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| Scenery form Iron Mountain Road in Custer State Park at dusk....spectacular! |
I think South Dakota is my new favorite state.
I had no expectations for what we would see
and of course, that’s always when I am the most surprised and, in this case,
completely awed, by what we found.
In fact at one
point we were watching a Kevin Costner movie about Custer State Park (in IMAX
at the visitor’s center)
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| The spires of the Black Hills...awesome |
in which he narrated about all the amazing features of
the park including the annual buffalo roundup which occurs the last week of
September, and you could see the buffalo, hear the stampeding herd (great sound
system) as it make it’s way across the plains and I not only got shivers, but
felt like I could cry.
And that was just
a movie.
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| This scenery is otherwordly |
Seeing herds of buffalo right
outside your car window
(check out my brief video of the Buffalos in Custer State Park with our dog panting in the background! ), stopping by the side of the road on a misty morning to
look up into the hill, again, right by the car and see a majestic elk buck with
huge black horns and other elk just carrying on minding their business is just
so awesome.
We saw flocks of turkeys eating seeds and
whatever insects they find on the grassy fields, as we drove through the park.
The prairie dogs and the vast areas they mine
for their homes are just hard to imagine until you see it in person and then
watching them stand on alert and chirp away at anything that startles them (and
it is not humans in the park!).
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| Giant brown and white buck with a few others as we left park |
I feel like I could do a commercial for the Black
Hills.
Not only is the wildlife
spectacular to watch but the rock formations on Iron Mountain Road with the granite tunnels are not to be believed
until you are there.
We had gone from
Mount Rushmore (and what a wow that is!) on the drive back through Custer State
Park and who knew what amazing sights we would see there.
Driving on the narrow roads and one-lane
tunnels, I felt like we were on a different planet.
What a great scene for a scifi movie I
thought as we rounded each hair-pin turn and drove through hollowed-out rocks
to unexpected and wide open, beautiful scenery that I had never even imagined
before.
I just wondered what forces of
nature carved out those rocks, round and tall often with little rocks teetering up top,
looking as if the slightest breath of wind would make it tumble off it’s giant
spire and hurl down towards the ground and us.
How different those magnificent rock formations were from the BadLands and the tortured look of
those rocks all spikey and pointy.
It’s
just so hard to even understand all of this if you don’t see it yourself.
Here's a little video (sorry you have to turn your head!) that's exactly what it's like
Going Through the Needle Tunnel!
We have learned that we need more time in each park.
So, going forward (after our
Harvest Host Raspberry DeLight Farm stopover
tonight) when we arrive at a new park we will set up camp and then go to the
visitor’s center to determine what we want to see, how long we want to stay (so
we aren’t putting in 10-hour sightseeing days; we ARE retired, after all) and
if we want to stay in one or more campgrounds in the same park for the duration
of our visit.
Learning how to go more
with what is presented to us vs. moving like we are still working with limited
time when we worked and took vacations, is a whole new adventure, in and of itself.
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| We no like this part of Wyoming so much...coal trains |
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So, I love South Dakota, right now I am typing as we drive
along Wyoming 405 and it’s kind of…….boring.
Oddly, it seemed like the moment we crossed the border from South Dakota
to Wyoming the topography changed from colorful (green, yellow, orange) rolling
hills covered here and there with proud Ponderosa pine to scrub brush and
barren hills.
I am sure there is more to
Wyoming (that is where the Tetons are!) but for now it’s not so scenic.
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| Not much to see in Wyoming before the Tetons |
Although we just passed a ginormous coal
mining set-up with 150-car coal trains rolling along the tracks and huge mines
(on Wyoming 405).
Turns out Wyoming is
the biggest U.S. coal miner.
I stand
corrected, this part of
Wyoming is kind
of interesting.
And, I remind myself that just 6 months back
at this time of the day I’d be quickly stuffing down my lunch while prepping
for the next challenging student would come visit me and not always happily and
my husband would be preparing documents for submittal of a project.
No complaints at all...and really, nothing is boring!
We are very excited for the Tetons and whatever else we
decide to do on this trip to the parks of the West.
Again at breakfast this morning I asked my husband, “So where do you
think we will go after the Tetons?’ He
shrugged and smiled, “Who knows?”
