The marker said the Devil's Tower was very important to Plains Indian tribes long before the white man reached Wyoming. The legend tells of seven little girls being chased on to a low rock by a attacking bears. Their prayers for help were heeded. The rock carried them upward to safety as the claws of the leaping bears left furrowed columns on the sides of the ascending tower. Ultimately, the rock grew so high that the girls reached the sky where they were transformed in to the constellation known as the Pleiades. In 1875, Richard I. Dodge coined the name Devil's Tower. It stands 1,280 feet above the Belle Fourche River.

Right before we turned in to the National Park, we saw a couple of cars stopped on the side of the road. They were taking pictures of the longhorns. Note how closely the people were standing to the longhorns.

We both didn't get out of the car just to take a picture. I got out and Bill waited in the car. In what turned out to be the 4th case of animal hate towards us, this Longhorn HATED me. He was perfectly fine with all of the other people but when I walked up, he got close to the fence, started stomping his feet, snorting and swinging his horns. One of the other ladies there ran to her husband because she was afraid. I took the picture quickly and slowly walked away. Bill was all ready to hit the Longhorn with the car if I had to run for it!

Taken from the road in the Devil's Tower national park. It was the first National Park in the United States.

It looked so unreal up close.

There were several trails around the Tower and you could climb as long as you register with the park. We saw a lot of offerings left beside the trail by American Indians. There were signs to please not disturb the offerings.

Holding up a piece of rock that fell off the Tower.

On the way out of the park we passed by a field that was full of prairie dogs. There were literally hundreds of them and they didn't really care that we were there.

That night we stayed in Gillette, Wyoming. In the morning (Friday) we turned South, towards home. We stopped in Douglas, Wyoming. The birthplace of the Jackalope. Standing 8-feet tall, it's the World's Largest Jackalope. However, the city is planning on building an 80-foot statue!

Our next stop...Ft. Laramie.

From April 1860 to October 1861 Ft. Laramie was a major post on the Pony Express route between Sacramento, California and St. Joseph, Missouri.