Custer State Park

 

One morning Judy got up early and went with Paul & Dottie for a ride through Custer State Park's wildlife loop and here's some of the critters she saw.  Me?  I slept in.  We drove through the park several times and saw these animals several times.

Mt Rushmore & 9/11 anniversary

On Tuesday evening, the 11th anniversary of 9/11 we all went to Mt Rushmore for an evening presentation and light show.  I was impressed when the park ranger invited everyone who has or is serving in the military to come down on the stage.  She then had each of them introduce themselves.

Western Buffalo

One of our HitchHiker friends, Larry, who couldn't attend the rally works for Wolverine Packing in Detroit & arranged for his buffalo meat supplier to give us 100 buffalo burgers.  Judy & I picked them up and after we all had them at a potluck the folks were quite impressed so Larry arranged a tour of the buffalo packing plant for several of us who wanted to return and purchase more buffalo.....and elk.  That's a buffalo hanging on the left and beef on the right.  Most of their work is on buffalo but they will do an occasional beef for their long time good customers. 

Custers Gulch CH in Custer, SD

We have arrived at our destination....Custer, SD for a large HitchHiker rally of 43 units.  We came in a couple days early so we could check out the area although we have been in the Black Hills and Custer State Park about 3 years ago.  The campground (CG) is name Custer's Gulch because George Custer did stay here a few days in 1874, 2 years before his famous last stand.  He was leading a large expedition into the Black Hills to explore the area.  The Indians called the area the Blank Hills because the bottom of the pine needles are dark causing the area to appear dark, or so it's said.

One evening after a potluck George stopped by and spent an hour or two with us, he told us about George's accomplishments and life.

Interior, SD in the Badlands

Today we towed through part of the Badlands National Park to the small, really small, city of Interior, SD.  The pictures were taken from the campground.  Six of us went out for dinner to a small store, restaurant, gift shop & gas station.  I think there were 3, maybe 4, tables and you didn't need to figure out what ya wanted to eat, you got the one item that the lady was preparing in her electric skillet.  Today it was country fried steak and it was large and it was good!  Unfortunately the campground was not as good and we all decided that we'd depart tomorrow rather than stick around for the planned 2 or 3 days.

Chamberlin, SD

Today we made the trip to Chamberlin, SD and rejoined Mel & Dee and Stan & Connie.  Here's the view out the back window across the wide Missouri River.  We all had lunch at a local place a had the "perfect hamburger".....or so the menu said.

Montrose, SD & Porter Sculpture Park

Our next stop on our way to the G&G rally in Custer, SD was Montrose, SD at a small city park campground.  Judy had seen an article on a unique sculpture park beside I80 so we decided to check it out while the others in our caravan stopped elsewhere.  We got up early and spent an hour walking around in the middle of nowhere beside the expressway before pulling out.  The large bull head can be seen quite a distance away, we went inside & Judy QUICKLY ran out when she saw several bats clinging to the wall.  They were metal bats welded to the bull.  The bull is made of thousands of railroad track parts and weights many many tons.