Day 30: The Day of Weather
It snowed today! Yes, it snowed today as I dove through 9,000+ ft mountain pass. As if that weren’t strange enough, when we reached the bottom of the mountain, I saw the biggest, scariest, darkest-blue clouds I had ever seen in my life, looming on the horizon. As I drove closer, I watched the most spectacular display of lightning that I have ever seen. Slowly it began to rain and then pour. Eventually, we drove out of the rain, but I noticed how much tumbleweed and trash was blowing across the interstate. I didn’t really feel the wind because it appeared to be blowing against our back, but when we exited the interstate, it almost blew us off the road. Finally we stopped at a rest area for a break. Concerned what might lie ahead, we turned on the radio to find out there had been an emergency alert issued for the area as reports of 70 mph winds and 2 in diameter hail had been confirmed. Ugh, gee, I knew it seemed a little rough.
After we weathered the storm, we drove on to Devils Tower, WY and, as you can see from the photos, you’d never guess there’d been a drop in the sky. Devils Tower is the mountain in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind”. Ok, I’ve never seen the movie either, but the mountain is quite an odd spectacle - both beautiful and erie at the same time. There are a few canyons in the surrounding area, but no other mountains or anything similar nearby. At the base of the mountain, there is a colony of prairie dogs. These rat like creatures seem to do nothing but frolic around all day and pose for pictures. Seems like my kind of job.
