One of the places I could not wait to visit when we moved to South Dakota was Custer State Park. Custer State Park is pretty amazing. They have so many different types of ecosystems in one place. We have been there several times now and I love it more each time we go. It was a beautiful day here in SD so we decided to go for a hike in Custer. It was a bit warm but the sky was blue with hardly any clouds so we took the top off the Jeep and headed off to the park.
We have not been on the Wildlife Loop yet so we decided to try that. Since it was early afternoon and about 85 degrees not many animals were out but we did come across a parking lot with a few cars and burros! I of course had to get out so I could get closer. People were feeding them carrots (you are NOT supposed to so I did not feed them anything) but I did touch one of their noses. There were a few baby ones sticking close by their moms. They were cute and quite bold. One of them had his head in someone’s car. They don’t seem to mind the visitors to the park.
We continued driving to the Wildlife Visitor Center to check our map and apply sun screen. As a side note I was wearing my new Under Armor Heat Gear long sleeve shirt. It is magic. When the breeze would blow I was so nice and cool. I will have to get another one, anyway I digress.
So Jesse and I have been to more prairies than we ever thought we would visit. We have seen a Dothraki Sea type prairie in Indiana where the grass was above our heads and now we have seen a mixed grass prairie with much shorter grasses and colorful plants. We stopped at the Prairie Trail Trailhead to embark on a two mile loop. We didn’t know what to expect but we ended up climbing a bit and were rewarded with some beautiful views. We walked through prairie and also through what felt like a NY forest with streams flowing by us as we walked. It was really neat to see all the different kinds of plants. I wish I had taken a botany class or two so I knew what some of the plants were, maybe in my travels I will try to make that happen.
After our hike we sat in the car and had a snack before continuing on. There are many places along this loop were people stop and pull over to look at the wildlife wandering about. We saw buffalo and pronghorn antelope but we didn’t stop since we were looking for hiking trails, not critters. There was one spot where people were stopped but we couldn’t see any animals. We kept driving and went around some crazy turns in the road. It was a great day for motorcycles to be out and we saw a bunch along this curvy road. We got to the other end of the park and turned around since we wanted to do more hiking. On the way back we noticed that we passed something called Prairie Dog Town and we had no idea how we missed it. It turned out we just weren’t paying attention. All those cars earlier we thought were looking at nothing were actually watching these adorable prairie dogs. They were poked up out of their holes and making these incredibly loud squeaking noises for their small size. I crouched down to get a better picture and two of them came scurrying toward me. They must have thought I had food. Again you are not supposed to feed the wildlife but people are stupid and don’t listen so some large family in a minivan came up and the kids jumped out and started throwing bread… *sigh*. There are rules for a reason people! Anyway I took a bunch of pictures and we headed off to another trail along French Creek.
Jesse was in his element since we had to drive down a gravel road in order to get to the trailhead. It ended up also being part of the Centennial Trail which is a 100+ mile long trail and part of it goes through Custer State Park. We wanted to walk for a while but we were thwarted by a large amount of water covering the trail. We have been getting a lot of rain recently and I am sure this would have been much easier to cross during drier times. We couldn’t even tell how deep it was. We walked back and found a picnic table near the Horse Camp so we could have some lunch. I think the horse camp is a place where people rent a cabin or bring a tent and spend the weekend walking their horses, kinda like a dog park for horses I guess. The cabins you can rent are really cute, small log cabins. I think maybe living in something like that for one of our assignments would be fun to try. Who else would get to say they lived in a state park for three months?
It was another great day. Having the top off the Jeep is really the best way to enjoy the park. It is so beautiful and the scenery is just wonderful. I am still amazed that we are here in South Dakota. It really is a great state.
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