Likewise, there is no rivalry which inspires the same degree of statewide tension as the “Friends of Coal Bowl”, aka WVU vs. Marshall. It is this age old tale of “big brother” vs. “little brother” that can turn family members and friends into arch enemies for the day, depending on where their loyalties lie. Now, I’d like to take a moment to point out that my Mountaineers have NEVER EVER EVER been defeated by a Marshall University football team…and this year was no different. Let’s GOOOOOOOOOOO Mountaineers!
In West Virginia, as with most of the east coast, university ties run deep and college football loyalties even deeper. An east coast fan, feels the gut-wrenching desire to follow their team through every game, for better or for worse, until death do they part. So, despite the 4+ hours worth of lightening delays, Bilbo and I listened faithfully (as long as we could keep a 3G connection) via a WV radio station’s iPhone app, until the game was finally called in the fourth quarter with WVU up 34-13. This was a good way for our new coachie-poo to start the season! I don’t think anyone could have forgiven him, or loved him, after a loss to Marshall.
In Morgantown, WV, the home of the Mountaineers, I have seen college students set the whole town ablaze to celebrate a win. In fact, it is now illegal to have furniture of any kind on your porch or in your yard on a game day. Even the poor innocent elderly folks have to drag in their lawn furniture to promote peace and safety. With this in mind, I’m sure you can imagine how strange it felt to be the only people around listening to, or even caring about, a college football game on opening weekend. I’m not saying that I think one should go to such extremes as to burn their belongings in celebration, but I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm from my fellow Americans. After all, isn’t football the all American game?! But that’s enough of my football soap box. Let me tell you about the rest of our Labor Day weekend.
On Friday afternoon, Bilbo picked me up from work and we began the journey to Wyoming. We drove until dark, found a hotel, then finished the trek to Devils Tower. This National Monument has been known as a sacred holy place by Native Americans for centuries. Some still make a sort of pilgrimage here to lay down sacred items. To others it is familiar as the convergence site for an Earth-destroying alien plot…You know, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Yet others are just drawn by the mystery and awe of it’s magnitude and history.
For Bilbo, the allure of Devils Tower was not spiritual, mystical, or otherworldly…he was drawn by its fame among rock climbers. Those looking to reach the tower’s pinnacle climb its columns in multiple pitches, and we saw quite a few there. Unfortunately for my dear Bilbo, we had a very busy weekend planned and had to settle for just a look at this impressive natural wonder.
We took a short “hike” on a paved trail encircling Devils Tower, where lovely signs taught us about its formation. Three theories exist that say basically this: A volcano was once located on this spot, magma built-up and hardened in the volcano’s core, the volcano itself was eroded away, the magma stayed, and as the ground around the magma eroded away Devils Tower was formed. The argument among theorists is to the original shape of the magma.
With our brains full of a bit more knowledge, said goodbye to Devils Tower and drove on to another, more famous, National Monument. On the way out, we got to see a prairie dog town. Look at this cute little guy posing for the camera!
Let’s play a guessing game for monument #2! I’ll give you four clues and then you can make your guess.
First clue: It is in South Dakota.
Second clue: It is a “Shrine of Democracy”.
Third clue: Gutzon Borglum designed it.
Fourth clue: It has four big heads.
Have you guessed it, yet?
IT’S MOUNT RUSHMORE!
And here are Bilbo and I with our big heads in front of it! You would not believe how close visitors are allowed to get to the monument. I had always assumed that onlookers would have to stand almost a mile away from the mountain’s base in order to protect the revered heads, but I was wrong. An amphitheater surrounds Mt. Rushmore with seats all of the way to the very base of the mountain. Another great thing about Mt. Rushmore is that it is free, so be sure to pay the Presidents a visit if you are ever in town! Oh, and take a pair of binoculars if you want to see Roosevelt’s glasses.
Another assumption that I had about Mt. Rushmore was that it is isolated in some far away mountain range. Yet again, I was wrong. Keystone, the town located adjacent to Mt. Rushmore, is a lovely little tourist trap. You must drive by rows of lodges, shops, restaurants, and a train to enter or exit the monument. It was like a miniature Pigeon Forge minus Dolly Parton and black bears.
Finally, we were on our way to the Badlands National Park…the weekend’s big destination! It was late when we arrived and we were hungry…Little did we know that the tiny town of Interior, SD, closes down early and there is nowhere to find food at 7pm. That’s right folks, I said 7pm. After much fearful searching, we came upon a campground’s convenience store run by an elderly couple and a lot of dogs. To our delight, a sign advertised hot pizza for $2.99! YUM…just what our growling stomachs needed! Come to find out, the pizza was a frozen Tony’s pizza that the elderly lady puts in a toaster oven. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, but it did the trick.
When we arrived back at the campsite, we saw a line of flashlights in the dark. We stopped a couple to ask what was going on and they told us that a show was about to begin in the amphitheater. Intrigued, we turned the car around. The show turned out to be a lecture about the astrology, mostly describing what can be seen in the night sky over the Badlands. At the end of the presentation, Rangers manned three high tech telescopes to allow visitors a closer look at the stars. Our favorite spectacle of the night was the Hercules Nebula, a cluster of over a million stars.
The next morning we awoke among to a bright, cloudless sky and a readiness to explore! We learned that the formations in the park are more or less piles of mud that formed millions of years ago when the western planes were a seabed. This has made the region rich in fossils and the site of multiple archeological expeditions.
The early hours were spent driving part of the road that loops around the park. We saw a number of impressive things:
Ridges…
Canyons…
Rainbow rocks…
The Minuteman Missile Historic Site…
And a really large prairie dog!
We took what was supposed to be a short break from the park to visit nearby Wall, SD, and their gem, Wall Drug. We knew that it was going to be good when the parking lot had its own billboard!
Wall Drug began as a small town drug store bought by the Husteads, a pharmacist and his wife, in 1931. The business was going under until they set up signs along the interstate to entice travelers with free ice water. Travelers began stopping in, things snowballed from there, and Wall Drug is now a tastefully tacky tourist trap stretched along the whole of Main Street.
Walking through the “pharmacy” is like stepping into a cheesy museum of the old west with a touch of random tackiness.
They have fuzzy little jackalopes…
The cowboy Captain Morgan…
Animatronics displays…
Great carved characters…
A T-Rex…
And a giant bucking jackalope!
It was a great time and we stayed longer than expected, so we ate lunch there before going back to the Badlands. Once back in the park we saw a sign telling us to beware of bison; however, the only wildlife we saw along the road were more prairie dogs and an antelope.
The next view we sought to take in was atop of Sheep Table Mountain. By the name, one would get the impression that sheep or big horned sheep would be present; however, there are none. The drive up to Sheep Table is along a lonely dirt road with ridges ahead and sunflowers to your sides. It is a long drive, but when you arrive you are rewarded with an aerial view or plains and mounds. It was about this time that the Mountaineer game began, so we had plenty of entertainment for the drive in and back!
For us, the lightening delays in WV came at the perfect time because we were ready to do a little hiking! Bilbo and I were both surprised to find out that Badlands National Park has only one trail loop with small extension off of it, but it did make choosing a hike much simpler. We decided to do the main loop starting at the Saddle trail, the most exciting part! Here, you begin by scrambling up on of the mounds and sliding down the other side. Clumps and crumbles would fall off of the mounds as hikers passed, making the ground very difficult to balance on.
On the other side of the mounds lay an expanse of dry, flat, grassy land through which the trail wound. After completing our hike, the RB’s packed up our campsite and set the GPS for Douglas, WY—that’s was a little over halfway back to Pueblo and one of the few places in WY with hotel vacancies. In fact, we stopped in another town about 45 miles before Douglas and all 3 of their hotels were booked. I guess that is what happens in a large state with a small population…no need for hotels.
As we left the Badlands, the Mountaineer’s victory was just being announced and “Country Roads” could be heard playing over the speakers in the stadium. Likely because they were so tired of being on the air, the announcers signed off before the first verse was over. Feeling the nostalgia of the day, Bilbo and I decided to play a video of our unofficial victory song on YouTube. It was all fun at first; however, the video that I loaded didn’t feature John Denver, but a slide show of WV sites. By the time the chorus rolled around for the first time, both of us were silently homesick for our wild, wonderful state. Check out the video, fellow Mountaineers, it’ll put a teardrop in your eye…Click here for Country Roads.
Our homesickness was assuaged the next day by a visit with Mr. Cooper. We stopped by Boulder to have a yummy lunch with our fellow Mountaineer at Pasta Jay’s. Mr. Cooper and I both had the eggplant parmesan and Bilbo had a pesto pizza. Eggplant parmesan is my favorite food and I have eaten it in many restaurants, so you have it on good authority that Pasta Jay makes some killer eggplant parm!
After lunch we took a quick stroll through the “Spice of Boulder” festival. The best part? Kids could decorate a zucchini, put it on wheels, and enter it in the zucchini race! Could you ask for more in a festival? Of course not! That is why we had to call it a day and end our weekend fun. With another 1,377 miles traveled we arrived back in Pueblo to begin week 5. I’ll bet you are wondering if we were tired. Yes! Yes, we were but it was a wonderful weekend!
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