Devil's Tower and God Lends a Hand

The day started on a downer as we learned of the passing of our friend, Jim McCarty, who succumbed to cancer in Hospice at Berger Hospital, Circleville, Ohio. I first met Jim back in the late 80's at Riverside Methodist Hospital where he worked in IT and I in Radiology. He was the smartest IT person I ever knew, and certainly helped me/us a number of times with our computer woes at home. He will be greatly missed and I mentally dedicated the day to his memory, and it turned out I think he helped us out, again, in a big way. More on that later.

Our group changed a bit today as Tom went off with 15 other fellows from his company who are here biking, so Jim, Cheryl, and I headed off about 9:30 to the nation's first national monument - Devil's Tower. About 30 minutes into the ride we crossed the state line into Wyoming so we stopped, like a lot of other bikers, and got our picture taken. Some even wheeled their bike up to the sign and shot the photo that way.

Devil's Tower can be seen emerging from the horizon about 20 miles away, and it is simply huge. We took photos of it last trip to Sturgis, but this time decided to actually go to it and see it up close. As it is extremely busy during the Rally, and Wednesday is the busiest day, we were pleasantly surprised how well organized it was in terms of handling traffic. The entrance to the park had an area of prairie with about 1,000 prairie dogs, all posing for photographs and hoping for a morsel of something despite the signs everywhere saying "Don't feed the prairie dogs!".

We walked up a short hill and the pathway was crowded. Of course the people we decide to chat with were from Portsmouth, OH - there are TONS of Buckeyes out here. We headed back down and got back on the bikes - time to leave for Hulett, WY and - take your choice - Pantiless Wednesday or the Ham 'n' Jam charity event. It was here that Jim re-enters the story.

Hulett is only about 10 miles from Devil's Tower, and we were scooting along at a 60 mph clip about 2 miles out when a deer ran across the highway about 20 feet in front of me. As my head turned to watch it, out of the corner of my left eye I saw its partner, and it was a hell of a lot closer. In fact, it was right in front of me and I think I may have clipped its rear hoof with the front of my tire.

Despite my heart beating about 200 beats per minute from the very near miss (which would've had ugly consequences for Cheryl and I), I somehow had the feeling - call it corny if you want - that Jim McCarty had looked down from heaven and used his hand to scoot that deer along just fast enough that we missed it and avoided a bad accident.

We quickly recovered our wits and rode on into Hulett. It was yet another small town, crowded with bikers, and vendors selling stuff we already had or didn't want. Cheryl did meet, as she did last time we were there in 2008, some of her kind of peeps and they obliged her with photos.

The ride back to our house in Deadwood was extremely pleasant and uneventful. The sky was a brilliant blue, and puffy white clouds floated everywhere. It was the first day without a drop of rain falling on us - Jim was that you, again?

For dinner, we jumped on the bikes and rode into Deadwood and had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We finished the evening with a cold one at Saloon #10 which is the rebuilt saloon where Wild Bill Hickock was shot and killed by the cowardly Jack McCall. In fact, his "death chair" sits over the entrance and is reputedly the chair in which he held his hand of aces and eights when Jack McCall gunned him down.

Cheryl didn't have a cold one with us, but did have a cold ice cream cone that she ate on the back of my bike as we jetted home. Another wonderful day, and thank you Jim McCarty for your life and for very likely saving ours today.