into the Shoshone National Forest along route 120 passing Dean Indian Summit which rises to over 8000 feet. These mountains are covered with little round brush, about 3’ in diameter, sage brush we learned.

We spent the next hour or more riding along the dirty, bumpy roads around Jeannette’s home untl we found it. Poor Rosebud got so filthy, even inside of the motor. We finally found her home and had a delightful elk, sweet potato, and green bean dinner topped off with a slice of yummy banana bread. We then took a ride to the local canyon in Ron’s Road Runner after which we spent a wonderful couple of hours sitting on the front porch of their log home, looking at the mountains, and getting caught up.,