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There is a giant field beneath Devils Tower that is entirely covered with prairie dogs. I was so mesmerized by the little critters with their cute screeching noises that I almost forgot I was there to visit the tower.
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A lifelong dream sparked by Close Encounters of the Third Kind was finally realized when I visited Devils Tower last August–40 years (and many plates of sculpted mashed potatoes) after I first saw the tower on film. Alas, I didn’t find any facilities for hosting spaceships during my hike around its base, but had I made my visit two days later, I could have enjoyed a 40th anniversary screening of Close Encounters at the base of the tower itself. That would have been an amazing experience.
Devils Tower is a sacred site to Native Americans. You can find prayer offerings tied to the trees around the base of the tower (I included a photo of one of these below). Native American names for the monument include “Bear’s House” or “Bear’s Lodge” and it is likely that the name “Devils Tower” came from a mistranslation of the Lakota word for “bear.”
A couple of the closeup shots below feature climbers scaling the tower. Pretty soon, climbing will no longer be necessary because, according to a sign I saw at the site, they are apparently installing an elevator to the top. Although it would be neat to see the top of the tower, I think it’s unfortunate that they are going to ruin its appearance with an elevator apparatus. I’m glad that I was able to see Devils Tower in all its natural glory before this happens.
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Greetings, fellow readers, travelers, photographers, and writers. This is my first post since merging my blog with my author page. Hopefully, everyone who followed the old blog has been successfully migrated to this one.
I’ve posted a couple of teasers from my two-week trip out west last summer, including panoramas and my experience watching the total solar eclipse in Oregon. This group of photos is from my visit to Deadwood. I chose to stay there during my three nights in South Dakota because I was a huge fan of the HBO show and have always been fascinated with the Wild West. I thought it would be cool to walk in the footsteps of Deadwood’s famous residents.
I only had time to explore the main strip because I spent most of my visit taking day trips out of town, so it’s not really fair to render a judgment without having taken the time to fully check out everything Deadwood had to offer. Still, I found it to be kind of a disappointment, mostly just your average casino town, which isn’t really my cup of tea. Nevertheless, fans of the show will find a few points of interest in the photos below, such as the spots where Wild Bill was shot and his assassin was caught, the Bullock Hotel that was built by Seth Bullock after the events of the show, and a few establishments named after notable people and places such as Charlie Utter and the Gem Theater.
The drive in to town is interesting, as you steadily climb the Black Hills while passing “Bighorn Sheep Crossing” signs. Visitors to Deadwood also have the opportunity to view “gunfights” recreated in the middle of the street on a daily basis. I caught the tail end of one on video, which will be shared when I finish editing the movie that compiles all of my trip videos.
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Greetings readers, and long time no see. It’s been ages since I’ve posted, in part because I got super busy at work, but also because I spent several months culling and processing all of the photos I took during my two-week trip out west this past summer. Hopefully now that I’m mostly caught up, I’ll be able to start posting more often and maybe get back to updating my trip journal again.
In the meantime, here’s a photo taken during my stay in Yellowstone National Park of Old Faithful erupting and producing a pretty rainbow in the process.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
I don’t often feature people in my photos, but I couldn’t resist sharing this shot of my wife and dog on the beach watching the sunset at Cape May Point.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
Looking down on the Colosseum from the Palatine Hill above the Roman Forum. From here you can get a sense of how much it once towered over the rest of the city (to a large extent it still does).
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
This was taken during our stay at a bayside cottage in The Villas, New Jersey. Although the house itself was terrible, we did enjoy some nice sunsets on the back patio.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
This photo is from my second Eurotrip in 2009 (and second time accompanying my uncle’s German class as a chaperone). Since this was also my second visit to Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, Germany, I decided on this occasion to spend more time walking around the front of the palace so I could capture photos like this, with the palace reflecting on a pond full of swans.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
This is from my very first Eurotrip back in 2007, a photo of Lake Mondsee in Austria, originally shot in color on my old pocket cam and converted to black and white. Keen observers will note that a heavily photoshopped version of this photo appears on the cover of my novel.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
I always liked this photo taken at Disney World with my old pocket camera back in 2006. The cloud/sun combination, in addition to producing some nice colors and patterns, looked to me like some kind of monster emerging from the horizon.
You can view more featured photos at my Photo of the Day Collection.
Michael Rappa 