Prawn Horn Deer at Custer Park
We ended up getting the conventional 3-day weekend this week. The closest city to us is Custer, about 15 miles away, which is large enough to have a real grocery store. The largest decent size city is Rapid City, a little over 50 miles away, fully complete with 2 super-Walmart stores. We spent Saturday going to the big cities, shopping, getting a library card, and taking care of other prosaic duties.
Bring a carrot and feed the begging mules (or else roll your window up)
Sunday was much more interesting. Custer Park is a very large and very popular state park just outside Custer City. After Church and breakfast, we went to Custer Park with the intention of taking a short hike. Unfortunately, rain started earlier than was predicted. Fortunately, it was just a warning shower and we hadn’t gone very far. It was pretty easy to turn around and keep from getting very wet.
We decided to drive the wildlife road, which we can see from the comfort of our car. Boy, did we ever see wildlife. Buffalo is the featured animal. We saw several groups, including one group that was grazing right at the side of the road. One group of young men decided to get out of the car and slowly approach the buffalo, shutters clicking. They kept on getting closer until the buffalo made it clear they were too close. At this time, they immediately turned around and ran back to their car. In spite of their multiple unwise decisions (one should never turn one’s back or run from a wild animal), they managed to survive. They took off and we never saw them again.
We made our own unwise decision and decided to visit a viewpoint. After we entered the roadway, we found a 1-mile narrow dirt road, with no option for turning around, with 2-way traffic, and of course the rain turned into a deluge complete with soft ice while we were going up. We felt rather naked with our sedan amongst the 4×4 pickup trucks. After we went up, we had to go down. As dangerous as the road were the other drivers. We got behind one poor family from Nebraska. The situation obviously did not fit with their sensibilities, where roads are straight and one can see forever. Even when they got on the paved street, they wouldn’t go much faster than 10 or 15 MPH. And, of course, they were going our way.
Today we visited Mt. Rushmore. Here’s a shot from an angle most people don’t see. Below is a picture of the model the sculptor made before starting on the mountain. His scale is 1″ = 1′. He transferred measurements from the model to the mountain using a rotating bar and a plumb line. He almost didn’t get Teddy Roosevelt. There was a lot of soft rock in that part of the mountain. He cut into the mountain so much that there is only 30 feet of rock behind Teddy.
