☀️ Rise & shine at 7am & it’s 66* inside Ruby! 🥶 Yes the heater came on about 4 times during the night! For 5 nights we are staying in Custer State Park at Legion Lake Campground with only electricity. We are right across the street from Legion Lake, which is absolutely beautiful.
Custer State Park is in the Black Hills of South Dakota which covers an area of 71,000 acres of rolling prairie grasslands & rugged mountains. The park is SD largest and first state park, named after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
🦬 🦬 🦬 The park is home to the largest herds in the world of 1,500 free-range bison. Pronghorn, mule deer, elk, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, burros, prairie dogs, coyotes, eagles, badgers, cougars, river otters and wild turkeys are other residents of the park’s variety of habitats. 🚘 🌲 The park is known for its scenery, & scenic drives (Needles Highway & wildlife loop).
The park has an annual bison roundup and auction every September, in which the bison in the park are rounded up, with several hundred sold at auction so that the remaining number of animals will be compatible with the rangeland forage. The annual roundups began in 1965; more than 10,000 people now attend each one.
Left the campground about 9:45 for Wind Cave National Park. We had a scheduled tour at 11:30 for the Natural Entrance Tour. 1 1/2 hours starting at the cave’s largest natural opening, considered by many American Indians as sacred. The tour took us down about 300ft below the surface, down a series of stairs in 52* constant temperature of the cave. The way up was much easier because we took an elevator up! 😂 Amazing, this cave was found in 1890 by a teenager Alvin McDonald! He began exploring Wind Cave with a candle and a ball of string to help him find his way back out.
Wind Cave National Park was established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt….the 7th National Park and the first cave to be designated a National park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its calcite formations …boxwork and frostwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world’s discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave. The cave is recognized as the densest cave system in the world, with the greatest passage volume per cubic mile. Wind Cave is the seventh longest cave in the world with 154.2 miles of explored cave passageways (as of 2021) and the third longest cave in the US. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States.
💨 The passages in the park are said to “breathe” as air continually moves into or out of them, equalizing the atmospheric pressure of the cave and the outside air. When the air pressure is higher outside the cave than inside it, air flows into the cave, raising the cave’s pressure to match the outside pressure. When the air pressure inside the cave is higher than outside it, air flows out of the cave, lowering the air pressure within the cave.
🥾🎒Time for some hiking after cave tour. We took the Rankin Ridge Trail up to a Lookout Tower. Rankin Ridge forms part of the southeast edge of the Black Hills and at 5,013 feet in elevation, it is the highest point in Wind Cave National Park. A lookout tower rises above the ridge top, and when at the top, spectacular large open views of the Black Hills, Buffalo Gap and adjacent prairies.
🕰 It’s now 3pm and we pull over to take pictures of Wind Cave & Custer State Park signs when we hear the prairie dogs making a lot of noise. They do that when predators are in their town! Sure enough….to our surprise, we thought we were seeing black footed ferrets but no… there were 2 badgers!! We’ve never seen badgers before in the wild! Then in the field across from them, there were also pronghorns grazing in the field. How cool was that!
Time for Wildlife Loop Road. An 18 mile paved road with side dirt trails to go over and around pine speckled hills, & grasslands that’s home to so many wildlife. You can go anytime of day or night and take as long as you want. Shortly into the park, we spotted prairie dogs all standing up and squealing! We then spotted a coyote chasing a badger (3rd one we’ve now seen)! This went on for about 20 minutes till we couldn’t see them anymore. So how cool was that? Right! Along the road we saw bison, horses, deer, pronghorns, chipmunks, prairie dogs and begging burro’s! What a site! They literally come up to your vehicle & put their head inside looking for handouts. I only had a few cracker crumbs! 🤦🏻♀️ Next we stopped at the new bison center..(where the annual roundup is held) looked through the visitor center and split a sandwich & soda. 🥪🥤 Our day is not over yet! We then took the most scenic road in the Black Hills to Mount Rushmore…..
Iron Mountain Road is another 18 mile road that took us over an hour to travel. for this winding road winds between 16A & Mount Rushmore. This section that is still in the park is a must see! We pulled over at the many pull offs to gaze at the magnificent Black Hills scenery, but then the 2 Pigtail bridges (you gain & drop altitude quickly) …. I thought that was crazy but then the tunnels…. Shovel Johnson Tunnel 10’9” wide x 11’tall, CC Gideon Tunnel 13’ wide 11’ tall , but the final Diane Robinson Tunnel 12’ wide x 11’4”tall that as you go through frames out Mount Rushmore right in front of you! Never seen anything like this. The highway was constructed in the 1930s under the direction of Governor Peter Norbeck, “This is not meant to be a super highway, to do the scenery justice you should drive no more than 20 mph and to do it full justice you should simply get out and walk.” Experience the road that engineers once said couldn’t be built!!!
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a massive sculpture carved into Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Completed in 1941 under the direction of Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln, the sculpture’s roughly 60-ft.-high granite faces depict U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The site also features a museum with interactive exhibits. Over 2 million people visit Mount Rushmore each year.
The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.” Gutzon Borglum
🇺🇸 The Avenue of Flags – are arranged in alphabetical order along the walkway in. The 56 flags represent the 50 states, 1 district, 3 territories & 2 commonwealths of the USA.
We visited the visitor center & since I was older then 13, I needed to complete the entire Junior Ranger Book in order to get a badge! Soooo…yup we were up to the challenge! We walked the Avenue of Flags, read all the information regarding the history of the carvings,watched a short film & completed the book, and the Ranger swore us both in! At 8pm there was an hour presentation done by one of the rangers who then recognized all service men & women in the audience. What a moving experience! The mountain was then lite up for the night! We didn’t get back to the campground till 10:05pm! What an adventurous day! Tim is hoping for a day of rest tomorrow!!! 🙅🏻♀️😱😍🤷🏻♀️I don’t think that’s happening! 🤣😂😇
Follow Tim & Sandy's Adventures 