CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE DEER KIND

“JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES AND HOLD YOUR BREATH AND EVERYTHING WILL TURN REAL PRETTY.”
—ROY NEARY

I don’t have to close my eyes. Or hold my breath. I know everything is going to be downright gorgeous any time my flight touches down in Rapid City or, in this case, the rental car’s tires roll onto the U.S. Hwy 14 exit in Beulah, Wyoming, just over the state line.

You see, this home away from home is where I travel each September for what can only be described as an “automatic” internal battery charger and, of course, a filled buck tag.

I was just a kid when Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” hit movie theaters and rewrote the recipe for box-office success. Nominated for eight Academy awards, the film — based off the Devil’s Tower area of Carlile, Wyoming — has since been deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress.

After completing my eighth trip to this picturesque