The Tower to Seattle

So despite the fact I was the only occupant of the campsite, I passed a fairly peaceable night and headed out midmorning toward the Badlands and Mt Rushmore, still the only person at the campsite. I left around mid-morning and made it to the Badlands in short order.

I had intended to just stay there for the day and continue on to Mt Rushmore, but I kind of got stopped in my tracks. I was amazed, the Badlands are beautiful with its jagged towers that stretch to the sky and the really crumbly earth that seems to be in a perpetual state of flux that the roads made though it are threatened for being too permanent in this landscape. I managed to scramble up one of the spires and get a fellow tourist to take my picture. Getting down safely was another matter, as I had to go down backward and far more slowly and far less impulsive. I also did it all in sandals, smart eh?

I then ended up crashing in the Badlands since I didn’t have any other place to crash or anyone else to meet up with. It was an enjoyable night after traversing 12 miles of open dirt road and getting settled. I had made had a pit stop in town prior to heading to the site and had bought food. I was able to find a bison steak, which I ate for dinner in a meal I call “bison and rice.” I met some cool women from Colorado who had just come from the Mt Rushmore-Black Hills area. They had only good things to say about the experience so it made me hugely excited for the next day. They also suggested I check out a place in Wyoming called the “Devils Tower.” I hadn’t planned to stop there, but due to their advice and it not being too far out of my way I headed on over after I saw both Rushmore and the beginning stages of the Crazy Horse statue.

Devils Tower, is called the “Bear Lodge” by most native American tribes of the area. There is a lot of reverence for the rock in tribes in the area, for example both the Creek and the Lakota revere it and it factors into their native religion. There is a voluntary climbing ban in June when the American Indians are celebrating the solstice. People still do climb just not as many as normal. To give you an idea of what it looks like it is a giant rock made up of cylindrical columns all melded together and at least 40 stories high. In terms of just sheer geology it is one of the more amazing things I’ve ever seen, mostly because the jury is still out on how exactly the whole thing formed. The only conclusion that people are in agreement about is that it formed at the base of a volcano and somehow came to the surface. I have never been much of a rock climber, but on finding out there was no other way up the tower other then a belayed climb, I wanted to sign up for a run at it.

Having spent the night and met a number of fellow friendly travelers the prior night, I headed out on the rather long drive to Missoula. I had chewed over not staying at the Tower as it was in Wyoming and not close enough to Montana, but I just wanted to stay, so I did. Unfortunately I spent the rest of the next day wishing I had chosen differently. I ended up being on the road for about 11 hours, most of that driving. I also couldn’t really take my time as I wanted to make sure I had gotten to my Uncle and Aunt’s house before it was too late in the evening.

I arrived far later then I had anticipated and I was greeted by my Uncle, who was eager to catch up about things and tell me the state of affairs since I had seen him last. We figured out together it had been 6 years and both he and my cousins had changed some. For example most of my cousins are a lot different. Anne the youngest is in 6th grade and is at least a foot taller, plays the violin, and gotten far more talkative since I saw her last. They all seem to be doing as well as can be expected and life in Montana was slow for me, but not for them. Every member of the family always seems to be doing something and since they live on a ridge outside of town they are always trying to make sure they limit the amount of trips back to the house they have to take.

I got to see a little of Missoula MT with checking out the Farmer’s Market they have every Saturday in the summer. I also wandered around the downtown as well. Missoula seems to be doing well for itself especially compared with Butte, which I had stopped in while passing though the prior day. There seems to be a lot of people relocating to Missoula because of the scenery and just the general cost of living being a lot cheaper, then say California. I also learned that despite Montana being the 4th largest state in the nation, it has less then 1 million people in it with only 1 congress seat for the whole state.

Having now spent a few days with my cousins, I decided to head back out on the road and head toward Seattle Washington. It was a more leisurely drive as I had decided to take my time a little more then I had going across Montana. I was also helped by the shorter drive I was taking to my new destination. I got in to Seattle around 5:30 and I was going to be meeting Laurel, my friend at about 6pm so I had some time to kill. Having spent most of the day in my car I decided to go wander around on my bike and see the lay of the land more then I had from my car driving in.

Seattle is by far the most organic looking city that I have ever seen. There is trees and growing plants everywhere you look. When I first crossed the bridge going into Seattle I passed under overhangs and bypasses that were coated with creepers and other plants. Biking around I continued to see a theme of green, which did a lot to cement the accuracy of the state slogan in my own mind “The Evergreen State.” The thing I did notice that has never been mentioned to me before was how hilly the town is. I am not trying to suggest that it would rival San Francisco, but is it no even close to flat except right next the water.

I spent today biking around town and seeing a few things. The Space Needle, was the first place I stopped it and is what gives Seattle its distinctive skyline. I was entirely surprised at how short it was. Not to say it was not tall, I just expected it to be larger then it actually was. I might have been more impressed if I had gone up it, but at $18 it seemed like a waste of money. From there I headed over to the iconic shopping place in Seattle called Pike Place Market. It was a really cool shopping center, there with a lot of shops and vendors selling things from fresh fish to designer dresses. Despite being home to the original Starbucks, it did not look like most tourist trap places I’ve been to in the last month. It was a complete random grouping of shops hawking an assortment of items. The place has not really gentrified at least not yet. I am hopefully it might yet avoid the fate of most shopping areas as there are some very seedy sections that keep the place a little more interesting.

From the Market I tried to go a museum by way of a lot of window-shopping and getting lost on the way. I was trying to go to an institution called the Burke museum that is associated with the University of Washington campus. The reason I wanted to go is they supposedly have a great collection of Northwestern Coast Indian artifacts. I will hopefully be looking at it in the morning and I will be able to make more detailed account of it from there. It’s getting late, I just wanted to make sure my fans knew what was going on with me. I hope there is not to many typos in this account. Nite!!