Below is a picture of the Black Hills area. We would head south to Mt Rushmore, then on the Hot Springs via Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park.
Our first stop was Mt Rushmore. We probably hit the gate at 8am. We weren’t really sleeping in on this trip. Up for breakfast at 6am and out the door by 7am. We did not stay long, just took in the view and moved on. 4 presidents carved out of stone, check.
Up next was Hill City. There were a bunch of bikers setting up for a chili cook-off. We walked around to some of the galleries where I got some ideas for future projects.
Our next stop was Custer State Park. We drove in to Sylvan Lake and started off for Harney Peak. This is the highest elevation East of the Rockies coming in around 7K feet. That’s half the elevation of my trip the week before in California. I bounced up the trail in my flip flop and made the peak in around an hour.
In the below picture you can see the lookout shelter just above the tip of the tallest pine tree. I did a quick turn around and met my dad back at the car.
From there we continued on through the scenic route, but were stopped in our tracks by a heard of Bison. You might want to call them Buffalo, but that would be incorrect. There are no buffalo in NA only bison. Not sure how the rumor started but everyone just seems to go with it and this point.
People were not eager to push past these beast as there are stories of them attacking cars. I have not seen that youtube video but it sounds entertaining. Eventually some people got tired of sitting and started inching forward and blaring their horns. The Bison obliged.
We ended the day in Hot Springs. I was told it had some tourist life to it but it looked pretty dead. Besides a small bar and an ice cream shop the place was pretty empty.
Back in Rapid City we had another dinner out on the town at a English pub.
Until Tomorrow
Darren
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