South Dakota--Day 5--Wildlife

Today was the first actual day of sightseeing here in South Dakota. We started off the day by going to Bear Country USA. This is a delightful drive through animal park. In addition to many bears they have areas with big horn sheep, wolves, mountain lions, elk, and several other species. Although everyone stays in their cars you are able to get close enough to the animals to get some great pictures.

After completing the drive through area we parked the car and strolled through their nursery area. They had several pens with some of the smaller animals. The main attraction in the nursery area is the bear cubs. There were several on display today and it was fun to watch them frolic and wrestle with each other.

After our visit to Bear Country USA we headed to the Black Hills National Forrest. We took the Iron Mountain Road senic drive. This took us around Mt Rushmore, although we did not get very close to it today. We will do that trip later in our visit. Iron Mountain Road has many switchbacks as it rises up the mountain. It has several narrow, one-lane tunnels. Several places along the way give great views of Mt Rushmore. Also very unique to this road is what is called the pig-tail bridges. These are bridges stacked one above the other and you spiral up the road and over these bridges in the form of a "pig-tail".

After leaving the National Forrest we continued on to Custer State Park. When we were here several years ago this park was full of buffalo herds. Today we only saw two, a cow and her calf. We did see many of the wild burrows that roam the park. Actually, these burrows are not very wild and are very friendly. They are used to people feeding them so they come up to the car to beg.

In addition to the burrows the park was full of deer and they were out in force, even though we were there in the early afternoon.