Just when my job gets mundane enough to make me want to wrap myself like a mummy in a roll of governmental issue red tape, I get something out of the ordinary to do. This time it was travel to the distant reaches of Crook County to do an alien labor housing inspection. Aliens? Devils Tower? A day out of the office? Count me in!
My colleague drove her four wheel drive pickup, instead of us taking our state issued Ford Taurus. Good thing, too, because it was a 75 mile (one way) trek on many dirt roads.
She also knew where we were going. Good thing, because the directions I got were basically, "Go past Devils Tower, hang a left... you'll find it.
Of course no government-sponsored jaunt would be complete without strange, somewhat close encounters. My first inkling that we weren't in Kansas anymore was when I saw things in the road ahead of us. Things that refused to yield to the forward momentum of a 2500 pickup.
Turkeys.
Big tom turkeys were everywhere, in the road, alongside the road, in ranch yards.
They weren't afraid of the truck hurtling at them, but let us stop and try to take a picture, and they ran, gobbling, for the tree line.
Stupid turkeys.
One field had 70 to 100 Tom, Dick, and Harry turkeys in it.
The good thing about traveling on these doG-forsaken back roads, is that you can't
really get lost. (Well, I could, but that's another dyslexic story) As long as the cow hadn't moved, or the dead, lightning struck tree didn't fall over, we were good. Oh, and the signposts helped too.
When we left on our expedition, it was very cold, but not too bad - the skies were blue, sun was shining. By the time we were ready to make our way home, the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees, and we could see the weather rolling in.
After a quick lunch in Hulett, we only stopped to take a few more pictures of the Tower and surrounds, wanting to make it back to our hopefully warm office before anything nasty happened.
Missouri Buttes and Devils Tower
Watching Whitetails
Black Hills, Red Rocks
Last glimpse of the Tower
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