The Great Western Journey Part 5--The Devil is in the Details

After leaving Fort Laramie we headed to Devils Tower (cue the Close Encounters theme music). It is truly amazing how much that tower dominates the landscape. The photo on the left page is from miles away from the park. It was a scenic overlook we stopped at to get our first glimpse. We arrived in the afternoon and there was still a line of cars awaiting entrance. We didn't have time to stop and get the traditional sign photo so I just captured that one through the window.

This layout is another Club Scrap layout that I created from their National Park collection. I've been waiting to use this set as I thought that the yellow print WAS Devil's Tower. Turns out it is from Yosemite. Well, it could be either I guess.The card on the 2nd page next to the photo of me was made by my friend Sharon Aubuchon as a table decoration for one of our NPTC conventions. I was able to take several with me and could incorporate it as a decorative mat on the layout. I added the 2 stickers on the bottom right as I didn't have photos to fit that slot. That provides some consistency with the left border.

I talked to the Ranger and said I wanted to get good photographs and avoid a lot of people. The Ranger recommended this trail (I forget the name of it) and though it was a little buggy we were able to get the photos we wanted. The tower and flag photo is just outside the Ranger Station.

This is layouts 3 and 4 from the same Club Scrap link as above. I did switch out the journal box as I liked the quote on this one. When I created the page I opted out of using the burlap strip and instead added a piece of CM paper that had a similar texture to it. 

What I didn't know about before our visit was the extensive Prairie Dog town in the park. I had a great time observing them run around. Jim snuck that photo of me but I didn't really mind. 

This layout is based on a sketch I saved on Pinterest. The paper on the left is from Scrapbook Customs and though it's a really close-up view of the tower, it fits the dirt tone of the prairie dogs. The right-hand page is a striped piece from a South Dakota scrapbook pack I was given. It matched the tower fairly well. The border on the top right is a scrap piece from a 7x7 nature-themed paper from old CM. I had a couple of brown ovals in my scrap bin so I used them in place of the circles on the sketch. The sticker on the upper right one is from a Wind Cave sticker sheet (I didn't notice prairie dogs when we were there). It shows up much better in real life. 

50-states Album Part 32--Wyoming

This is the last page in my 50-states album. As I visit additional states or find photos of the trip, I will post more pages. I've been to 39 states and have shown you about 32 layouts. Next week we'll go back to my chronological albums and trip albums.

Wyoming was a state we passed through on the Great Western Loop in the summer of 2017. We flew into Denver, rented a car, and drove to South Dakota. We had GREAT fun going to Fort Laramie (tip--do not follow your GPS unless you like driving on dirt roads!) We also got to visit Devil's Tower (go ahead with the Close Encounters theme in your head now). Wyoming is a wild place and you really should visit. We enjoyed our time there and have lots of memories to look back on and laugh.

This layout is based on this sketch. Clearly, I used only 1/2 of the page. I owned a sticker of barbed wire, wood-grained paper and the appropriate card stock so I could really do this one justice. The cowboy/cowgirl and horse were cut on the Cricut. I had actually used them once before in a different album but I thought them a perfect fit to a story about Jim and I traveling out west. The state shape of Wyoming is not that interesting so I jazzed up the state name by finding a font that looked like a rope. You can look at DaFont.com if you want to find some really different free fonts for cutting or writing. This time I used a pen in the Cricut--not something I do a lot of but it made the rope look real to me. I had to trim each letter by hand but I think that made it work on the page better.