Under The Bear’s Lodge

From Theodore Roosevelt National Park we headed south. Originally we’d planned to go through South Dakota and then down into Colorado, but the day before we left we noticed that if you go west around the Black Hills, instead of east like we’d planned, you pass right by a place none of us had ever been — Devil’s Tower.

I’ll confess that my chief association with Devil’s Tower is Close Encounters. And yes, we made mashed potatoes the night we arrived. I mean, you have to right?

Devil’s Tower is either a poor translation or a deliberately wrong translation of the local name, Bear’s Lodge Butte. That name comes from the fact that it really does look like a tree that bear has gone to town on, and the constellation of the bear is always nearby, above the butte.

I don’t see a bear when I stare up in the sky, but then I don’t think I’d see a dipper either (the big dipper is part of the bear) if people hadn’t been pointing it out all my life. Constellations aren’t my strong suit. Whatever the case I think Bear’s Lodge is a better name for this place. It stops me from confusing it with Devil’s Postpile.

There were a couple of trails, one of which ran around the base of the butte, and then a couple others that headed up into the bluffs and “backcountry”, though this monument isn’t really large enough to have what you’d really call backcountry. Still, it was a nice hike up into the grasslands. It’s unreal how silent it can be out there. The only thing I heard — besides the kids — was the wind, and the occasional scream of a hawk or eagle.

We’d planned to just stay a night, maybe two, but then we ended up staying a week because we liked it. It’s always interesting to stop for a while in places that most people come, see the thing, and then leave. Every morning the campground would empty out, but then every night it was full again. When that happens you notice the people who don’t leave, and those often turn out to be people in the same situation — people who aren’t seeing the sights, but are just living out here, like we do.

We ended up running into our friend Pete, who we met way back at the beginning of summer, and we met several new friends. It might sound strange to call people you only spend a few days with friends, but that’s one of the wonderful things about travel — you makes friends fast, and become fast friends. I am still friends with and regularly talk to people I traveled with in Laos in 2006 (hi Debi!), and I have no doubt the same will be true for our newer friends.

One of the great things about living this way is the fluidity you can bring to plans. If we like a place we might stay longer than we plan. If we don’t, we might leave early. That cuts both ways though. Sometimes you have to be flexible. Sometimes you get to be flexible. The flexible part is the constant. Fortunately in Bear’s Lodge we got to be flexible. Though we also got a little hint of how we might need to be flexible soon.

The day we arrived I noticed the check engine light in our Volvo was on. I didn’t think too much of it, it happens when you don’t properly tighten the gas cap. Usually it goes away when you re-tighten the gas cap. I did that and forgot about it for a few days.

But a few days later I went to get some groceries in a town down the road and the light was still on. Damn. Well then.

I stopped for gas and opened the hood to see if anything was amiss. It took me a minute, but then, next the oil filler cap I noticed a plastic hose that had cracked. I wasn’t sure what it did, but after tracing its path I figured out it was probably involved in the vacuum system somehow. I figured I could either tape it or glue it back together.

I took a closer look when I got back to camp and the plastic hose promptly disintegrated when I touched it. So much for patching a crack. Now I needed to rig up some kind of temporary hose or we were stuck. I dug through my considerable collection of hoses and came up with some fuel line that fit at both ends, and then I telescoped that up to some extra PCV valve hose I had lying around. I anchored it all together with hose clamps and wedged it in place with another hose clamp at the bottom and some blue RTV gasket maker at the top. Then I waited 24 hours.

The next morning it started up fine and seemed to run, so we hit road with it, figuring I’d pick up a replacement hose at the next Napa. About 3 hours into the drive, the check engine light went off, which I considered a kind of success. We made it where we were going anyway, and some times, that’s enough.