Custer State Park

One day (a Tuesday maybe??) we rented a car and spent the day driving through Custer State Park.

It is an enormous park!  Second largest state park in the country (behind Adirondacks which we also love).  We needed a car to drive the famous Old Iron Works Highway and the Needles Highway within the park.

Here's why:

 Some of the tunnels are tiny.  Think the smallest is under nine feet high.  Amazing that a road was put through these mountains.  The granite peaks really do look like needles..... and yes, that is another tunnel in the picture below.

 Gorgeous views.

 From the top of Mt. Coolidge we could see Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse (enlarge the picture below & it's above Keenan's head just below the horizon), and the Badlands.  Great views.

 Then we hit the Wildlife Loop road in the park and found lots o' these...

 and more of these.... (pronghorn)

 and took a nice hike through a meadow....

 and had one of these (begging burros left from the mining days) stick his head in Kieran's window in a vain attempt at getting some free food.  We were just waiting for Kieran to get licked or sneezed on.

and more of these.  We all agreed it would be great to come back and camp in the park someday.  The campgrounds (which are RV friendly) and all in beautiful settings with roaming buffalo, bighorn sheep, elk, mule deer, and pronghorn as your neighbors.