The Black Hills of South Dakota

We woke up to a staggeringly gorgeous sunrise in the Badlands and spied on some coyotes in the hills with binoculars. We headed over to The Black Hills just an hour or so west. We lunched in the Western town of Keystone to some local fair and saw such wonderful things as long haired men in leather chaps and matching embroidered wolf jacket.
We then went to see Mt. Rushmore which was pretty nifty. Then continued onto Needles highway, a windy little road going through tunnels and around “the black hills”, which are these dark grey fingerlike rocks sticking up on the mountain tops. We got out and climbed on the rocks barefoot, like monkeys on a jungle gym. All the kids were jealous their parents wouldn’t let them do the same. We continued our drive onto “wildlife loop” which took us through Custer State park. We saw herds of bison, more prairie dogs, and wild asses (…). We even saw a wild fox and a horse in a stand off, and made friends with a brazen little squirrel while we snacked on a hill. Chipmunks swarmed that hill like adorable little flees. After the epicness that was wildlife loop, we zoomed back to the town of Keystone where we just made the last showing of “One of South Dakotas Best comedy gun shows” starring “Big Dave” a three time, third place, South Dakota gun twirler. They sang soon to be famous songs like “John Wayne is still the king”, complete with a video slide show of John Wayne photos. Meanwhile Big Dave, 7’2″, (as his name tag red) re-enacted shoot-outs from a few of the best known western bar fights, as he shot blanks into the crowd. We loved it so much we bought a signed poster at the end.

After the show we managed to find a campground in the dark and set up our tent in record time. I shone the flashlight into the woods and saw three pairs of glowing green eyes staring back at me before climbing into the tent.