Tales of a vagrant ant

Life has been insanely busy, and I still feel like i need to finish this epic story before I can move on in my blogging life…
So here goes my adventure, and today’s topic of the day was definitely ROCKS

July 19

_{Devils Tower in silhouette}

Today had us driving BACK towards the Black hills, via the scenic route around the back, through more Badlands and buffalo country, as well as cutting right through Native American reservations. We were probably about 70miles away from Wounded Knee, something that I learned about through video games, believe it or not. Pretty uneventful drive, except for our stop in Scenic (pop’n 67) We were concerned about making it to our next stop at Jewel Caves on our tank of gas, so we decided to stop in Scenic for some gas. For one, our gas pumps were actually analog, the old school kind where the numbers rotated.

Secondly, the unleaded pump was locked down with a padlock (apparently they had run out), leaving us only premium grade gas to fill up with, at an equally premium price. Thirdly, across the dirt road that was the main arterial road, was a saloon, lined with many a skull of buffalo that had perished, in one form or another . INTENSE!

Next on our list of places to stop at were the Jewel Caves, 3rd the 2nd longest cave system in the world. It was damn hot, and we were so worried for Elly, since we couldn’t bring him in with us at all.. In order to not disturb the microbial ecosystems that had been established there., there was a STRICT no pet policy (which was fair enough), but we couldn’t even leave him somewhere cooler than the car, like inside the visitor’s center. What we ended up doing was that we bought a couple cool bottles of water to put in his cage to cool him off, and we put some metal bowls that Katie had brought with her on her move, to reflect the sunlight away, and to keep in the cool air. I really wish I had taken a picture of our ingenuity.

We also contemplated going caving, and if wanted to, we needed to fit through the opening in that little concrete block below. Given we had to keep our time short for Elly, and a bit freaked out at being in such a claustrophobic space, we decided to pass on that.

The caves themselves were quite surreal, in that they didn’t seem like they had been formed naturally. Perhaps it was a results of the juxtaposition of concrete paths inside a cave. It’s hard to fathom what the caves would have looked like originally, with no fancy lighting to make it look beautiful, no stairs, railings, no nothing. It would’ve been damn freaky is what it would have been. At one point, they turned out all the lights so naturally, Katie and I made out in the total darkness. It was the pitch black that is so much darker than night, darker than shadow, this dark that came from the depths of the earth. Another fascinating thing was the temperature. It was probably at least a 15-20C difference in temperature. When we got back to the surface, we got back to the car, to find that Elly had survived the brutal ordeal, thankfully.

After that, we made our way through Custer State Park and the needles highway, where there were such strange formations, and such a winding, but beautiful drive, full of switchbacks and sweeping curves.

After we made it through the highway, we made our way towards another geologic wonder: Devil’s Tower, a 900-ft bohemoth.

After watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind at Katie’s house only a few nights ago. I was just a little bit creeped out. But just seeing it emerging from the horizon, creeping into view and emerging from the haze of the desert, was something that was breathtaking. Like the Jewel Caves, its geometric nature on such a large scale made it feel like something artificial and human-made. We got there just in time to catch a magnificent sunset, and to imagine that Devils Tower is actually a cool hat.

It was dark by the time we left Devil’s Tower, and then we still needed a place to stay for the night. Recurring theme, anyone? But yeah, right around Devil’s Tower, there was nary a inn nor motel to be found. The closest town was Hullett, which was one of the more surreal drives I’ve had. As we drove, we watched the slow onset of night creep in, casting its shadow over the vast landscape. This was dream-like in itself, but traversing the landscape at dusk, the lone car on the road with headlights pointed to eternity. There was no music to be had either, with the CD player not working, and no radio reception, just the relative silence of Ezra’s engine. It was actually a bit frightening at times, trapped in this moonlit limbo forever, driving onwards through a night that would never end. Finally, a glimmer of light, of civilization, and we had arrived in Hullett. We were glad, despite being famished and having to resort to granola bars, chips and pretzels for dinner.