We left the beautiful Custer State Park and made our way over the state line into Wyoming to cross another item off our bucket lists: Devil’s Tower. It is also known by other names given to it by the Native Americans, such as Bear’s Tipi, Home of the Bears, Bear’s Lodge, and a few others. The bear-related names arise from one legend that a giant bear clawed grooves into the mountainside…
Truth be told, we had never heard of Custer State Park before researching areas in South Dakota near Mount Rushmore. But we have to say it is now one of our favorite state parks anywhere, even rivaling Valley of Fire in Nevada and Dead Horse Point in Utah. Set in the Black Hills, it features scenic drives among spectacular granite spires, beautiful lakes and open-range wildlife on all…
Our visit to Mount Rushmore — long a bucket list item for us both — was cut short due to the large crowds of mostly non mask-wearing bikers visiting from nearby Sturgis. Since Koda wasn’t allowed up in the Memorial area anyway, we each took a turn going up to snap a few photos but then we quickly left. There was no way we were going to hang out in a large crowd even though…
After our stop at the Dignity statue, we drove west two-plus hours on the arrow-straight and mostly flat Interstate 90. Driving into the park was a surprising and impressive change of scenery, where I remarked that it was like New Mexico’s “Bisti Badlands, but on steroids.” Badlands NP covers a lot more territory and has larger rock formations than Bisti, and is easier to access. We arrived at our campground just on…