Day 8: Custer State Park

Comfort Inn
Custer (Crazy Horse), South Dakota

Rain or mist all day. It wasn't supposed to be that way by the forecast, but that's the way it was. We started with the movie at the visitors center. Spirit of Tatanka, narrated by Kevin Costner, has fabulous photography, some of it filmed by drone. We have loved seeing the park in fall, but some of the spring meadow pictures (buffalos rushing through the wildflowers) made me want to come back in spring.

The buffalo roundup was this past weekend, so most were corralled in the south of the park. (The film showed a previous roundup, which would have been fabulous to see, but we would hate the crowds.) We took the wildlife loop anyway. The scenery was beautiful, and we saw deer and prairie dogs. The buffalo corrals are huge, and we did see them there.

The film also showed kids feeding apples to wild donkeys. We didn't feed them apples, but we did come upon a whole herd of donkeys. (There are at least another half dozen among the trees to our right.)

Returning to 16a, we took the Needles Highway. Views were not what they would have been with sunshine.

We picnicked outside Hole-in-wall Cave, perfect size for a four-year-old to explore, if I had had one with me. :-)

The higher we went, the more we were closed in with fog. That was it's own mysterious experience.

A car comes through the tunnel at the Needles.

We looped around on 89, retraced our route on 16a and went up Iron Mountain Highway. Neither one of these road goes anywhere anyone NEEDS to go. They were designed specifically to view the fabulous terrain. The tunnels and curly-cue turns on the Iron Mountain Road are fun. The clouds had lifted somewhat, and we glimpsed Mount Rushmore from Norbeck Overlook. (Wish we could get that man back as a senator to do conservation and reign in Wall Street as he did in the '30s.)

By the time we got down the mountain, it was raining steadily, and we decided to give it up. Steve went and soaked in the hot tub. Mom and I took naps.

Steve also looked on-line for a place to eat supper. We had passed too many closed places on Main Street. We decided on Pizza Works and couldn't have been happier. The pizza was delicious although not nearly as much cheese as Wisconsin people put on their pizza. The building was a former opera house turned movie theater turned pizza place in the 1990s. They had historic pictures all the way around the room, and the staff takes an annual picture in costume at one of the old-time photo shops. Here is one of the then-and-now posters. At the left you see the court house. The next building is the opera house/Pizza Works.

Steve checks out one of the posters

Hard to avoid reflections on this photo of the hall as an opera house.

Thank you, Lord ...

for safe driving in rain and fog.

for the beauty of the photography in the movie.

for cute little prairie dogs.

that this is not our first visit here and we can picture it in sunshine.

for the chance to view these rocky spires in fog.

for pizza in a unique place.