Quick Thoughts from a Road Trip West: Is it Real? Is it True?

Deadwood SD is a wild and wicked Old West Town that thrives on keeping its reputation alive in the 21st century. We went into Mustang Sally's and come out with two iced teas...unsweetened, if you please. It was, after all, 11:00 am, but that didn't seem to matter to some of the other folks wandering Deadwood's Main Street this morning.

Drove up the long hill to Lead (pronounced "Leed" the AAA book says), which seems to be a much quieter sort of place, you could say rising morally above its sister city (they share a high school). But there George Hearst, father of famed publisher William Randolph Hearst, made his fortune through his initial investment in the Homestead Mining Co, setting his son up to become an forerunner of the likes of Rupert Murdock. What is truth? Truth is what sells papers.

Wonderful surprise of the day: on a whim we decided to exit Black Hills via Spearfish Canyon. It's one of the most beautiful scenic drives I've ever driven, and I've driven many, about half of them in the Black Hills in the last two days. I know now why so many people vacation there regularly. I didn't want to leave, and Spearfish Canyon told me that every mile of the way.

Looped north and west toward Devils Tower. Stopped on the way at the one-and-only store in Aladdin WY, pop. 15. Restrooms "out back," marked Cowboys and Cowgirls respectively. Sign tacked to wall near door says owners would like to sell. If you are interested in an investment, I'll send you a picture of the property. It's a sure thing, I'd say...but Maxine says if I go into to it, I will do so alone. Another missed opportunity.

Man to companion at Devils Tower: "Wow, how did they build this thing!" Companion: "No one built it; it's natural." Man: "You don't say." That's a true, overheard exchange, at the base of the 800 foot plus monolith jutting into the Wyoming sky.

Of course, the big question in my mind about Devils Tower is this: Where's the apostrophe? So I asked the ranger in the Visitors' Center and she said it was a clerical error no one ever fixed. Later I saw evidence that seems to support that understanding.

But here's the truth of the matter that came to my mind as we hiked around it: "tower" in the phrase is a verb, not a noun, and "Devils Tower" is short-hand for "The devils tower over us." Don't you think?

Seriously, it should not be called what we call it at all, apostrophe or no, but Native Americans' protests to that effect go unnoticed (natch). They prefer something like "Bear's Den," and tell a story to support that name. We, of course, go our own way, because, you see, devils tower over us, whether we know it or not.