Badlands

From Custer, we headed to the badlands. They got their names from the travelers and trappers who, when they saw them, discovered that they were "Bad lands" to cross. We passed through Interior (pop 38) and Scenic (pop 10).
At one point as we were driving along the road, we saw a lump.
When we stopped, we discovered a rattler, getting some sun. Another day, we took a hike. When we stopped, we looked up a saw 2 prong horns about 10' away, watching us and being watched by a magpie.

Rawhide

On Monday, we went to the Custer State Park buffalo roundup. This is an event where they bring about 1500 animals into pens over a period of 4 or 5 days. Once inside, the buffalo are vaccinated and branded and some young ones culled out of the herd to be sold to breeders and to keep the herd at about 1000 head.
The cowboys and cowgirls who want to wrangle the buffalo put their names into a lottery. They have to prove they have the experience to herd the bison, including being able to use a bullwhip.
We watched them bring about 400 head to the pens. Close to the gate, about 40 head broke free,
lead by a huge bull who wanted no part of the action. We had been told that buffalo can run about 35 mph and now we believe it. It was exciting to watch the buffalo run at top speed and the cowboys chasing them as fast as their horse could go. They finally got them under control.

Nobody do Hoodoo like yoodoo

After leaving Yellowstone, we headed to Cody, WY. The roadside was littered with hoodoo's, vertical stones standing in the rough and rugged hills.


From Cody, we drove up the Bighorn Pass to 9033'. There was a lot of open range and we had to watch for cattle on the road. We stayed in a lovely National Forest campground. Our drive up the pass gave us 3.6 mpg but we made up for it on the way down with 46.1 mpg. We arrived in Sundance, WY. And from there, visited Devils Tower.

This is an Indian religious site that is in a National Park. We saw a number of climbers on the 867' face.


We also saw more Longhorn antelope/deer on the plains than we could count.
Next, we landed in Custer, SD and used this as our base for the next week. We first visited Jewel Caves and took a tour to 234' underground. We followed that with a visit to Custer State Park, where I fed the wild burrows on the roadside.

From there, we went to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial and viewed the carvings of the presidents.


The next day brought us to Crazy Horse Monument, a work that has been in progress for over 50 years.
When it is completed, it will be the largest carving in the world. The exhibit contains a scale model of what the finished carving will look like.