Custer State Park - Wildlife Loop

Our last day at the park.  We will move north just a little bit today and I am trying to figure out why we are going north when it is mid July and 47 degrees outside.  We are experiencing a cold spell!!  I guess so!  Way too cold for summer!  We need to go south!

Anyway our day on the Wildlife Loop was also incredible and I took too many pictures again.  So, I use little collages to try to give you some of everything,  Now come along with us -

Wildlife Loop - we didn't see that much but we did get up close and personal with this Bison.  Shot from the car window!

Pronghorn Sheep

Prairie Dog

The Pronghorn Sheep photo was out the windshield and the Prairie Dogs just kept popping back into their holes as I got closer so the photos aren't very good.

This is what a lot of our trip looked like.  I loved it!  But I sure wouldn't want to be there in the cold!

A roadside stop

Then we saw the sign for the Lookout and both agreed that we wanted to go.  How stupid could I have been.  I can NOT handle heights!  By the time we wound our way up the cliffhanger narrow road I was almost in tears with my eyes shut.  I was on the outside the whole way up which was one mile and the longest mile in my life!  Thankfully we didn't meet a car coming the other direction or I know we would have gone off the cliff and died.

This is the lookout tower that I did not climb.

After our picnic lunch we followed a little trail that we thought might take us to the Badger Clark Home.  It wound around this little lake and did indeed take us where we wanted to go.

Badger Clark was the Poet Laureate for the state South Dakota in 1937.  He is the author of the famous "Cowboy's Prayer".  His home in the mountains is still there just the way he left it.  I thought it was beautiful!  I could live there.  No indoor plumbing, no running water, no electricity.  It would so peaceful - for a bit of time and then I would want all my modern conveniences again! After touring the house we took his trail around the property and enjoyed the same mountain views that he enjoyed for over 20 years of his life.

This is my normal view when we take walks!

Rapid City, South Dakota

We didn't travel very far yesterday, maybe 70 miles so we still had the afternoon free after we got all unhitched here at Heartland RV Park in Hermosa, SD.  Since we hadn't seen a Wells Fargo in miles and miles and miles we thought it prudent to go into Rapid City to get some green.

I love our new little GPS - she just takes us wherever we want to go.  Of course Rapid City is not very big so getting to the bank and then downtown was not too difficult.  Neither was it difficult to find parking downtown after visiting the bank.

With our pockets full of cash we thought we should spend some of it so we visited the local brewery for a cold one.  Firehouse Brewing really is in an old firehouse and they have done a fantastic job making it special.  They also have done a fantastic job of brewing.  Both Kirby and I loved what we chose to drink.  And the clientele was so friendly.  There was a really good looking young man sitting next to me having lunch and a brew.  He was from Knoxville, TN, and is sort of a storm chaser.  He and his cousin go around the country  making repairs to cars after hail storms.  He was loving the travel and getting to see new places.  After lunch they were off to Denver by way of Mount Rushmore.

This is just a few of the sculptures that are on all the corners of the streets in Rapid City. I believe that each one of our presidents is there somewhere.

This was on the way into Rapid City from the east on I-90.  They love billboards up here!

Country Roads in Indiana

While we were staying with Janice and Steve in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Janice gave us a tour of the countryside where she grew up and has lived all of her life.  We got to see places we never would even have known existed in the back country.  It was so kind of her to share her home with us.  It is incredibly beautiful!  Here are my photos -

 And then we were given this beautiful sunset!  A perfect day in Indiana!

Old Buildings in the Woods

The yellow sign by the door proclaimed that I was not to enter.  I think the fact that there was a huge hole just inside the door may have had something to do with that.  Kirby said it was probably an old oil changing pit.  Makes sense.

Just down the road from our current home in Kentucky is the Veteran’s Memorial Wildlife Management Area.  We made a short visit there today.  It had been a long time since our dog Jake had even been in the truck and I wanted to take some pictures.  Kirby still isn’t up to much walking so we mostly explored by truck with Jake and I getting out for photo ops!

It seems that the whole area is mostly just for deer hunting.  That is what most of the signs led us to believe anyway.  Not only that, but there was young corn growing all over the place – deer corn I am sure.  The area was just typical wild but there were some old structures that I loved getting pictures of!  Here they are -