Friday, July 30, 2010

Black Hills Trip - Day 7

Wednesday, June 30th:  Custer State Park

Today, we started the day by sleeping in!  It was about 8:45am by the time we got up and moving and it felt good.  After a breakfast of cereal and pop-tarts (that we had been carting with us for a week!), we headed out on to the Wildlife Loop that is within Custer State Park.  This 18 mile road will take you through open grasslands and rolling hills where animals such as bison, antelope, prairie dogs, coyotes, burros and several species of birds.  Below are some pics of what we saw!
Buffalo from afar

Buffalo up close - young and old

Horned antelope.  Karen has named this one "Bucky"

A burrow posing for a shot

A burrow interested in Nathan's camera

Some of the rolling hills

A visit to Prairiedog Town
On the way back to our Camper Cabin, we went up to Mt. Coolidge.  This is the site of a former fire tower.  You could see for miles!  Looking through the viewfinders, you could see Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore (kind of) and several other sights.
The view from Mt. Coolidge - In the foreground, you can see some of the 16,000 acres that burned in the 1988 fire that took 3 days to get under control

Another view from Mt. Coolidge

We headed back to the Camper Cabin for the evening.  The boys in the neighboring cabin wanted Nathan to play, so they tossed the baseball around, played some Battleship and Bowling Dice.  Before dinner, they taught Nathan how to fish:
Joey and Jack (I think).  They were from Solon, IA

Nathan's first fish!

We enjoyed dinner at our campsite, made another campfire and more of our renegade S'mores.
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4 comments:

  1. KarlJuly 30, 2010 at 11:01 PM

    So many bison on the prairie! Amazing to think that not so long ago they were close to extinction! I can remember a class field trip to the Minnesota Zoo in grade school. The zoo was proud of their small herd of bison as they were sure that they were soon to be extinct. Love this vacation.

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  2. Dustin KuklenzJuly 31, 2010 at 11:00 AM

    Custer Park maintains 1300 or 1500 head of buffalo (I don't remember which) each year. They are ALL rounded up once a year at the stockyards. As new bison are born, others are sold off to keep the herds at the same size. Hence: Buffalo Burgers. Glad you're enjoying the trip!

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  3. UnknownJuly 31, 2010 at 2:04 PM

    did you have any that licked your window or even came up to you in the car?

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  4. Dustin KuklenzJuly 31, 2010 at 8:46 PM

    All of the burrows were preoccupied bugging other people when we pulled up. We parked and got out right away so as to not give them the opportunity to lick Diane's new car!

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