We left South Dakota on Friday and continued up Route 90 through Wyoming. We stopped at the Vore Buffalo Jump before moving on the Devil’s Tower. I remember Devil’s Tower from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and it is one of the great natural wonders. You can see it for miles as you approach and seeing it up close is a powerful experience.
We met Linda’s parents in Billings, Montana, where we stayed overnight. On Saturday we continued on the Big Sky, Montana, where we are staying for the week in a house in the mountains near Big Sky. Here’s the view from the living room window. We’re at something like 7900 feet elevation.
I got up early this morning and rode the hills close to the house. Here’s one, and as you can see it goes steadily up some distance. The hill training I did in Pennsylvania paid off. Even at this elevation I made the hills, but I did granny gear this one.
I look like a dweeb in bike gear, but so does Bradley Wiggins.
After lunch Linda, her parents, her brothers, their wives and all the kids hiked the Beehive Basin Trail near here. Just beautiful, isolated from civilization, and beyond description . Far enough from civilization that I cringed a little when Ben climbed the big rocks.