Thursday, September 24, 2009
Game Lodge Campground, Custer State Park, SD: Aug 31-Sept 4
Our good friend Sue Horne has visited us 3 other times since we've been on the road -- twice at Chaco at once at Grand Tetons. She was in desperate need of a vacation & we thought she would enjoy Custer State Park & the Black Hills, so we made reservations for 5 nights & made arrangements for her to come stay with us (she brings her own tent, so is ultra-nonintrusive). Well, her visit was an unqualified success -- she loved seeing South Dakota (and us) and we loved seeing her. We had stayed at Game Lodge CG 2 years ago so were pretty familiar with the sights -- the main problem was how to ration our time so that we didn't knock ourselves out trying to see too much!
Our first stop was Wind Cave NP, famous for the formation called boxwork. Wind Cave contains some of the best examples of boxwork in the world. We were also able to find some short hiking trails and drive the majority of the Wildlife Loop on this outing. We saw pronghorn, whitetail deer, bison, burros & wild turkeys. Another day we took the scenic loop road, famous for its "pigtail" bridges which curve around over themselves, and the old tunnels that were made by the CCC, with views of Mt Rushmore through some of them, to Mt Rushmore, where we visited & hiked for about an hour. 
We drove back the other part of the loop through the Needles area. It is all lovely. Our third day-trip was to Spearfish Canyon, which has several waterfalls and some nice trails. We got in a lot of gentle hiking & saw a lot of sights and even managed to relax a bit and play our special game, Skippy Bridge, which is our own version of 3-person bridge that we three like a lot.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:52 PM 
