This morning I was up at the crack of dawn to drag myself the many many miles through Yellowstone to its little brother, Grand Teton National Park, before heading through beautiful Wyoming to Devils (sic) Tower and ultimately to Rapid City, South Dakota.

I awoke in Montana and by 06:45 I was in Wyoming, but even at this hour there was still a queue to get into YNP.  Unbelievable.  I continued through the park to Grand Teton ("large boob" in French), which is far more beautiful than YNP, though lacks half the attractions.  The park is concerned with a valley called Jackson Hole, where the Teton mountains rise up against the valley floor which by contrast is sinking yearly.  The mountains are made more impressive because they have absolutely no foothills, and so rise directly out of the lake.

The valley floor is a flat lush meadow, full of yellow flowers.  There were ample photo opportunities to capture some great meadow-meets-mountain shots, including one with horses in the meadow.

I left the park at 11am and braced myself for a long journey.  I was immediately hampered by a rock slide right in front of my eyes; luckily the traffic had been halted while we waited for them to escort us through the repairs from a previous rockslide. 

Wyoming's countryside is even more varied than Montana's.  I started in jagged granite mountains, and quickly descended to the plains.  From there I drove along canyon floors and over mountain passes, the scenery of which looked like a more fertile version of south Utah, complete with red rocks, strata and the odd mini-mesa.  Peaks loomed above me, and helpful motoring signposts told me the type of and age of the rock that I felt might engulf me at any moment.  After the mountains the prairies opened up, and I pushed on to Devils Tower.

Devils Tower is a huge (1200 foot) basalt rock that pushes straight up out of the prairie.  It is the rock featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where that guy sculpts it (beautifully parodied when Homer Simpson sculpts a big top out of mashed potato when he want s to join the Clown College). 

The story behind the rock is wonderful. A little Kiowa girl, who had recently taken bear medicine, turned into a bear and killed everyone in the village except her little sister.  When the boys returned from hunting to see the massacre they fled with the little sister, and were helped in their plight by the buffalo (who slowed the chasing bear-girl), a flat rock (who told them to run around it), and a tree.  The tree told the children to stand on the rock, which started to rise up out of the ground.  The bear-girl clawed at the rock and this is what caused the lines running down Devils Rock.  Cool.

I chased a rainbow into South Dakota where I couch-surfed with a local guy.  The house was full; he, I, his daughter, his girlfriend, his girlfriend's two children, and his Aussie friend.  After losing at "chess" twice to a 5-year-old I retired to my basement campbed.

My journey today was 680 miles, and I was in the car from 06:40 until 21:15 with just an hour out of the saddle.  What a killer journey.  It's about the same distance as London to John O'Groats, Atlanta to Baltimore, or Budapest to Milan.