The Last Daycation - Day 2

We got up Saturday morning and headed towards Custer State Park for a day of exploring.  First we went through Wind Cave National Park and the first thing we encountered were buffalo.

 Joe was in awe of the huge fresh buffalo patty

 One time we were completely surrounded by a herd of buffalo with lots of babies...

This big guy decided to take a stroll across the road and stand in front of our car...

We could see the clouds hovering over the mountain...

I loved seeing these spider webs covered in dew and just couldn't resist taking some close-ups...

One lane tunnel cut into the mountain...

We drove high into the clouds...

When you drive through this tunnel, Mt. Rushmore is framed by the stone...

Joe and I had wanted to come back and explore here since it was so cloudy and foggy that day and blocked a lot of the spectacular views...

This is just a small sampling of what damage the pine bark beetles have done to many of the forest...

At a scenic pull off, we discovered all these little striped chickmunks running around.  I crumbled up a cracker (I had in a box in my car trunk) and threw it on the ground.

Riding down the road, we discovered this loner standing by the side of the road...

We turned around several times to check and see if these geese were real.  They weren't, but they sure looked real...

So, at the end of a very fun, long day, Joe and I headed into Rapid City, South Dakota to spend the night at the Big Sky Lodge which was a wonderful mom and pop motel.

Rapid City at night...