Day 2 - We woke up at 6 am to a beautiful, sunshine filled day! After packing up, grabbing breakfast and checking out, we hit the road by 6:45. It was a very scenic drive to Devil's Tower (right at one hour), our first stop for the day.
*Side note in regards to Covid - we expected things to be different at our hotels. We expected swimming pools and continental breakfasts to be closed. At the Belle Fourche hotel, we were told that the county had just announced its first confirmed positive case of the virus that day. The front desk clerk told Matt about breakfast hours, etc when he checked in. Overnight (due to the confirmed case), they shut down the breakfast area. Luckily, we were prepared with lots of breakfast items (muffins, cereal, granola bars, trail mix, etc) so we grabbed some grub and hit the road. I will try to highlight *issues* that we came across in concerns to Covid as I go through each individual day.
Our first glimpse of Devil's Tower was quite a ways out. I truly had no idea how large it really was! As we start to plan trips, I try to "like" pages on Facebook that pertain to the places we will be visiting. Devil's Tower was one of them. I was finding that the park filled up fast every day so come early if possible. Over the years, we have found that "going early" is the only way to visit national parks.
As we got closer to the park entrance, we pulled over for a few pictures.
We arrived at the park and made our way to the guard shack. The park ranger welcomed us and told us it was a great time to get to the park (very little crowds and great temps). We drove alongside the Prairie Dog Town and loved watching the prairie dogs run around. I noticed that a lot of them were standing at attention and looking in one direction. I then saw the fox who was scouring the area for a morning snack. You can see him in the upper left corner of this picture and upper center of the 2nd picture.
The timing of this visit couldn't have been more perfect! Just the week before, the park was undergoing a major parking lot renovation. The main lot wasn't open to traffic during that week, making for a longer trek to the trail head (and traffic congestion). When we pulled in to the lot, we couldn't imagine how crazy it would be during peak times of the day. It wasn't a huge lot and it was already half full.
Our initial plan for this stop was to hike up to the base of the Tower and snap some pictures. We would take a few minutes to "take in the beauty" and then hit the road again. Because of the coolness of the morning and the very small number of visitors, we decided to walk the whole trail around the base of the Tower. It's not a long hike (1.3 miles) and definitely not strenuous, but we just assumed that we wouldn't have much time to hike the full length.
We are so glad that it wasn't busy and that we hiked the full loop. The Tower is amazing to see up close and each "side" is different! Who knew?!
The boulders were a bit slippery and (because of their size) there were big gaps between them. Here are Will & Alex helping Maddie by covering the gap so she can't look down.
At one point in the hike, Matt got a text (crazy...we actually had service!!) from our friend who we planned to visit during our stay in Las Vegas. We look over and Matt is taking a selfie (with his FLIP PHONE!) so he can send it to John to show him where we were at the moment!
Will offered to snap a picture of him (with the flip phone) with the Tower in the background.
We continued to walk around the base and then we came across these 4 dead squirrels!
At this point, we were almost back to the trail head and we were started to hear/notice more people on the trail (it is a loop so some chose to go start where we were ending). As we descended to the parking lot, we all mentioned how nice it was to get there when we did (a bit more than an hour before) and enjoy the park with very few people.
On our way out of the park, we pulled off on "W Road" to get a different view. We had read about this view online and it was worth the quick stop.
We tried to snap a family selfie at each of our major stops of this trip.
I saw this monument as we were leaving the park and mentioned it out loud. Matt found a place where he could turn around and go back. He mentioned that he had seen pictures of it online but had forgotten to pinpoint it as a stop.
We left the park, amazed by the line of cars waiting to get in - around 15! We quickly stopped to grab a letterbox and picture in front of the National Parks sign. Too bad we didn't see it when we arrived, probably wouldn't have been so sunny!
We had a few hours of driving ahead of us at this point. Our next stop was 3.5 hours away, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. We were thankful that this park reopened just a few weeks before our trip. We didn't have to scratch it from our plans, which was nice. We had read that the parking lot would be practicing "social distancing", meaning that every other space would be coned off.
We stopped for a restroom & snack break then drove the park road to visit the battlefield sites. We were curious about the juxtaposition of the grave markers. Evidently they marked where the soldiers and warriors died and placed their grave markers where they laid. It actually helped make it very real in our minds.
The grave marker with the black shield is where Custer died.
Maddie, Kaitee and Matt walked back up Last Stand Hill (after we drove back to the main lot) to see the monument up close. While they walked, Alex & I enjoyed the shade and breeze under the trees. While it was busy, there was a quietness around us.
Our third and final stop of the day was supposed to be Pompey's Pillar, which was about 30 minutes away from the battlefield. Pompey's Pillar is the only site on the Lewis & Clark Trail where there is visible evidence of their journey. Because of Covid, the interpretive center was closed. We couldn't really find an answer in regards to the entrance gate being open to the public either. We did see that the area is open from sunrise to sunset, even if the gate isn't open. Initially, we decided to give it a try. Then I did further reading and saw that the boardwalk area was completely shut down due to rock slides. This would mean that we wouldn't be able to see the signature in the stone.
Because of these things, the fact that it was hot (and we didn't know how far of a walk it would be if the gates were closed) AND it was 30 minutes out of our way, each way, we decided to scratch Pompey's Pillar from our list for the day/trip. It hurt to do so. Such a cool piece of history! Hopefully some day we will make it back to that area and we will be able to stop and enjoy the interpretive center, the boardwalk and grounds, the Yellowstone River and, of course, see William Clark's signature up close!
We continued to our hotel for the night, rolling in to Belgrade, MT a bit on the early side - around 7:30! Matt & Alex dropped us at the hotel and went in search of pizza and drinks.
Total Miles - 480 (7.5 hours driving)
Favorites for Day 2:Will, Alex, Maddie, Kaitee & Becki - Devil's Tower
Matt - Little Bighorn
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