Black Thunder and Neelon

Day 6 (July 6th)
Devil’s tower: We woke up in the trunk of the bright blue Ford Focus and looked up to see Devil’s Tower glowing in the morning sun. It was awesome. We cleaned up and drove into the national monument finding a free campground inside. Once there we registered as climbers and signed things that said if we died we wouldn’t sue. We climbed up as high as we could go without ropes and enjoyed the view.

Black Thunder: After that we drove to Newcastle, WY so we could go west on 450 through the Powder River Basin, to pass the largest open pit coalmine in the world. I, not knowing there were many coalmines, had us pull off to the first one we saw, Jake’s Ranch Coal, part of Rio Tinto. We pulled up and I talked to the guard. I asked if we could get a tour and they somewhat rudely said no, tours were only for special people and personal friends of the employees. So we left. Driving down the road we saw another mine, Black Thunder, and although we didn’t expect to get a tour, we parked and I walked up to the security booth. I asked about tours and he made an unsuccessful phone call and sent us to talk to Bonnie, the woman in charge of tours, at the administrative office. As we walked in a middle aged woman with curly hair crossed our path and I asked for Bonnie, she was Bonnie and I inquired about a tour. We couldn’t have gotten luckier, two other people had just asked for a tour and Bonnie was setting one up. We waited less than 2 minutes and a girl our age came out and introduced herself as Amanda, our tour guide. She asked where we were from and we said Missouri, this led us through a lot of questions and answers to which she responded, “Oh wow, really?” and led to finding out that her and Kyle were in the same year at University of Rolla, in Missouri. She was interning out there for around $20 an hour, driving the huge dump trucks, giving tours, and recording data for the Mine.

We toured around in a white minivan seeing the largest active dragline crane in the world. It cost 50 million dollars, was built on site taking 3 years, and moves by waddling like a duck, very slowly at 7-9 feet per step.

Picture descriptions (I hope to include these at some point....)

She also told us that there was a new employee a couple days ago that was driving one of their 78 huge dump trucks and accidentally backed up over a school bus (used to take workers to their jobsite). He destroyed it. Here’s a picture of the dump truck next to one of the workers’ school busses.

After that we drove through a lot of oil fields, eventually arriving at Kyle’s Dad’s place in Riverton. He cooked us some really good NY strip steaks and we talked about sea shanty’s. We slept on his temperpedic bed, slightly more comfortable than the back of the Focus.

Day 7
The night before, Dan, Kyle’s dad, told us that Dusty, a friend of his that ran the truck shop for his company, would be in the shop and he could show us how to break 18 wheeler’s tires. I thought this would be cool, but Dan ended up not being able to get in contact with Dusty.

So, we saw the shop and continued on passed the place that makes the sulfuric acid that Dan transports and headed through an Indian reservation, stopping at a store there that has a famous tanner. In the store I found a cool lamp that was entirely made out of wood, including the shade.

After that we drove to Dan’s friend Neelon’s house. They were in the Peace Corps together and both used that experience to start careers in photography. As we drove over the hill a huge wind turbine appeared marking his house. He had recently put it up as a display unit (that ran his house) for a dealership he opened selling wind power units.

He introduced us to his wife, Susan, who taught psychology at a 2-year program on the reservation. When she heard I had animal allergies she persisted that the house should be vacuumed (they had 2 dogs and at least 2 cats and I was thankful she did that because I would’ve been dead after dinner if she hadn’t). I said that it wasn’t necessary and Neelon said “Don’t say anything to discourage Susan from cleaning the house.”

Neelon showed us around his property, there was a beautiful stream called Bull Creak running by his house, making it possible for plants other than sage and brown grass to grow in his front yard. We then toured around back to see unfinished (and untouched in a year) sauna and his Stonehenge like garden that he made using a very large truck (I think he said it was a backhoe). Some of the stones are 30,000 lbs.

I then went and took pictures of a bird that had nested in their backyard. It was a large bird that fished in their stream and the ponds nearby. I have pictures, but can’t remember the name of it, maybe one of you could help me name it. Susan told me about how she saved one that was caught in some fishing line high up on a tree a year or so back.

We relaxed on their back porch and watched the very rare rainstorm sprinkle much needed water along the Wyoming hillside for a few hours. Neelon eventually brought me out a book called Tools of Vision that he put together with pictures and page-long writings by various scientists, including a Nobel prize winning physicist, Leon Lederman, that ran Fermilab (the huge particle accelerator), and a goof friend of Neelon’s.

Neelon cooked us some delicious burgers, and Susan made red beans and rice and salad. The beef was great, and came from a ranch whose owner they knew personally. Very good meal.

Before we left, Neelon gave Kyle a copy of his book and invited us to go along with him to Mr. Lederman’s 85th birthday party in a week. Unfortunately, we decided, we wouldn’t have time to spend a week in the area, and we declined the offer.

If you guys have thoughts or comments about likes or dislikes, please comment.

Thanks for reading,

Eric