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| A view of the Needles at the top of one of the mountains and the location of the narrowest tunnel I have ever driven through - it was 8'4" wide & 12' high |
This area is truly one of God's gifts to mankind. The scenery is absolutely unbelievable. It is another area where you look across rolling green hillsides and the land just goes and goes forever. Most of the trees are of the pine family and, unfortunately, a pine beetle has invaded the forests and you can see large patches of trees that are brown and dead. Mixed in with the pines are aspen. I've never seen them in person in the fall, but I understand the aspen turn a gorgeous yellow. Anyway, the forests flow down some of the hillsides and run into vast open pasture lands of green, green, and more green. Breathtaking!
One day we took the famous Needles Highway Scenic Drive. The map is very specific in warning you about the tee-tiny tunnels that are part of this drive. The first one we had to transverse was only 8'4" wide by 12' high. The other one was bigger at 9' wide by 12'3" high. So Bill pulled off at a trailhead parking area and got out his trusty measuring tape (thank goodness we carry our NOMADS tools with us all the time!) to measure the van. He decided if we folded in the outside mirrors, we could make it through the two tunnels. By the time we reached the first tunnel, there were cars parked everywhere and people were milling about looking towards the tunnel. I heard someone say that a bus was trying to go through the tunnel and it looked like it was stuck. I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me!" Since we were stuck in a traffic jam in the very narrow roadway leading to the tunnel, I got out and looked where everyone was pointing. I honestly could not believe my eyes - sure enough, there was a huge vehicle in the tunnel completely blocking any and all light from the other side. When I first looked, all you could see were headlights; the rest of the tunnel was dark. As I stood there for about ten minutes, I could begin to make out the shape of a bus. A bus! Not just a little bus, but a full-sized commercial bus! I stood there dumb-founded as I watched it finally come out of the tunnel.
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| This is Bill measuring the van to be sure we could make it through that ridiculously tiny tunnel |
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| This is the stupid commercial bus that almost got stuck in the tunnel |
Then we sat there for another twenty to thirty minutes as the long line of cars behind the bus followed it through the tunnel. They must have been backed up for a mile down the mountain road.
And, we thought we were worried about being too big to make it through the tunnel?
This is a picture of the tee-tiny tunnel from the exit side
Custer State Park is known for its bison herds. As you drive the Wildlife Loop, you can see some of these herds off in the distance. The first day we tried to drive the loop, bison had traffic backed up quite a ways so we turned around and decided to try the loop the next day. Was a good decision because the next day there were very few cars on the road and we saw three or four herds of good size. I could not help but think about what these small herds must have looked like four and five hundred years ago when the bison were so numerous they completely blacked out the prairies for as far as the eye could see. What a magnificent sight that must have been. Then I got to thinking about the Native Americans of the 19th century and the fury and pain they felt as they watched their mainstay of life be destroyed by greedy men. Apparently, greed was the same in years long before what we have recently experienced. Regardless, thanks to a number of people, the bison survived and continue to fascinate those fortunate enough to see them in the wild.
Bison are not only large animal that lives free in Custer State Park. We saw lots of white tail deer, many were sprouting fuzzy antlers. And we saw a fair number of pronghorns also. One crossed the road right in front of us and Bill got a couple of pictures of it in full gallop. Pronghorn (aka antelope) are native to the west USA.
Another animal that lives a good life in Custer State Park are the donkeys. They were once used to pull wagons through the mountains and carts out of the mines, but after they out-lived their usefulness, many of them were left to their own. They survived in the Black Hills and now live in the state park. We found a small group of them and watched a couple of them walk up to a car coming the other way. The two donkeys went right up to the SUV's windows and seemed curious to see what was on the inside. Then the same two whose picture is just below began grooming each other. We think the dark one was the mother and the gray one was the colt. They were definitely familiar with each other and enjoyed each other's company!
One of the main attractions in the Black Hills is Mount Rushmore. As we had been there six years ago, we opted out of repeating that adventure with mass humanity and concentrated on driving through the southern part of the Black Hills. The picture below was typical of what we saw - these huge rocks sticking up out of the ground with houses built right next to them. That is some backyard rock garden!
We made it down to Hot Springs. And hot is not an adequate word to describe the temperature down there. I know the entire nation is suffering under a brutal heat wave. It definitely was hitting Hot Springs the day we went there. It was so brutal, I didn't have the energy to investigate the town or even take one picture. I will probably regret that one day. The town, though, was interesting. Most of the buildings were made from red sandstone and had that typical western feeling about them. Unfortunately, the town seemed very run down and even seedy in places. I did get into a really nice quilt shop and bought some bison fabric to make a wall hanging with. I always like to buy one piece of fabric that's indicative of the areas we visit. One day I will do something with all this fabric.
One thing I did learn about Hot Springs is that it was the area where the Native Americans spent their winters. The warm springs and mountains sheltered them from the brutal cold winds that swept the plains. And the whole Black Hills was their winter home until gold was discovered in 1874. You can guess the rest of that story.
I can't figure out how to move this stupid picture up a few paragraphs to where it really belongs. Sometimes this blog site is not very user friendly. It is an exercise in agravation control. I think I'm funking that exercise right now. And it's getting very late on Thursday evening and we leave early tomorrow morning for Sioux Falls, SD so I think I will just say -
More later . . .
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