Custer State Park Wildlife Loop Trail

With the time change difference we were up bright and early on our first full day in South Dakota.  I thought it would be the perfect time to drive the Wildlife Loop Trial at Custer State Park since we had heard that the animals were most abundant early in the day and around dusk.



We stopped to get our pass at the Ranger station and they gave us a map.  We honestly thought the trail had been a bust and that we were finished with the Wildlife Loop Trail before we actually saw any of the animals (I guess I might not have been reading the map quite right?)  


We had seen this one small herd of pronghorn off in the distance but that was it!

The views were so pretty but we really wanted to see some wildlife

Then we turned a corner and saw this:


A huge herd of buffalo were hanging out around and even on the road.




These two started fighting one another.



We saw the resident burrows.


And since our windows were down I heard these guys and asked my husband to pull over.  They weren't always easy to spot from the car but once our eyes adjusted we saw prairie dogs everywhere!

They were so entertaining we could have happily sat there and watched them for a long time.





It was a great start to our day.  The Wildlife Loop Trail ends right near the start of Needles Highway and we decided to just keep right on driving.


Other posts from this trip include:

Driving from Denver to Cheyenne
Where we stayed in the Black Hills
Visiting the Reptile Gardens
Visiting Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo


Comments

  1. Doused in Pink Life & StyleOctober 12, 2019 at 10:14 PM

    So cool that you were that close to the buffalo! I bet the prairie dogs were fun to watch!

    Jill - Doused in Pink

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3October 13, 2019 at 6:58 AM

      The parairie dogs were so much fun to watch; we could hear them making all sorts of noises; it was a really neat trail.

      Delete
  2. JayneOctober 13, 2019 at 6:34 AM

    Wow! What a fab experience. And how amazing that you got to see the buffalo up close.

    Thanks so much for sharing with #MMBC. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy JohnsonOctober 13, 2019 at 5:18 PM

    That's so cool you saw the burrows. We didn't see them when we were there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3October 13, 2019 at 5:31 PM

      We almost missed them; they were trotting away from the trail and if it weren't for the zoom in my camera we would not have known what they were.

      Delete
  4. TanyaOctober 14, 2019 at 9:04 AM

    I love that you saw so much wildlife, even though you had to wait til the end of the drive. You don't want to mess around with those buffalo! Thanks for linking up with Hello Monday! Tanya - The Other Side of the Road

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3October 14, 2019 at 9:31 AM

      You definitely do not; those two that were fighting were pushing each other all over the place.

      Delete
  5. Dara @ Not In JerseyOctober 16, 2019 at 11:18 AM

    I love buffalo and prairie dogs are so cute!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3October 16, 2019 at 2:31 PM

      They were so adorable! It's amazing to see just how much room one prairie dog town takes up.

      Delete
  6. DawnOctober 16, 2019 at 2:33 PM

    I just love prairie dogs. What a dream vacation.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3October 16, 2019 at 4:31 PM

      They were so cute and I was hoping we would see them as it is the only animal my youngest kept asking if we'd see. He just LOVES them.

      Delete
  7. MarilynsTreatsOctober 20, 2019 at 7:05 PM

    Thank you for sharing at #OverTheMoon. Pinned and shared. Have a lovely week. I hope to see you at next week’s party too!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favorite TV Shows Growing Up in the 80's and early 90's

Image
Do you remember the TGIF lineups on Friday nights? I can remember planning sleepovers and time with friends around TV Show lineups of our favorite shows... or else trying to set the VCR to record our favorite shows if we weren't going to be home. And through the years I had SO MANY favorites! Growing pains aired in 1985 which put me around age 8 and it stayed on the air until I was 15 or so; I'm pretty sure most people in my age group watched mostly for Kirk Cameron and all his antics.  I still have a soft spot for family sit-coms!  The Facts of Life aired when I was just 2  and stayed on the air until I was 11 so I'm sure the episodes I remember so fondly were either some of the later ones and then reruns shown later on when I was old enough to watch from the beginning. I think everyone would have loved an Edna Garret in their lives.   Benson another sitcom that began airing when I was just 2 and was done by the time I was 9 (another one I must have watched mai...
Read more

Things That Make Me Laugh

Image
I loved the challenge of this week's list for our 26 lists link up.  I don't know about you but I really need to laugh more lately.  It's such a great stress reliever. 1.  Books-- I love a good funny book that makes me laugh out loud.  I haven't read one in a while but if you have any recommendations I'm all ears.  The last book I can remember making me laugh was the Un-Honeymooners. 2  The boys being silly. 3.  Watching shows like America's Funniest Videos or Family Feud. 4. My husband.  Most people don't realize it but he's actually pretty funny and often makes me laugh. 5.  Whenever my sisters/ family get together and we get to reminiscing (particularly if my Aunt Elaine is around) we end up laughing so hard at all the old family stories that we are all in tears by the end of the night.  It's fabulous. 6. Movies like Mom's Night Out, Christmas Vacation, and Grown Ups make me laugh out loud. 7.  When my ...
Read more

Making Gift Card and Money Holders Using Scrapbooking and Cardmaking Supples

Image
I don't tend to keep a lot of crafting supplies on hand so when I saw this month's de-stash challenge I wasn't sure what I was going to make.  I finally realized that with so many of my Christmas gifts being cash and gift cards this year that I needed to make up some fun paper crafting/ creative ways to gift them.   I still want my nieces and nephews to have something to open so I pulled out my papers and stamps and made up some cute little money/gift card holders. They were much easier to make than I thought.  The first one I worked on was to hold some oversized Nintendo gift cards.  I made a standard sized card and folded down one corner of the card front.  Then I ran my double sided tape along the bottom an 1/2 way up the side creating a cute little pocket.  Finally I added some cute embellishments and ribbons.   Voila! A simple and easy gift card holder for those larger sized gift cards.  The bulk of the tweens and teens on my list j...
Read more

Making a Sugar Cookie "Gingerbread" House

Image
 Alec really wanted to try making his own gingerbread house this year without using a premade kit.  We talked about how we never really eat the house since they don't taste very good.  Years ago we gave up on the frosting that comes in the kit and began making our own so we thought perhaps we should try making our our house too. Only problem is that no one in the house likes gingerbread.  We talked about trying to make the house using a sugar cookie recipe.  Alec was so excited at that idea since he just LOVES sugar cookies.   He found a recipe online for a simple sugar cookie recipe and mixed up the dough.  He rolled it out an cut it to the size of our cookie sheets-- we had read that it's easiest to cut the house pieces out after the dough has been baked and is still warm and soft because then you don't have to worry about any of the pieces losing their shape while baking. I had picked out a simple cookie cutter set on Amazon and as soon as the ...
Read more

Dollar Store Candy Cane Wreath

Image
Today I am linking up with some fellow bloggers for a Dollar Store craft challenge.  I don't often participate in these challenges since I try to stay away from our local Dollar Stores; I find they can be quite dangerous for me!  I knew this was the perfect time to find some inexpensive holiday decorations though and I just LOVE how my wreath turned out!  I hope you stop by and see what the other hosts are sharing. Meet this month's co-hosts! Across the Blvd | Purple Hues & Me This Autoimmune Life | Our Unschooling Journey Domestic Deadline | Sew Crafty Crochet Stone Cottage Adventures | Sum of Their Stories | Two Chicks & a Mom I bought the candy cane wreath base and a few rolls of mesh (not knowing how many I'd need I bought waaay to many; I only ended up using one white roll and one red roll. Using some chenille stems I already had on hand I attached the mesh to the wreath base trying to alternate the whit...
Read more