Custer State Park, SD

We headed off on Saturday, June 10th, for Custer State Park. Because of the flooding in the Dubois area, we encounter road closures and have to make a detour. Something that would have thrown me prior to our RV training… worrying about the roads we’d land on. Now, I take it in stride… mostly. A nice drive to Custer, although not as scenic as some we’ve been fortunate enough to experience. With this drive, we saw lots of sagebrush, cattle grazing and antelope and/or deer. We can’t quite tell them apart. In route, we pass a tractor parade going on in a small town (another piece of Americana) and a tractor graveyard lining the “highway.” The highway was one lane each way but the tractor graveyard was quite large. We also pass a sign announcing the name of a town (which now escapes me) and the population is 4!

We arrive at Custer State Park and find our campground and our site, which happens to be a back-in. Ugh. Not my favorite. Ok, now is a chance to use our training. We over- think it. sigh. The site should have been an easy one to get into. We made it hard. Thankfully the campground host came over and gave us a hand. We got it in with some help from him. Afterwards, we analyzed what we did wrong. We’ll improve. It’ll just take some time and probably a few more embarrassing moments!

Custer State Park is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota with over 70,000 acres, 13 campgrounds, cabins and lodging, dining options, and general stores for supplies and souvenirs. It’s huge. The campground host, as part of their duties, comes over in the evening and acquaints you with all that there is to do here. We find out his wife is 78 and he will be 81 on his next birthday, July 3rd. Same birthday as Brother Bob’s. The wife reminds Gary of his grandmother. They are a darling couple and stop by every day to learn what we did that day.

Sunday, June 11th, we set the alarm for 6:15. There is a 17 mile Wildlife Loop Road within the park where you can see bison grazing, elk, deer, etc. The best time for viewing is early in the morning or late in the afternoon. We decide to go early in the morning so we grab coffee and tea and Kya and off we go. Before we even get to the Wildlife Loop Road, we see bison. This is a good sign! We get on to the Loop Road and have to stop almost immediately for a bison wondering past. I struggle with Gary’s camera once again. We decide it’s probably better if I drive and he takes the photos. We switch places. Just then a whole herd of buffalo cross in front and start walking down the road. Amazing. I can hear their hoofs hitting the pavement. Kya is just watching from the back seat. Hmmm…. maybe in hindsight we should have left her at camp. But, she’s an angel. We sit for probably 15 minutes and just watch the bison and take photos. The rest of the ride is beautiful with rolling hills and more bison up on hillsides, although not as wow-y as our first encounter. We see a deer and her baby and a pronghorn antelope. The ride ends with begging burros. We didn’t have any food with us but they allow me to pet them anyway. One comes nose-to-nose with Kya… although we were smart enough to have the window up on the back seat so it was thru glass. Thankfully. They were just curious about each other.

We head back to camp for more coffee and breakfast.

Then on to the Visitor’s Center which is amazing. Brand new facility with lots of info on bison. The park has a bison heard of 850 to 1450 per year. The number varies depending how much forage is available. They do a fall roundup of the bison for inventory purposes, which the public can watch. Based on the number of bison and available food source, they then do a bison auction in November. The Visitor’s Center also has a theatre with stadium seating and a short documentary about the park that runs all day long with Kevin Costner as the voiceover. Turns out the park was started back in 1919 and President Calvin Coolidge used it as his summer residence for several summers.

In the morning we also visited the Game Lodge which is where Calvin Coolidge stayed when he was at the park. Beautiful historic building. We also visited the “General Store.” Huge store that sells everything from art to food supplies. The ceiling is made of tressled wood and was the hull of a ship that was created during Calvin Coolidge days, which they then turned upside down and used as the ceiling. Fascinating.

In the afternoon we headed off for a scenic drive along the 14-mile long Needles Highway. The road’s name comes from the needle-like granite formations that line the highway. It is a narrow winding road thru pine and spruce forests, meadows, and rugged granite formations. I found the rock formations the most interesting. There are two narrow rock tunnels that you go through… one 9 ft in width and the other called “Needles Eye Tunnel” that is 8’4”. We go thru both in Gary’s dually and live to tell the tale with not a scratch on the buggy, but opt to come back a different way. No sense in pushing our luck. It’s called Needle’s Eye for the interesting rock formation at the other side of the tunnel that looks like the eye of a needle.

We ended up at Sylvan Lake afterwards, which is one of the premiere spots in the park, and did a hike around the lake which has the same interesting huge granite rock formations in and around the lake. A spot for a late lunch, too.

A campfire that evening rounded out the day.

Monday, June 12th, we visited Mt. Rushmore via the 18 mile Iron Mountain Road. Another winding, narrow road with narrow tunnels. The campground hosts had warned us not to do the road at night. They said the husbands come back white knuckled and the wives vomiting. Okey dokey then… no night driving for us on that road. The road was quite scenic. The tunnels were all wider than the previous day’s “Needle” tunnels so ordinarily would not have posed a problem. However, on this particular day, there’s a gargantuan tour bus on the other side of the tunnel, who in their infinite wisdom and perhaps with an eye toward “tip” dollars, let out all their passengers who are now taking up one side of the road and blocking the tunnel. One of the tour guides comes up to us and says “you can go thru; the bus will wait until your gone.” Oh-kay. What about your contingent of folks in the middle of the road… apparently they get to stay. We go through the tunnel fine. It’s sneaking past the tour bus on the other side that gives some heart palpitations. But, once again, Gary’s excellent driving pulls us through, and we continue on our way. We get to the final tunnel, which we’ve already been told is special because as soon as you come through it, you can see the faces on Mt. Rushmore. A special moment. I didn’t necessarily do it justice with the camera, but it was awesome.

There is a huge multi-tiered parking lot for Mt. Rushmore, which must be a private company, because that’s the only fee involved to see the monument. We park, walk Kya, pop her back in the truck, because dogs aren’t allowed past the parking area, and head towards the monument. At this point you are feeling that this is a bit of a tourist trap and not all that special. But, then you see the President’s faces, and that feeling falls away. What remarkable men. We walk the Presidential Trail which makes a loop around the whole area, and there’s fewer people because of the 250 steps involved and a chance to photograph the monument at different vantage points. We also hear a talk by the Park Ranger about the monument. How an enormous amount of dynamite was used to blast away at the rock (as he said… “only in America”) then the fine carving took place. The four Presidents cover 150 years… George Washington because he’s the father of our nation, Lincoln because of his abolishing slavery, Andrew Jackson because of the Louisiana Purchase and Teddy Roosevelt for his conservationism among other things. They were supposed to be sculpted from the waist up but funds ran out so heads only. Our nation is young when compared to Europe but still this is our history and a dramatic one at that. Well worth the visit to this iconic landmark.

After Mt. Rushmore, we headed into Custer for a late lunch at the Beggin Burro (Mexican) and a wifi signal to check email and get out the next blog.

We meandered back for the late afternoon and sat outside and relaxed until the rain and thunder brought us indoors. It rained and thundered off and on for a good portion of the evening but we were cozy inside our little home.

Tuesday, June 13th, we headed out again early this morning for a ride along the 17 mile long Wildlife Loop Road. We saw only a couple of bison this morning but one was wallowing in the dirt, which was kind of cool to witness. We did see some pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs (my favorite), bunnies, a few deer. Then came back for a pancake breakfast that Gary made. Gary is now doing some maintenance on the truck and 5th wheel then we’ll head into Custer to do a little shopping, get out the latest blog post and basically mess around. Thus far we have been blessed with beautiful weather on this trip… only a little rain. Tomorrow we head to Nebraska then the next day on to Kansas. Temps are supposed to be much hotter. We’ve been spoiled with the high elevation and associated comfortable temps!