After leaving the Super 8 near the Badlands, we knew we wanted to head to Custer State Park to view wildlife. The entrance fee was $15 and being that it wasn’t a National Park, our America the Beautiful Pass did not get us admission for free. It was going to a good cause, though, so we entered and drove around to see what we could find.
There were a few buffalo we saw, grazing and hanging out on nearby hills. Deer were aplenty, but our favorite part were the prairie dogs who had holes super close to the roads. The babies were SO cute we just couldn’t look away. It took a few hours to get through everything we wanted to see. It was overcast, but didn’t rain quite yet.
We drove past the Crazy Horse rock carving but didn’t want to pay to get any closer so we went straight to Mount Rushmore. It was actually really awesome to learn about how they carved the 4 presidents’ heads in the granite rock wall. It truly was a great piece of art, and I never appreciated it until I saw it before my own eyes.
The Black Hills was a beautiful mountainous area of South Dakota as well, so the drive was very scenic. It began to sprinkle as we were leaving Mount Rushmore, so we drove Westward to eat Quiznos (gift card) and sleep in a K-Mart parking lot in Gillette, Wyoming. It was pretty comfortable in the car, but the unfortunate part was the constant rain all night, which made getting out to pee pretty annoying. In the morning, we packed up and kept driving.
