Joyous Occasion!

As this was the last day of our "license" for Custer Sate Park, we decided to take one more tour of the Wildlife Loop. What a send off! One of our burro friends produced a new addition to the herd,

Getting up was a near run thing indicating that he/she (it was not prudent to get to close mama had an attitude) had not had much practice

Yet, motivation is often the determining factor. Kids are always hungry.

A Unremarkable Day at Custer State Park (remarks added)

You must buy a "license" to visit Custer State Park. One to seven days is 20 bucks. That is per real vehicle, motorcycles are $10. If you are just traveling through on one of the "highways" there is no charge but that is in somewhat small print. We arrived on the free park weekend so we got a couple of no charge days before we bought the "license." The pervious posts should argue for the value of the "license."

Yesterday we had breakfast at the State Game Lodge. It is the closest breakfast to where we are camped. The lodge is interesting. It was built in 1923 and still retains some of the flavor or the time. The breakfast buffet was rather usual but by overeating we avoided lunch so things balanced out.

Although the east end of the "Wildlife Loop Road" is just a few hundred yards form the Lodge, and it is the usual entry point for us, we threw caution to the wind and entered on the west end. We paid for our transgression as the bison and pronghorn were far from the road, the prairie dogs hid, and our friends the burros were not to be seen. It even took four snaps to produce one photo worth keeping.

MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD

The weather, however, continued to be wonderful with the usual afternoon showers holding off to, well, afternoon. A few more days here and then on to a very different environment in New Mexico.

Wind Cave National Park via Custer State Park and then Custer via Wind Cave.

We did not tour the cave with the masses but the Wind Cave National Park is otherwise well worthwhile. It is located on the south boundary of Custer State Park so there are similarities. They have bison and pronghorns and probably a full menu of other critters.

East side of Wind Cave NP. It is away from the masses.

meanwhile back at Custer Dances with Burros renews a friendship, while a friend wants to play also.

On the Road to the Badlands you will find the Badlands

I am not a fan of the Badlands or Zion or Brice Canyon, or Grand Canyon National Parks. They are interesting and you should visit them if you have the opportunity. My opinion is personal, it has something to do with scale I think and it is something I want to explain when I figure it out. But, to be fair, here are a couple of shots. I have others from a previous trip and if you are interested let me know and I send some if you wish.

Apparently early ranchers could not get cattle to the grass on the flats so they took a mower up in pieces and assembled it to do the cutting.

This is across the road from the Visitor's Center. The photo missed the extreme delineation (right word?) between the rock and the sky. We have been fortunate that late afternoon/evening rains have given us perfect mornings of clear air and land/sky contrasts.

Bison Quiz

Which is a Custer Park (state park) Bison and which is a Badlands (national park) Bison?

Two answers per person.

On the Road to the Badlands are the Goodlands (relatively speaking)

Wide open spaces? All you can deal with especially if you do not mind getting your vehicle and yourself a tad dusty.

On the Road to The Badlands is Scenic (South Dakota).

If you call your town Scenic you have a lot to live up to, and maintain.

All the buildings above were unoccupied (to be kind). I did not photograph the operating, I think, two pump gas station or the Post Office which was in a modern modular building.

I have no idea what this is. It might have significance to the Native American community or . . . .

Three Days at Custer

Custer State Park has a reputation of being one of the finest parks in the country. Its rep is well deserved. It had advantages starting out foremost being the landscape, rugged rocky hills, extensive grasslands, forests, and water. Then they protected or added bison, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and numerous other critters. There are supposed to be big-horn sheep and mountain goats, although we have yet to see them. We did see our first badger in the wild. There are plenty of birds.

Sorry, I forgot to mention burros.

The father of a friend of mine served in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s. This remained with me and has led me to seek out their construction projects. There are examples in the Black Hills and one is this fire tower on Mount Coolidge.

From here you can see a long long way.

In the Black Hills

We took five days to drive from Canton to Hermosa, South Dakota. The photo is of our base camp for 11 days of re-exploring the Black Hills. You cannot see them because they were behind me as I snapped the photo. I have every intention of posting more inspiring images in the coming days.

Nature's Warning

Loading for a summer trip with snow/ice falling. So nature says, "Now that I got your attention." I doubt anyone we knew while sailing would ever accuse me of not paying attention to the weather. If anything I was too attentive and cautious. Why we are going north and not southwest to begin the trip is because we are well aware of springtime in Oklahoma and have heard the symphony of the tornado sirens. So enough of the wintery mix.