Custer State Park & Crazy Horse

The next day we drove to Custer State Park to see the animals.  We didn't even get to the park before we had to stop and take a quick picture of this one.

Old time settler area in the park.

Once in the Park, we traveled on mountainous roads and then came to this huge group of buffalo.  We parked right next to them and watched them (eat, what else??).

I think they were headed for greener pastures.  Must have been a couple hundred of them.

And, after we passed them, a look back,

More scenery along the way.

And then we came up on these guys (and gals).

We also saw deer:

And, a rather uncommon sign:

Once out of the mountainous area, we traveled along a road with many beautiful sights of the landscape.

This road thru the Park is like a circle - it comes back out the the main road to Custer.  So, guess what?? It was lunch time again and we were going by the $2 lunch place again!!  This time we actually ate in the truck as it was colder and windier today.

After lunch (!!), we drove thru Custer and then back up the road to Crazy Horse.  Here again, this is an amazing feat, and, it's still being worked on.

No federal money is involved with this - it is from private donations only. 

I wish I still had pictures from when we were here in 1998 to see what differences there are.  They have a long way to go and I know we won't see the finished project in our lifetime.  Maybe the grandkids will.

The weather, although still nice during the day, has gotten colder.  The last two mornings it was been in the low to mid 20's. 
Time to head east for Sioux Falls....

Custer, SD and Mount Rushmore

Well, it's Friday and we are now leaving Custer after having spent a couple of days here at this CG:

  While we were here in Custer, I took a walk a couple of nights before supper and just down the street saw these beauties:

The night before we left, I took a walk, and, as I got back to the CG, I heard some noises that I couldn't quite identify, and then I looked up to see these:

There were two huge flocks of geese, heading south I guess.

The first day at Custer we drove north past Crazy Horse (which you can see from the highway) up to Mt Rushmore. 

It is a beautiful drive thru the mountains.  Here are some pictures.

On the way up we pulled off at a view point.  We thought that we were suppposed to look out at the valley below, but, as we walked back to the truck, we looked up, and, lo and behold:

there was George!!

When we got parked, we walked up the Avenue of Flags that leads up to the monument.

Each granite tower has the flags of 4 states and lists when each state was admitted to the union.

Mount Rushmore is a site to see - but nothing much has changed since we were here in 1998 - no new carvings of Presidents!!  But it is very awe-inspiring.  Just to think of the work that went into creating this in the first place.  It took something like 17 years to complete!!

From there we drove south thru some very winding roads and tunnels.  Good thing we didn't have the trailer with us!

The roads and tunnels were specifically created with Mt. Rusmore in mind - when we came out of this tunnel, before us was the monument.

And on another turnout, we saw it again.

 And, of course, a couple of scenic views!!

We finally got back on main road headed back to Custer which winds thru the State Park and has campgrounds, picnic areas, etc. along the road.  We drove by a gift shop and then saw a sign that said: "One Dollar Hot Dog and Coke."  So we both looked at each other and said: "LUNCH."   So I found a wide spot in the road where I could turn around, and, as we got crossways on the road, Mom says "Look what is in front of us!!

Anyway, we turned around, got lunch, and sat on a picnic table enjoying our $2 meal!!

Day 2 - Custer State Park is next.

Yellowstone, Cody, and Buffalo, WY

Tuesday morning we had breakfast with Nolan and Barbara before they left to return to Jackson for their flight home.

We decided to stay another day and rest up/get the laundry done.

On Wednesday we left West Yellowstone - drove thru the Park again as we were nearing the East Entrance, we had to stop for this guy
 who must have thought that he was at a rest stop.

More steam pots!

And then this group came out of the trees and were headed to the meadow below and apparently thought the road was the best way to get there. 

During our four days of traveling thru Yellowstone, we encountered many areas like this:

Thousands of acres of trees lost due to fires.

I guess that since we were leaving, we wouldn't be seeing any more scenery, but, were we ever wrong.

We finally made it to Cody, found our CG, and settled in for the night.  The next day we toured the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum. 

Very nice museum.  It has 5 different settings that you can tour:

Museum of Natural History
Buffalo Bill Museum
Plains Indian Museum
Galary of Western Art
Cody Firearms Museum (2600 firearms in total)

We spend over 4 hours there and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We were going to leave on Friday but decided to stay another day just to relax (more).

Saturday we did leave in a cool, misty morning.  We went thru one of the longest mountain ranges that we have been in - The Big Horn Mountains. 
There are several scenic byways which pass through the Bighorn National Forest, all of which provide the traveler with scenic driving. We took the Cloud Peak Skyway (US 16), connecting the the town of Tensleep and city of Buffalo, crossing the southern Bighorn National Forest and seeing breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks along the 45 mile route (which included the Powder River Pass at 9,666 ft).

It had everything you could possibly want:

High mountains - 13,000+ feet
Steep grades - 7%
Longest climb - at least 6 miles
Coldest - 34 degrees
Stuff on the ground - snow

It was a beautiful drive (somewhat tense at times) but worth every minute (hour or two) of it.

After the long drive thru the Big Horn, we finally came out of the mountains and into Buffalo.
We got to Buffalo around 3 PM, settled in to our CG (Indian Campground & RV Park), and watched some football (South Carolina over #1 Alabama) and baseball (perennial losers to the Yankees!!!).

We went to church on Sunday and then took a little drive around town.  We did find this place to take a couple pictures of the Big Horn Mountains in the West.

We left Buffalo today (Monday, the 11th)and drove to Custer, SD.

We are now officially out of Wyoming after having spent 3 weeks roaming the highways and byways.

 WE are now in Custer and the Black Hills where we will spend the next few days checking out the local sights.