July 10th: A marketing lesson

We went on a morning walk around the base of Devils Tower and took a ton of pictures.  There are no bad angles to photograph the Devils Tower from.  I may go broke printing and framing them when I get home.  Watched some climbers make the last of their ascent to the peak and then later they started to rapel down.  Haven’t convinced Sandy that it’s something we want to go in training for yet. 

We took the northern loop on the way back out of Devils Tower and visited a 105 year old general store in Aladdin, WY (population 15).  According to the guy in the Wyoming Welcome Center that recommended it to us it may still have some of the merchandise still on the shelves from when the store first opened.  J  Sandy noted though that lots of tourists stopped in while we were there but few were making any significant purchases.  Most of the teeshirts and other stuff on the shelves was not outrageously priced but nothing was “On Sale” at a reduced price.  She figured that if they had just changed their pricing strategy so that the visitors would think they were getting a special deal that the merchandise would be moving off the shelves.  Apparently none of the 15 residents of Aladdin were marketing majors in college.

The town of Belle Fourche (pronounced “Bell Foosh” locally) claims to be the geographic center of the US since the admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union.  I’ll bet the town fathers of Fort Smith, Kansas were hacked off when that happened.   Some of the local trees had bars of soap hanging from them.  Used to ward off deer maybe?  Or just local tradition for the high school kids?

Passed by Sturgis on the interstate but Sandy didn’t want a leather bra so we skipped it.  We’ll have to get a motorcycle again some day and return.  Do you think a Honda would be welcome? 

We decided that a return to the Badlands was in order since we really liked our first visit.  Spent some time chatting with a Florida couple in the next campsite who also had a Mercedes Sprinter based RV, but it was a Class B which is basically a converted van style.  They were traveling with a dog, a cat and a guinea pig.  Must have been cozy.  Discovered during the course of the conversation that they were sailors too and raced.  Went biking and then the evening program at the ampitheater was about Indian dance and interesting.