South Dakota 2011: Badlands and Black Hills, Part 2

 On to Custer State Park! What can I say, we loved it. Guess why! 

How can you not love them?

At one point while I was driving, a huge herd came toward us on the road. Nothing to do but stop and wait and admire. They were so close that they even brushed against the car! Sadly, no photos, but the memories!

There were other critters, too.

We spent one night in the lodge at the park. We had a choice of a modern hotel room, or one of the original historic rooms in the main lodge. Of course we took the latter. It was up stairs, and only slightly larger than the Honeymoon Cottage had been. I think the bathroom was even smaller! But it had a lot of character, and we enjoyed it.

I remember that we ate dinner in the room that night, and there was no place to sit except for the bed. We had a small wooden cutting board with cheese on it, and the mattress was so lumpy, the cheese kept falling off the board!

The next day we drove on to Hill City. This being Sturgis Week, it was full. We found a parking place and walked around, looking at all the Harleys, the bikers, the stands, and the whole spectacle. This being August, it was hot, so we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream. We both still remember sitting outside at a table on the sidewalk, eating our ice cream and enjoying the whole atmosphere.

Our house for the next few days was a rental, "Black Hills Sanctuary", a one bedroom place, which I believe is still available for holiday rental. A wood house/log cabin, with nicely sized living area, bathroom and bedroom. It was away from town, away from the road, and quiet.

One morning we woke up and saw a shadow moving across the window. We were a bit shocked until we realized it was a deer 

The house had no over or stove top, for insurance reasons, but a microwave, crock pot, and plug-in electric burners. But it also had a large grill, which is where Norbert prepared most of our meals. 

It was obviously not an anonymous vacation rental that could be anywhere in the world, but gave a feeling of the local atmosphere. Highly recommended!

Anyway, back to the park. We were in the area for 5 or 6 days, and while I no longer remember everything we did, I was able to find photos of some of our adventures.

I remember that we visited the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs. On the way, we drove by the Hot Springs, right along the side of the road. And I also remember that our lunch turned out to be sandwiches bought at a gas station, and eaten at a picnic table at the Mammoth Site, which was actually quite pleasant.

The Mammoth Site is a "paleontological dig site", where they have found 61 mammoths and 87 other Late Ice Age animals. If memory serves me right, the story we were told is that there was sunken water hole there, and with water rare, a herd of mammoths found it. The females leading the herd mainly avoided it, but the younger males, i.e., the teenage boys, jumped right in to drink it up. Only to discover that they couldn't get out! The moral of this story is obvious, as is the fact that some things never change.

We also visited one of the caves in the area, I believe the Wind Hills National Monument. And I have no particular memories of it.

One day we drove up to Lead (pronounced Leed, not Led).We drove up a beautiful canyon or valley. I cannot remember the name, or even find it on the map. We stopped at this lovely waterfall.

Lead is known for the Homestead Gold Mine, which operated for more than 125 years. There was this outside  operation, and then they went underground,

You could even go ever-so-slightly underground. I had to get a photo of Norbert in his hard hat, shades of his days at the coal mine here at home. (He did not work underground, by the way.)

Back to Custer SP! So much so see and take in and be in awe of!

We drove Needles HIghway, named after these unique formations.

Guess what else we saw! 

Plus there was a turn-out where you could see these guys. We had already decided not to go to Mount Rushmore, as it just didn't interest us. But we did get this look at the monument. 

We also saw the Crazy Horse monument from the road. Big carved monuments don't seem to be our thing.

A word to Sturgis Week and the riders. It was not so horribly crowded anywhere, we always found parking places, for example. There were a lot of them on the road, but we were never aware of any problems, traffic-wise. 

Interesting thing about the riders, partially from our personal experience and partially from my brother's experience at an Outer Banks Bike Week. These are not the young crazies, nor Hells Angels. They tend to be 50 plus in age, and professionals, like doctors and lawyers. In other words, people who can afford a fancy Harley-Davidson and the time off to take part. WE talked to several, and quite enjoyed our conversations.