Snow Day!

It is like I am back in school. Thursday we had a snow day, so we got the day off. We got about 5 inches of snow and they didn't see any need to track it in to the buildings, so we will see what happens Friday. So, after doing some laundry, we went to play. We took a ride on needles highway and took the wildlife loop in Custer State Park. We got our annual permit for the park. As we drove around the mountains, we started with alot of snow, and it got less and less as we went, eventually having almost none before coming back into it again as we got closer to home. But alot of it melted today when the sun did finally arrive in the area.

We began taking really nice pictures of the hills. Very beautiful everywhere. Then we started seeing the critters. We first saw white tail deer, and kept seeing them all day (some real close in the road). The deer are real ratty looking and dark in color. We came upon some turkeys soon and even got one to fly away because it was crossing the road with both sides having rocks fairly high on each side and we just came around a sharp corner and startled both us and the bird, so off he flew. Also, we saw plenty of turkeys during our ride.

This road at times was quite narrow with one lane bridges, one car tunnels, and drop-offs without any guard rails except at spots where you can pull off. Hard to look at everything and stay on the winding road, so I had to stay on the road and April got to look around and take pictures. The road at two points was a divided one lane road in each direction with a drop off on both sides and of course no shoulder.

We stopped at one spot to try to take a picture of a prong horn, but it slipped into the trees, but on the other side of the car three deer ran across and down the road-we almost missed them as we were trying to see the prong horn again.

Well finally we saw some prong horn and got a few photos up close. They are nice looking, especially compared to the white tail deer. We saw one that was really pregnant and it had a collar on too.

We came across a prairie dog community and got some pics.

We saw the other cars stopped on a dirt one lane road, so we took it and Donkeys came right up to the cars. One of them was cleaning the car licking it (window too) and one came up and scratched itself on my mirror and folded it in. One had a baby with it. The baby had a really long coat and was nursing. We got turned around in a wide spot and back on the main road around the park.

We saw some buffalo finally, but was quite far off. Eventually, we saw a truck stopped (and it had Michigan plates) and he was looking back and up a hill, and there was some buffalo that was closer. Further up the road, as it was winding and rolling up and down, we came around a corner on a hill and there on the side of the road was this huge male Buffalo coming toward the road. We stopped for some pictures. He kept coming, and I could hear him ripping the grass up and eating it. I told April we have to go soon, and we did leave when he got to the edge of the road (about 10 feet from the car). Wow! I think he was bigger than our car. We did see a few more on our trip tonight.

We continued to see all of these animals the rest of the ride. And even came upon a small group of Elk as we got closer to Mount Rushmore.

At two points the road had tunnels that when going through them, you could see Mount Rushmore at the end, like the tunnel was framing the monument. Really cool. We didn't get too good of a picture tonight, but we will be back again. The monument is lit up at night and it was dusk, so it was not a real good time to take that picture. Both our photo cards were full and now we can't take more pictures tonight, but we will be back. Very enjoyable drive, but this summer, I would not want to be on it and it would take even longer with the additional traffic. It took us over 3 hours and we did not stop at any of the lodges or general stores along the way. Way too many photos to show here. We will make up some CD's. Ready to go again and see more.