Wind and Jewel Caves

I may never cease to be amazed by herds of buffalo.  The buffalo roaming around the plains of Wind Cave National Park look happy and healthy, and it's wonderful to see such amazing beasts doing well.

We drove through Wind Cave earlier in the day and saw 3 individual buffalo in the distance.  On the way back we saw another 3 individual buffalo in the distance.  Just as we were remaking that we must be seeing the same 3 and I guess that's all we would spot for the day, we came around a corner to this:

They attracted a crowd of onlookers in cars:

Marvelous Mr Buffalo:

They didn't seem to mind us:

Eventually I'll stop staring:

Hello!

OK, now for the cave part of this post.  I tried my phone camera for some photos in Wind Cave and it seemed to work halfway decently:

Some of the "boxwork" that Wind Cave is famous for:

An excellent tour of a small portion of the extensive cave system:

Interesting features:

It's almost a map... to a treasure?

Jewel Cave on the other side of Custer looks completely different.  Wide cavernous rooms and blobby features:

It's hard to believe there is so much of this underground (and so much still to be discovered):

Not our finest moment in photogenic-ness, but it seems appropriate to close with this:

Woodcarving Museum and Custer SP

I'm having fun reliving some of the things we did a couple weeks ago in South Dakota.

The Woodcarving Museum near Custer reminded me of Dad.  Very creative woodcarvings, many with mechanical moving parts.  Totally worth the entry fee.

For example:

Many little details to look for while listening to the characters speak and watching them move:

And the humor is lots of fun:

So many little gems!

We did a longer drive through Custer State Park, including the Needles Highway.  The Needles Eye, made of granite:

The lower part of the Eye, with our truck parked at the base:

Another great tunnel, this time in the morning without much traffic:

Whatcha doin' down there?

View from John:

Climbing around on the rocks, I remember we always enjoyed doing that when we were kids.

Another view of the Cathedral Spires:

Buffalo!  Custer SP is home to over 900 buffalo, and we were excited to see some of them hanging out near the road.  It would be interesting to watch the fall roundup some year.

Wallowing in the mud:

One of several pronghorns we spotted:

This guy seemed a little out of place, but he walked with a sense of purpose:

The southern terminus of the Centennial Trail - brings back memories from the Black Hills 100 race earlier this year (although we didn't get quite this far south during the race):

Excellent bicycle sculpture, close to the Mickelson bike trail:

So much to see and I'm still not done with South Dakota blog posts!

Hill City and Mount Rushmore

South Dakota sightseeing, continued.,.

Hill City is one of many cute little towns scattered throughout the touristy Black Hills.  Each town has its own charm and interesting sights.

In the case of Hill City, that includes the Teddy Bear Museum where there are a record number (Guiness-wise) of teddy bears.  The variety is incredible, not to mention how they are packed into a tiny little house.

It's Teddy!

Along with a bunch of other less-expected characters:

Love this:

Chainsaw art:

The Black Hills Institute across the street houses a bunch of older specimens:

That's right, I'm talkin' to you:

From Hill City, a drive through Custer State Park brought us within sight of Mount Rushmore:

One of the fun "pigtail bridges" that were needed to build some of these roads through the mountains:

If it wasn't so bright on the other end, you might see Mount Rushmore:

Ah, there it is!

The man with the vision:

A photo from "the making of Rushmore":

One of the models for the faces:

Now that's a better view.  I had seen this as a child but it never ceases to amaze:

The 4 faces in the middle are the best ones, but I'm also partial to the one on the right:

We stayed for the evening ceremony and lighting of the sculpture, very nice.

Just for good measure, a little "throwback Thursday" (wow, it actually is Thursday, not sure how that happened):