Thursday, June 10 -- Custer State Park

Thursday, June 10 – Custer State Park

(Photos following text)

This day was to be a very busy one so I will make more than one entry, at least three different ones for it, maybe even four, that way pictures for each can be included. We ended up putting entirely too much into one day. Custer State Park was how we started our tour for the day.

We drove up this narrow winding road before we came to the entrance to the park. I kept hoping we would not meet another vehicle because over the mountain looked to be a long way down. When we were finally there, we talked to the park attendant, paid our fee and off we went to drive around the loop which was just to get a little taste of what the park had to offer.

It wasn’t long before we were entering a most breath-taking stretch of twisting, turning roads running through the spiraling rocks and forests of the Black hills. The drive offered stunning views of granite spires towering high above the ponderosa pine and deep valleys. There were tunnels with barely enough room for a vehicle pass through. Needles Highway had huge pinnacles of towering rock one right after another with children climbing as far as they could. One particularly high rock reached above the others and had an oval shaped hole near the top giving it the appearance of a needle, thus the inspiration for the name “Needles Highway”. Once you would stop and look at one groups of these rocks and tunnels, you would get back into your vehicle and there would be another one bidding you to stop and look around again before you entered the next tunnel.

We finally got through this part of the rocks and tunnels, and our map showed the wildlife loop which was to be the next part of our drive through the park. We proceeded to move through the loop seeing no wildlife. I’m still not sure where all of the wildlife was hiding, but about all we saw was a group of donkeys. They were just like my brother’s donkeys, friendly and looking for a handout. They were sticking their heads into people’s cars and greeting everyone. Even though the sign said, “Do not feed the wildlife”, I have a feeling they were looking for handouts which they must have frequently received.

I’m sure there was much more to see in Custer State Park, but this was the end of our tour. We had a lot more planned for the day.