Custer State Park

We had a full day today! Boy, daylight comes early in South Dakota. I woke up at 5 AM and it was full daylight. After eating breakfast in the lobby, we left at 8:15 to go to Custer State Park. We went on the wildlife route and saw lots of wildlife, buffalos, some type of deer, and prairie dogs. The roads in this area are up and down mountains, with lots of twists and turns. We saw a large herd of buffalo and took several pictures.

We then took the “Iron Mountain Road”, which is the original road that the workers took while carving MT. RUSHMORE. This road is twice as twisty and curvy as the other one. It got to the point that Jed would see the hill going down with several turns, he would say, “Oh, Lord!” We went through 4 or 5 one lane tunnels with the last one with Mt Rushmore framed in the tunnel, pretty neat!

We stopped at Mt Rushmore and ate lunch, looking out the window at the carving. Jed enjoyed this. We then took the Needles Highway route. If you thought the other roads were steep, twisty, and curvy, this road was twice as bad!! I could feel Jed’s knees punch my back and sides many times. We were both drained when we got back to the room.

We have had dinner and Jed is at the pool. We have not decided what we are going to do tomorrow, but I’ll bet we will have a good time!