High Plains Drifters

According tho the Kiowa tribe, a long time ago, eight children (seven girls and one boy) were playing in a forest in Wyoming, when suddenly the boy started to grow claws and fur and turned into a bear! He started to chase the terrified girls who ran away, but just as he was about to kill them the land beneath the girls rose up into a tall column and the bear could not reach them, although he left long claw marks all around the sides. The seven girls became the stars of the Pleiades and the column is still there today, in fact we visited it this morning. 

The Devil's Tower, as it is now known, is a very striking landmark. In the 19th century it was thought to be the core of an ancient volcano but it is in fact a sort of spur of magma which cooled and fractured into columns beneath the surface of the earth, and was eventually revealed by erosion.  For James and I and others of our generation it is instantly recognisable as the place where the aliens make contact with humans in the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" from the 1970s. It was very, very hot as we circumnavigated it, humming the tune from the film "dum de dum, da dum!" as we went. As well as being able to see the tower from all angles, we could see the beautiful rolling plains all around. My head was frying, so after walking around the lower path I headed to the nearby café for a cool drink while James and Davie pressed on to the higher trail where they had some close encounters with prairie dogs and pronghorns. And so we have continued west across the high plains of America; tonight we are in Sheridan, Wyoming and can see the Rockies distantly to the west.