Thursday, June 22, 2017

The Black Hills

After our two days / one night in the Badlands, we made a quick stop at Wall Drug for food (and to look around a bit) and then drove to the Black Hills where we would spend the rest of our vacation.  Our base was the town of Custer, and we found it to be a nice, centrally located place to come back to every night.  The kids discovered a pizza place across the street from the hotel that they loved and we ended up eating a meal there every single day of our stay.  We did a lot of driving, hiking, and sightseeing in different areas of the Black Hills region throughout the week.  We visited Mount Rushmore on our first day.  There wasn't much to do there except look at the monument, so we didn't spend a ton of time at that location.

One area that we all liked a lot was the Sylvan Lake area.  We did a two-and-a-half hour hike here along the Sunday Gulch Trail.  This trail wound through varied landscapes and ended up being a bit more adventurous than I thought it would be.  Toward the end we were criss-crossing a stream on tree limbs and small wooden footbridges.

















 We did three scenic drives in the Custer area of the Black Hills.  My favorite was the Needles Highway because of its dramatic views and narrow tunnels.
We had no problem spotting wildlife along the Wildlife Loop and Iron Mountain Road.  This buffalo was just strolling down the road without a care in the world.  This whole area was so beautiful and different than what we have in Georgia.  I really enjoyed seeing it.



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