06 - KEYHOLE STATE PARK , WY

Friday 5/4, we left Custer State Park headed farther west, although not as far this time - about 120 miles.  The destination was Keyhole State Park about 15 miles north of Moorcroft, WY.  It was a good ride on Hwy 16 that took us through Custer, SD, across the Wyoming state line, through the towns of Newcastle and Upton.  We went through more rolling hills, down through Hell Canyon, past a couple of big cattle feed lots, and lots of miles & miles of wide open spaces.

A lot of the land here is open range. Alongside the highway we saw a stove with an open door and a sign that said ‘Open Range”.  Riding along at 60-mph made it impossible to get a good picture, but here is one I found on the internet – you get the idea.  We thought it was funny.

We arrived at Keyhole State Park and got set up in our reserved site facing Keyhole Reservoir – a nice place to spend the weekend.

It didn’t take us long to spot one of our favorite birds in this part of the country – a Western Grebe.  There are a lot of them out on the lake.

One of the reasons we came to this area of Wyoming is because we wanted to visit Devils Tower.  For some reason, we had just missed it in years past when we came through here.  So, Saturday we played the tourist again and made the 35-mile drive to the National Monument.  Along the way we saw another of our favorite birds of the area – a Magpie. Also, some Mule Deer.

Devils Tower (plural, not possessive) is an 867-foot monolith that can be seen from miles around.  You can even get glimpses of it from I-90.  The brochure says it is 1.25 acres on top (about the size of a football field).

There’s a lot of red rock canyons and rugged bluffs.

After entering the entrance of the National Monument, the road skirts around tower about 3 miles to the Visitor’s Center.  In a big meadow along the road is another Prairie Dog town.

The monument is very impressive and from the Visitor’s Center you can see folks climbing the tower.  There’s a lot of these (not too smart) folks – the literature says there were over 6000 in 2017.  We asked an employee in the gift shop and he said only 5 people had fallen in over 100 years.

This is big sheep country – we saw several large flocks.  We guess this type of land can support them a lot better than it can cattle.  We like the black lambs.

Sunday, May 6^th (today), we drove back into Moorcroft (17 miles) and attended worship service at the 1^st Southern Baptist Church.  It is a small church with a small congregation, but they were very friendly and the young pastor delivered a very good message. We enjoyed it.

After church we went to Donna’s Diner in Moorcraft (the only game in town) for lunch.  And yes, Maeola & Connie L. – they had a very good taco salad!

Tomorrow it’s on the road again.  Big news – we have decided this is far enough west and we’re going to head south across Wyoming, Colorado, and go to New Mexico and Arizona.  We’re looking at several days of travel to get there.