Devil’s Tower from a distance

We completed our first week of work yesterday. Because they are shifting our schedule a couple of days, we worked 5 days instead of 4. But we still get our 3 days off. We have a cave talk and cave walk. The talk is physically easy. We ride the elevator down, talk, they ride the elevator up. The walk is physically rigorous, with 723 stairs and a substantial hill. I did 2 cave walks a day the first 3 days. The next day I did 3 cave walks and felt quite tired. I was scheduled for another day of 3 cave walks, but got the opportunity to do some surface hikes instead. I’m not sure I could have done the 3 cave walks. I should start giving tours next week.

Danita is limited to one cave walk a day because of the problem she has with her knee. She’s not as ready for cave tours. She’s spending more time on the surface, working with visitors. We fill all the tours, but just barely. In a couple of weeks when schools are out, we expect more visitors. Lots of the staff is new this year, but training is going well for everybody. We expect to be ready for the crowds when they come.

We have Sun – Tue off this week. We wanted an easy, stress-free weekend. We spent today visiting Devil’s tower. It’s the only site we plan to visit in Wyoming. It’s a small, easy site. It’s one of the hotter sites, so it’s good to visit before the summer temperatures roll in. We had a great time. Besides the big rock, the area also has a large Prairie Dog colony, which we visited. We saw plenty of other wildlife. While driving, we saw deer and a couple of elk. At the site, we saw a bull snake, turkey vultures, and numerous small animals.

The Circle of Sacred Smoke

Many Native Americans consider the site sacred. They have most of their religious ceremonies in June. They often leave prayer flags or prayer bundles. These are interesting, but Native Americans prefer we don’t take pictures of them. Junkyu Muto is a Japanese sculptor who has place his works at 3 spiritually significant sites around the world. The sites are the Vatican, Bodh Gaya India (where the Buddha reached enlightenment) and Devil’s Tower.

Bull Snake

Tomorrow is chore day. Tuesday is relaxing day. It’s back to work Wednesday. I have 3 cave walks.