Custer State Park...Needles Highway

 Wednesday, September 27, 2024

I was awake and having my coffee when Bob crawled out of bed. It takes him all of three minutes to get ready at morning and I wanted to shower and wash my hair...which takes considerably longer than three minutes! Rather than sitting around waiting on me, he headed up the hill by the apartment to an abandoned mine that he had discovered. At the mine he can find large chunks of pink quartz which he then lugs down the steep mountainside. Our hosta garden at home has a rock border and the quartz will be added to the collection.

Bob's hike took exactly the same time as it did for me to shower, dress and do my hair. I have naturally wavy/frizzy hair and I love the low humidity in the Black Hills. I run the flat iron through my hair and it STAYS straight and smooth. That never happens at home.

Driving down the gravel road from the apartment towards Custer State Park, we stopped to watch a pronghorn antelope. Instead of him running away, he actually came towards us and started grazing right next to our car. A little further on we came across a buffalo meandering down the side of the road eating grass. He was within a few feet of the car but never even looked up or acknowledged our presence. He appeared to be an older bison.

The AirBnB apartment where we stay is pretty much in the middle of nowhere!

One of the "new" stops I wanted to make on this trip was to the fire lookout tower on top of Mt. Coolidge. We had attempted to get there on our last visit but the road was closed. This time we were able to drive the very steep and curvy road. It was a little unnerving going up the narrow gravel road with no guard rails, especially the couple of times we met another car.

From the top of the tower you could see forever in all directions. With the binoculars (and my camera zoom) we could make out Crazy Horse waaaaayyy off in the distance. 

Mt. Coolidge Lookout Tower

View from tower

Zoomed in view of the Cathedral Spires from Mt. Coolidge

We also made a stop at the Heddy Draw Overlook just across the road from where we turned off to the fire tower. A short trail lead to a log pavilion overlooking the valley below. The breeze blowing through was heavenly. I could have spent the whole day there!

I wanted to eat lunch at the Alpine Inn in Hill City. We debated about driving north on Needles Highway to get there but it was getting close to lunch time and knew we wanted to take our time on the Needles Highway and not rush. Instead we cut back to the west to the town of Custer and went north on the highway from there. We arrived at the restaurant at 11:20 and immediately got an outdoor table on the porch. We ordered right away and our food came very quickly.

Alpine Inn, Hill City

Bob and I both got the Schnitzel. It came with Kaes Spaetzle (German mac & cheese), sauerkraut, red cabbage and German bread. Bob also got a side order of German potato salad. The food was delicious and just as we experienced in 2021, the perfect weather day made our meal even better. By the time we finished eating there was a line waiting to be seated.

From Hill City we drove Highway 87 which turns into the Needles Highway. Although much less than on our last visit, the yellow birch and aspen trees provided a bit of color to the hills.

Cathedral Spires

If there is a crack in a rock, Bob will try and go through it.

Needles Eye

Needles Eye Tunnel

Driving Needles Highway is a slow process because of the curvy roads and we were even slower due to our frequent stops at the scenic overlooks. Just past the Cathedral Spires area is our "secret" spot. I mentioned this in my 2021 blog post. The "secret" was discovered back in the 1960's when my family was on a vacation in the Black Hills. My dad noticed a narrow, gravel road and just wanted to see where it lead. At the top of the hill we found an abandoned mine. We re-discovered the location in the 1980's with our young sons and then accidently found it again in 2021. At that time I marked the location on Google maps but we could have easily found it by memory this time. We hiked up the hill, enjoyed the views and Bob came back with yet another piece of quartz from the abandoned mine.

Old mine tipple

The road to the mine is only accessible a short distance and then we hiked the rest of the way.

It was around 4 pm when we returned to the apartment. I mixed up the ingredients for tortilla soup, but stuck it in the fridge for the time being. Bob was anxious to get out and look for wildlife before it got dark so we left at 5:15 and drove the back roads into Wind Cave National Park as we had done two nights ago. The plan was to link up with the Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park, but our plan failed. The gravel road that we were going to connect with had a "road closed" sign. We assumed it was due to the buffalo roundup scheduled for Friday since the road lead to the parking area for the roundup and also the buffalo corral.

Our trip wasn't a total bust. We did see a small herd of buffalo, a pronghorn antelope and more prairie dogs that you could count. The lyrics "oh give me a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play" kept drifting through my mind! 

Back at the apartment we warmed up the pot of soup for dinner. Afterwards we visited with the AirBnB owners (and now our friends!) in their home. 

It had been a long, full day and we turned in early anticipating what tomorrow would bring!

Crazy Horse Memorial

 Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Once I was awake enough to figure out the Keurig coffee maker, my day began. My usual routine is to enjoy a cup of coffee, read my daily Bible devotions and then tackle the Wordle puzzle. My youngest son and I have a little competition over Wordle and it always feels good to solve the puzzle in less steps than him. This time we tied at 4 tries each (he texts me his results each morning). I figure anything less than 5 is not bad so I was happy.

While I can easily spend an hour with my coffee, Bob is on the go from the moment he gets out of bed. Today he was out the door and headed up a mountain within a few minutes. With only one bathroom in the apartment, it is nice to have him leave so I can get ready easily. By the time he returned I was showered and dressed and we ate breakfast together. Not only had he walked to the top of a very tall hill (mountain?) he carried down a piece of rose quartz he found that weighed at least 30 pounds. 

The Crazy Horse Memorial wasn't too far away from where we were staying and we have driven by it many times. The monument is totally visible from the highway so I always wondered why we should pay the entrance fee just to see it at a little closer range. But Bob is interested in Native American history so I figured maybe we should check it out.

Rock formations line the highway towards Custer. 

Entrance drive to Crazy Horse Memorial

It was around 10 am when we arrived at the entry gates. The cost was $30 for a car with two people to enter but the fee allowed us to return anytime within a three day period for no extra cost. Luck was on our side when we found a single empty parking spot right by the front door in an otherwise very crowded lot. As we walked into the visitor center the greeter informed us that a movie had just begun in the theater. We found seats and watched a video that explained the history of the Crazy Horse project which is celebrating its 75th year anniversary this year. In all of those decades only the face and part of the hand have been completed on the carving.

I had anticipated that we might spend an hour and a half...maybe two hours at most looking at the exhibits at the memorial. But by the time we walked to our car that afternoon nearly five hours had passed. We both came away totally impressed with the quality of the art work and historical artifacts on display. 

View of Crazy Horse carving through the windows.

The model vs. the carving...a long way until it is completed.

Crazy Horse is crazy big!

A zoomed in view:  The trucks and other equipment give some perspective on the size!

We were also able to enjoy a Native American flute concert by Darren Thompson. Bob wanted to ask some questions about the construction of his flutes (all were handmade) so we visited with him after the concert. 

When we mentioned that we are acquaintances of Paul LaRoche of the Native American band, Brulé, he laughed and said he used to be their opening act. (Paul's background story is quite unique!)

Driving back to the AirBnB apartment, we stopped at the tiny town of Pringle. On the side of the highway is a "bike sculpture" or at least that is what it claims to be. It looks more like a junk pile, but I guess it can be called an interesting roadside attraction.

There are walking tunnels through this pile of old bikes.

I can't even begin to guess how many bikes are in this pile.

Back at the apartment I had some quiet time and Bob...well you can guess what he did. Bob went for a hike in the hills. Dinner was early and then we were back on the road to Crazy Horse again. For the past 17 years the Legends in Light laser show has been presented each evening at dark. The show turns the mountain into a giant 500 foot screen for the laser display featuring colorful animations, sound effects and laser beams choreographed to music.

The show can be viewed from the outdoor courtyard at the memorial or from the upper level of the parking area. With the chilly evening, we chose the latter and watched the show from our car. There were speakers in the parking lot so we were able to hear the music and narration.

Driving back in the dark was just a bit stressful...we saw so many deer (like dozens!). Because I was so concerned about hitting a deer I decided our initial plans for seeing the evening program at Mt. Rushmore on another night were not going to happen. We will stick to driving in daylight.

Badlands, Wall Drug & Evening Wildlife

 Monday, September 25, 2023

I was sound asleep during the night and was awakened by Bob tapping on my shoulder. I was in a stupor but knew he said he heard something. About then a dog barked. He woke me up because of a dog?! I was awake for sometime after that and never did hear anything except...snoring from the people in the adjacent cabin. 😲  In the morning he informed me that a coyote had been howling right by our cabin and he woke me so I could hear it too The bark I heard was the coyote!

The Badlands are Bob's happy place and he was anxious to get out and explore. While he took off roaming through the wilderness, I took my time showering and getting ready for the day. (This is a pattern you will see throughout the week.) 😄 He returned to the cabin with soaking wet shoes and pants...but happy.

I had pre-made sausage, egg & cheese on English muffins at home which we warmed in the microwave and ate on the back porch. We packed up the car and began driving the 40-mile loop through the Badlands National Park.

Several years ago I had purchased a GPS tour guide app for the Badlands and Black Hills (originally called Gypsy Guide, the app has been re-named Guide Along.) I plugged my iPhone into the car audio system and we listened to the commentary as we drove. One of our first stops was at the Saddle Pass trailhead. According to the guide, the trail was short...but almost straight up! My knee is getting increasingly worse so I knew I wouldn't even attempt such a hike...but Bob was all in!

Bob headed to the Saddle Pass Trail

He used the stopwatch on his phone and timed himself...it took him just a little over 6 minutes to reach the peak!! My guess is that most people take FAR longer than that. With the nice cool morning, I sat down below and just enjoyed the view.

Bob returning after climbing to the peak

We continued driving the Badlands loop, listening to the tour guide app and stopping occasionally at the many scenic overlooks. It was fun to check out the license plates of the cars when we stopped in the parking lots. At one stop there were about a dozen cars and no two of them were from the same state. Most everyone we saw appeared to be just like us...retired and taking a fall trip to avoid the crowds.

The Badlands are Bob's "Happy Place"

Yellow Mounds

Near the end of the loop we turned off on the Conata Road that leads to a very small picnic area. Bob is familiar with the area because that is where he has left his car to do many back country hiking and camping trips.

Bob wanted some time to hike a bit and had just walked away when he yelled back at me to grab my camera. Just over a small hill were two large bison. I got some photos and then Bob made sure to give them plenty of space as he walked out into the wilderness.

A zoomed in view. The bison rolling around in the background is taking a "dust bath"

It was exactly noon when Bob returned and I got out some fixin's for a picnic lunch. Nothing fancy, but we couldn't have enjoyed a lunch anymore than that...even in a fancy restaurant.

On our last two trips we avoided stopping at Wall Drug...one of the most famous tourist traps in the world! My phobia of being around crowds during the pandemic has subsided and I really wanted to stop and relive the memories of earlier visits with our boys when they were small...and also from my childhood.

We wandered through many of the shops, spending a little more time in some of the higher end art stores. In the back yard area we were able to catch the mechanical T-Rex putting on his show. To get the full Wall Drug experience, we each had a maple donut and I splurged on a 5 cent cup of coffee. Bob is not a coffee drinker so he enjoyed a cup of the free ice water that made Wall Drug famous!

This fluffy cow didn't mind being petted.

Maple donut and 5 cent coffee.

Wall Drug's claim to fame. Free ice water!

As we were headed back towards the interstate, we noticed a very tall wooden jackalope (a fictional animal featured at Wall Drug.) We had visited the Dahl Chainsaw Carving shop in Hill City a couple of years ago but I wasn't aware that they had a store in Wall.

Jackalope at Dahl's Chainsaw Art in Wall, SD.

From Wall it was a couple more hours of driving to get to our home for the next four nights. In 2020 I had booked an AirBnB apartment near Wind Cave National Park and we absolutely fell in love with the location...and developed a friendship with the owners. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we returned again in 2021. This year when we were contemplating a fall road trip we were excited to find that the apartment was once again available for late September and we booked it.

After getting settled in, Bob was ready to go on an evening safari...Black Hills style. Our timing was perfect for golden hour...the low angle of the sun made the hills and meadows especially beautiful. We drove through some of the back roads of Wind Cave National Park and it wasn't long before we came across several bison. Next, we had slowed to watch some of the cute prairie dogs when Bob spotted a coyote running across a field. We stopped and watched as he howled repeatedly. I was glad I had my camera with the long zoom to capture the moment. A pair of pronghorn antelope were also close by the road and gave us a bit of a show.

Golden Hour

Can you spot the prairie dog?

When the sun dropped behind the hills we started back to the apartment. Bob stopped the car and put it in reverse when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was a badger digging a hole! We watched for the longest time as it flung dirt like crazy. 

Darkness was falling as we drove the gravel roads back to the apartment. We counted over two dozen deer on our drive so went a little slower trying to keep an eye out for any that might decide to dart across the road.

Bob had checked online and noted that there was a viewing opportunity to see the Starlink satellites passing over the apartment around 8:00 pm. The apartment is on a remote gravel road and the dark skies gave us a great view as the long line of lights passed overhead.

The temps had dropped drastically once the sun set so we didn't stay outside long. Plans were tentatively made to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial the next day before we called it a night.