Return from trip to Wyoming to Summer garden

Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine 

Butterfly Weed remnant

Seeing plants in various stages of dying, this one actually is "promising".  I set this little plant out a week before I took off for Wyoming.  It had leaves and even flowers.  I choose to believe that a Monarch butterfly caterpillar had a feast.  There are other things that could have caused this, I am opting for the caterpillar. The hopeful sign is the sprout with leaves.  I will watch this plant and see how it does.

The 2 year old Butterfly Weed beside this plant is healthy.

Other plants that may look sad and hopeless to me are the promise of things to come.

This is a seedling zinnia from SPENT blossom that I dead headed several weeks ago

 “One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

I had Four O'clock's many years
ago and thought I'd try again.
They may be my summer staple
if I continue fighting summer
heat.
They benefit from deadheading
and will likely bloom all heat
long.

 Summer has set in with its usual severity. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 Heat, ma’am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. ~Sydney Smith, Lady Holland’s Memoir

  I set out watermelon rinds a few weeks back for the butterflies. The seeds germinated and the vine(s) are huge.
I started cutting back and pulling out.
Then, I saw a bumblebee.

Plant stays!

Last but not least, 2 sweet potato vines.  These were set into the hole of concrete blocks.  Not a lot of soil, not much water....I have cut it back as it was creeping out to conquer the whole court yard.

In the end, hubby (not a gardener) would tell me when we talked on the phone that things looked so bad.
I said don't worry about it.
I came home to not a sad sight, a promise of fall and spring.

Trip to Devil's Tower, Wyoming

 Don't forget to click on a 
picture for larger view

My niece and I finally made the trip to Devil's Tower. Plans were in the talking stage for a long time and due to my sister's injury (she is getting better) I was in Wyoming with time on my hands.

When we took off that morning, there was an over cast in Cheyenne and nothing unusual about that. Miles later, beautiful, ominous clouds were in our view for  miles and miles.  I took pictures because we had never seen this kind of cloud formation.

Things got a little wet and exciting about an hour later.
There is a picture of my niece and a lowered window.
We finally were rolling into the clouds and it was raining so hard the wipers could not keep up.
Fortunately, she had a beach towel in the back seat.  (You see, the window is stuck in that position) I rolled the towel into a thick roll and she stuffed it into the space.  Only a little damp before she got it settled.

The odd part about this adventure?  We were listening to an audio book called A Walk in the Woods. A story of two hikers and their attempt to walk the Appalachean Trail that runs from 2180 miles from Georgia to Maine.
The reader was at the point where the two trekkers were soaked to the skin and descriptions of being wet. It seemed apropos to our view out the window(s).

Arrived finally at the ubiquitous pull out area with this sign. It is the "perfect" beginning of a trip into history.
Tourists aside, a person cannot help but think of why this place is here. Pictures do not quite capture the size of this tower and immense rock fall surrounding it.  I am sure there is an explanation of how they chose the path they constructed. It is a bit steep at times but with perfect stopping places to take pictures and catch your breath.
I think my niece and I dawdled a bit more than necessary, but it really is a place to "think" of when it was discovered by the first Indians.  What must they have thought?
There are numerous trees with colorful ribbons tied to them. This is, after all, a sacred space.  I understand that the month of June has been deemed a time to honor the traditions of the various tribes that worship here by not walking the trail during the month.

Half way for this old gardener and darned proud of it!

This is a web site that explains the tower.

https://www.nps.gov/deto/planyourvisit/upload/american%20indians%20&%20the%20tower.pdf