TheCobbFamilyJourney: Devils Tower, Wyoming

Sadly we had to leave South Dakota to stay on track with the weather. Our next stop was a one day visit to Devils Tower in Wyoming. Some of us older people will remember this rock formation from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". We pulled into town around 5:30 pm, set up camp and just kinda hung out around the RV. Karen was getting tomorrows school work ready and the kids were unwinding from the drive and I talked to the neighbor for a little while. Because we didn't go into the park that evening to see Devils Tower, I decided to wake up early and take some pictures of the tower as the sun came up. It was nice just sitting in my truck at 6:00am in the morning, on the side of the road, listening to the birds chirp as the day was starting. There is something very therapeutic about waking up first thing in the morning and watching the sun come over the plains with a cool breeze. All you hear is nature waking up around you! I sat there for a good hour or so and just snapped pictures of the tower and the surrounding scenery. From here I decided to go into town to get fuel for the truck and pick up some drinking water for the family. I went into the 1st town with a population of 383 and there was pnly one lonely little gas station and zero stores open for water, so I figured I will just head into the next town. Nine miles later as I pulled into town the sign said population 50! ...I decided to go back to the 1st one and try my luck at the only gas station there was. When I pulled in there were people at both sides of the pump, so I went in to pay. Upon entering I smelled Bacon! In the back of this gas station was a tiny restaurant, so I popped in and ordered up some breakfast! There is something else to be said about a fresh cooked breakfast and some good old CNN news all by yourself! As I was eating breakfast I could hear the gas station attendant greeting everyone by name as they entered the store and then the normal chit-chat that a small town would usually have. I found it funny that when I walked in for breakfast the lady asked me "Are you visiting?" I replied "With a town of 383 people, you know that I'm visiting." She smiled and said "Yeah I know everyone in town." I sat and watched TV as she went in the back and cooked my breakfast. I enjoyed my breakfast and the conversation with the nice lady who had that very "motherly" way about her. Time to pick up the water and head back to the RV. When I returned to the RV, I found Karen and the kids up and sitting out front of the office on a bench doing school work. You see, Internet signal strength is a precious commodity, so you do what you have to do to get a good signal! After school work we headed into Devils Tower Park and spent the next few hours hiking around the base of the tower and reading all about this interesting rock formation. From what I gather this giant rock is basically lava that rose to the surface, but actually never broke through the surface and cooled and hardened in place. After millions of years of erosion from a local river the hardened lava mountain was revealed. The formation is a rock climbers dream and they come from all over the world to climb it. We saw several of them scaling the side of it and to put it into perspective they looked like ants on the side of it!