The answer to Crayton’s question of what did the buffalo hunters want the tongue for? To eat of course. Bison tongue is considered a delicacy. I’ll stick with sushi.
Crayton is a trooper. He is hanging in pretty good. He was understandably timid about the proximity of our friendly bison but is otherwise staying pretty interested in all this stuff. Let me tell you about our day, and let me also say that I am getting numb to all the amazing sights and the beauty of the west. Consequently, this will be a multi part discourse:
1. I awoke this morning at about 5:15 your time and 4:15 out here to the sound of munching near my ear. I peeked outside into the twilight and saw the bison bull back at out campsite having an early breakfast. I had clipped on the fly the night before when clouds gathered but the morning was clear and I stretched around to unclip the fly and pull it off without getting out of the tent. Crayton snoozed while I watched Buff graze. I did not have my video camera and was a bull bison away from the Tahoe. They are incredible animals and it is amazing that during the 1800s the numbers were reduced from 40 million to about 1000 in the early 1900's. Today, the numbers are believed to be back up to about 350,000. He wandered down to my neighbor, a lady from Maine, and I saw her pop out to watch him – I think she was trying to get to the ladies room. I spoke with her later and she said that he was rubbing against the tree next to her truck and was glad one of his horns had not rubbed the truck.
Crayton popped up before 6 out here and we made pancakes and struck camp. By 7, we were taking the 36 mile loop through the north badlands. We saw wild horses, pronghorn antelope, rabbits, white tail deer, mule deer and of course, prairie dogs and bison. We made it to the visitor center shortly after 8 when it opened and watched the film. It was dated but ok. I had "filmed" some at sunrise because what I was witnessing was like watching Sunrise Earth. Of course, my video was not HD, but I was there live!
2. We left Theo Roosevelt NP and headed west and south. As I told you before, I loved the route up on 85; but I wanted to try something different and drove over to Miles City, MT and drove down Hwy 59. Oh my. The scenery was similar but more "western." Vistas, vistas, vistas. And incredible ranches with herds of maple colored horses with shiny coats. 20 minutes from Broadus, the pines appeared as we approached the Black Hills again. I cant tell you how pretty I thought it was. From Broadus, we skipped on over to Devil’s Tower. What an amazing geological sight. You just look at it sticking up so high and scratch your head. Particularly when you learn that all the ground around is what was taken away and not the tower being pushed up.
3. On the way out from Devil’s Tower to Gillette, Wy, we picked up a hitchhiker. Christine was on her way to Moorcroft; she seemed nice and looked like a hiker. She told us she was nice and I laughed inside thinking that if she wasn’t she would have said the same thing. She was on her second cross-country jaunt from Chicago. She was talkative and we discussed places out west. The funniest thing she said was the difficulty on the open roads with no trees or covering to empty the gallons of water she had to drink along the way. We dropped her in Moorcroft after about 25-30 miles and wished her well.
We will be heading south from Gillette tomorrow and go through another national grassland on the way to Douglas. I imagine you are bored by now with my repetitive babbling about sights being pretty, beautiful, gorgeous, etc. But, like I said at the start, it is numbing.
