Devil's Tower

One of David's favorite movies is Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. While in Wyoming, we were only a few miles away from Devil's Tower, so we went to see what it was all about. It was pretty neat to see how it had formed.

You are able to walk around the entire thing, it's a nice easy hike along a paved trail. We stopped along the way up to take a few pictures. Dogs aren't allowed on the trails, and since Hannah had brought Evona along, she stayed back in the parking lot with her.

(Look at Seth's muscles!)

The formation changes along each side. It's also considered a sacred place to many of the Native Americans. There were trees full of little prayer bags and prayer cloths.

It's a popular place for rock climbing. We were able to see quite a few climbers, and a large group who had actually made it clear to the top! (Quite a feat since it's about 1300 feet to the top of the tower.) One of the most interesting parts was this old wooden ladder that was constructed in the 1890's to help people climb the Tower. You can still see part of it if you look closely (and have a good zoom on the camera!).

At the end of our hike, we took some pictures in the tee-pee next to the parking lot.

Pyper

Seth

Bugga

And this is what Hannah did while she waited...

Panning for Gold

While we were in Fairplay, we decided we would like to try our hands at panning for gold. It was fun, but we didn't get rich!

Crossing the Continental Divide

We crossed over the Continental Divide via Hoosier Pass on our travels this summer and decided to stop and see what it was all about. Basically it is a ridge that divides the watersheds of Northern America. It starts in Alaska and runs down the entire continent through Mexico, Panama, and down to the southern tip of South America. The water that falls on one side of the Divide eventually ends up in the Atlantic Ocean, water that falls on the other side ends up in the Pacific Ocean.  Hoosier Pass is the highest point on the Transcontinental Trail, which is a bike route that spans...you guessed it, the entire continent-from Oregon to Virginia.

All 4 of the awesome-est kids around!

The ever spastic Bugga!

Seth is a pretty cool dude.

Pyper was very patriotic! I think she carried this flag around for days before and after this!