Double D... (Devil's and Downpours...)

***Miles travelled today: 259

***Total Miles: 5131

***States travelled through: South Dakota into Wyoming...

We left Spearfish Canyon early this morning - and in so doing - we left behind the first thing of our eight week journeying thus far... the battery charger for the camera... we think that's pretty good going!!! and - we have already stopped at a Walmart to replace it!!!

We did a bit of a detour off our path this morning as we wanted to go to Devil's Tower National Monument... (initially made a national monument because Teddy Roosevelt thought it looked good! This may sound facetious - but it was already a sacred ground to many... and thus monumental to people for many generations before...) as can be seen by the photo's... it is really quite awesome...

Jay went for a long walk around the base of the tower, whilst I stayed and listened to a park ranger talk about the significance of the tower - to many people - for many different things... apparently there is nothing else like it in the world, and they get about 5000 rock climbers a year from all over the world... there were none climbing today as there is a voluntary climbing ban through June due to the fact that June is a very sacred time to the Native Americans and there are many sacred events around the tower...

...we took many photos and did quite a bit of exploring - before making our way further westwards... although needing to detour Southwards somewhat to get onto the route that we needed... so for those using pins or stickers following our journey on a big map, don't suddenly wonder why we have gone south!!!

On passing through into Wyoming the scenery changed once again... and there was just miles and miles of nothingness... until we hit an area that was covered with oil rigs...

The weather had been pretty good most of the day - however by late afternoon the sky was getting quite dark, and we watched some serious clouds forming... within minutes of checking into the hotel... it started to pelt hail stones... and there had been weather warnings about tornadoes... the storm that we had been watching brewing was in fact a tornado... see the pic of the clouds/funnel over the hotel... the storm only lasted an hour or so - and the tornado died down and moved on...

Suzi - we are in CASPER tonight... so you will need another sticker on your map!!!

(Sorry folks - no pics for today - as there seems to be a problem with uploading - however we will add them tomorrow...)