Traveling to South Dakota, Day 4

 

The Needle

our Bronco coming thru!

Day 4...Time for the Needles Highway...A 14 mile scenic drive totally inside Custer State park in South Dakota. It has sharp switchbacks, granite spires, and narrow single lane rock tunnels. The most famous tunnel, the Needles Eye Tunnel is 8' wide and 9' 9" high. Big truck? Forget it! Glad we weren't traveling in our former Dodge Ram dually. You have to buy a state park pass to enter Custer State Park. It's 30.00 for seven days and we made it worth it, visiting the park three times! It was 48 degrees this morning when we set out--refreshing!

This guy didn't even pull in his mirrors-- brave!

Here you can see the granite spires....

Here you get a little better perspective of the size of the rock formations....

We continued back into the park on the 18 mile wildlife loop once again....We saw 4 pronghorn close to the bison center. And we encountered the "Begging Burros". Sparky almost said "Begging Burritoes", haha. (she always has food on her mind, laughs E.) The first time through the park, the burros were out in a field and couldn't have cared less about the tourist/drivers passing through. They normally come up to your car and stick their noses in your window. This is one of the few exceptions where you are allowed to feed wildlife in the park. Today.....the burros were up close and personal on the southeastern portion of the loop road. 

You can feed them apples or carrots, but not the baby ones, otherwise your fingers will get nipped! There were a lot of people out of their cars and in and amongst the burros, so we kept going. It was more fun years ago, when people stayed in their cars and the burros came right up to you. Today, little kids out of their cars, were getting scared and unsure of how to feed them as the burros can be quite persistent and follow you around!

We saw a sign for bighorn sheep so we went looking for them and drove around Jewel Cave Monument. We didn't stop there as there were no sightings. Phooey! On we go....

We drove on the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway which includes the Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road. This is one of America's top ten scenic byways where there are cool bridges and views of Mount Rushmore through tunnels and around bends in addition to the Needles. We did not visit Rushmore, we've done that in previous visits so we kept going. But we did stop for photo ops! More pronghorn...

Here's a view of Mt. Rushmore from the byway...

On the drive, you can see Mt. Rushmore through the tunnel at the other end. We've seen people lay down in the road when there's no traffic coming for a shot of the monument thru the tunnel from a different perspective. Sparky contemplated that for about a few seconds, but cars kept coming behind us so we kept going. (Don't worry, I wouldn't have let her do that, says E.) HA!

Oh! Sparky would be remiss if she didn't share some of the local flora, so here you go....This is called yellow salsify.

A LOT of prairie rose were in bloom all over the park...This is a close up, they are much smaller in the fields.

Sparky was really surprised to see grassland prickly pear blooming everywhere...in South Dakota? Yep. Something you normally see in the southwest desert, but wouldn't think you'd see in a northern state. These were more sparsely scattered, but still everywhere!

There were a lot of thistle poppies blooming as well. Man, do they have sharp, sharp stems! They also have toxic sap, which is poisonous to livestock and humans.

Crazy Horse 2026

On the drive to and from Custer State Park, you pass the ongoing Crazy Horse Monument. We took a shot from the road, again, having visited the monument previously, we had other destinations in mind this time. It's coming along since our last visit. The construction crew has added more modern tech equipment such as robotic track saws which cut through the rock with GIS mapping. This allows them to carve seven times faster than the Mount Rushmore methods. They are now working on the horse's mane and head, Crazy Horse's right shoulder and hairline. No completion date has been set, but the 563 ft. project began in 1948.

Eldy schlepped Sparky around the park and surounding areas for a total of 172 miles today. What a guy! We returned to Rapid City where we were staying, and decided to return to Wild Sage Restaurant next door for a second time, it was that good!

Tomorrow, we head to the Badlands National Park...

Day5 Custer State Park Final Day

 Well, you'd think we have seen it all at Custer State Park, and we thought we had, too! But nope! Here comes the wildlife again...

You can see bison far away, or closer if you are patient....and not the worrying type....Yikes!

We saw pronghorn antelope (South Dakota antelope).....One was a bachelor....But the women are around this handsome fellow. The females numbered about eight in his company. They are around, believe you me!

And then, a beautiful little bluebird...(they always look a little mad to Sparky)...

The bluebirds were flying all around the prairie dog mounds. If you look for little grayish, whiteish mounds in a grassy area, and there are many such mounds/areas in the park, you can find the prairie dogs. Here are a cute couple grooming each other....

We had a wonderful time on our last day in Custer State Park. Always something to see...Sparky and Eldo love these wildlife nature drives. We've seen many people just rush right through the drive, not paying attention to what's happening right under their noses!  Twenty bucks entry fee for one day up to seven days...a bargain! See you next time on some beautiful hikes in Spearfish Canyon...

                                                    The end

Custer State Park Day 2

 We love Custer so much, we headed back for day 2 to see what we could see. Our park is a little far from Custer State Park (about 60 miles) but the drive is so beautiful and oh, my gosh! We saw the biggest bison jam ever! We found out later, that the herd numbered about 500 that day in this location. Be sure to ask at the ranger station when you buy your pass (20.00 for 1-7 days) where the herd was last seen. They are VERY accurate in their reported sightings advice and we have seen the herds every time where they said they would be.

The thicker black line is the park wildlife loop around the park. On day 1, they were on the inside park gravel roads, the skinnier lighter reddish brown lines. We were glad we had the truck to go down these dusty gravel roads.

On day 2, they were on the main wildlife loop road, and how! It was nuts! Picture a herd of about 400 in all, spread out on both sides of the main wildlife loop road, all heading for a different side of the road, but the cars kept interfering with the cross over to the other pasture. The cows, bulls, and babies kept coming and the cars kept coming.

It's hard to picture the enormity if the herd with this photo, but the bison are EVERYWHERE! Sparky has a video of the bison coming and coming, while the cars try to keep moving forward. It's hilarious because as the cars pass in front of our truck, (there is a fork in the road), you see people sticking up out of their moon roofs, trying to take photos. (Sparky has not figured out how to incorporate a video into the blog. She did it ten years ago, but things have changed. She will have to relearn!)

Sparky is in the bed of the truck, Eldo is worrying

Sparky decided to get into the bed of the truck (when it was safe, reports Eldo) and take photos from there. 

We saw pronghorns...people call them pronghorn antelope, but another name is the South Dakota antelope. They are the fastest land animal in North America. They can run up to 60 mph for great distances. A two day old fawn can outrun a man. At 4 days, it can out sprint a horse! They can wander up to 10 miles a day looking for food, so they are all over the park, you just have to look in the grassy areas. They blend in extremely well! They have cool markings on their throats, and the horns can be up to 15".

We were fortunate to see a small herd of them. Most of the time, we have seen them solo....

As we were heading towards the end of the loop, we saw prairie dogs!

Bunches of them! But here is just one...He just sat and sat right beside the truck. We think he was waiting for us to throw some kind of food at him. Nope, not these travelers! Sorry, dog.

We continued out of the park and saw deer after deer after deer. You don't see those as often where we used to live in Florida, but boy, are they abundant here! You have to watch the road very carefully at all times of the day. 

And that's all for today, folks...The End. Until next time....