Spearfish, South Dakota to Sheridan, Wyoming

Bear Lodge
America's first national monument, the rock monolith known as Devil's Tower was sacred to several Indian tribes, most of whom called it "Bear Lodge."

In the visitor's center was the following quote from Johnson Holy ROck, a Lakota Elder:

"If a man was starving, he was poor in spirit and in body, he went into the Black Hills. The next spring, he would come out, his life and body
would be renewed. So, to our grandfathers, the Black Hills was the center of life, and those areas all around it were considered sacred, and were kept in the life of reverence."

As we near Sheridan, the wall of the ROckies is before us. Stretching everywhere else are the high plains -- grasslands with sagebrush, red rock outcrops. We left behind the Pondersa Pine in eastern Wyoming.