Where the Buffalo Roam

And again, today was one of those days that I look back on and think: only us.

We left Hill City SD around 6:30 am and headed South into Custer State Park to drive the wild life loop.  With it so early we were hoping to see wild life and we did.  Before entering the loop proper we saw deer, a buffalo in the wooded area on the side of the road, rabbits, turkey vultures and turkeys.  In truth, I expected that was going to be the only roaming buffalo we’d see and I thought we were lucky at that.

But, I was wrong.  We entered the loop and saw antelope.  Stopping because there was this big open field with mounds of dirt we went to investigate.  Examining the medium size hole the ground we thought: prairie dogs!  And suddenly we realized, there were a lot more mounds than we’d realized and things were popping up out of them and that chirping?  That was not birds.  Prairie dog town!  I didn’t realize it at first since they were a lot smaller than what you see in the zoo. 

It was very cool though and it pretty much made my day.  Not bad for 8 am.  But we kept driving and in the search for buffalo took one of the side dirt roads.  Suddenly we had a traffic jam.

A dozen wild donkeys were hanging out in the road.  People were out of their cars petting them,  People were IN their cars petting them.  Several came over and stuck their head into our car.  We petted them.  When they got bored … or realized we had nothing to offer, we all moved on.

Down the road we saw a half dozen buffalo cross the road and wander beside us.  A little further, more buffalo, bigger buffalo, a lot of baby buffalo.  And still a little further hundreds of buffalo…  at one point many of them were blocking the road and crazy drivers were trying to weave around them.  Some of these critters were huge.  And when I say huge I mean baby elephant big, and just as massive but they look a whole lot meaner.  And they have serious horns and an even more serious growl.  As we wove our way thru those blocking the road I tried to get the picture of the buffalo that seemed to me at that moment about 2 feet away and bigger than the car, but it growled on our way by and I got a wonderful picture of the dashboard instead.

When we were out of the park M. asked which was scarier - the Needles “highway” with the switch backs and the drops or driving thru herds of buffalo.  It was a very difficult decision.  Ultimately I decided the buffalo, since clearly there was some kind of thought behind there eyes and it resembled an angry, 3000 lb., teenage boy’s.

We headed South stopping briefly in Hot Springs.  Hot Springs is s delightful cowboy town - it’s about ¾ of a horse.  The major fire in the area was to our west.   Since we couldn’t see smoke today I had hoped it meant they had got the fire out, but eavesdropping over lunch indicated they had not.  Before leaving SD we stopped at the Mammoth archeological dig.  We opted not to actually tour the dig site, but did look at the giant mammoth skeleton.  I could picture them wandering the area.

By early afternoon we’d hit the Nebraska line.  We drove for a long time and have seen nothing but range.  No home, home on the range, just range.  We did see antelope and cows.  But the cows look like those black cut out silhouettes in the fields.  The range is awesome.  In the first town we came to, with some trepidation we stopped at the National Fur Trading Museum.  After some of our recent stops we were both hesitant, but we were there so we went in. 

It actually was a really, really good museum.  I’m starting to be convinced - small museums are the best.  It had a wonderful collection of all kinds of things - guns, Native American artifacts, clothing, etc.  It was definitely worth it - though it is in the middle of nowhere.

We then traveled through the Nebraska National Forest.  I think what made it a forest was that it had some trees.  Not many though and it only took about  5 minutes.  There are more trees in our back yard than the Nebraska National Forest.

After driving another hour or more we came to the second town in Nebraska.  This is the home of “Carhenge.”  We had to try to find it.  We hunted - couldn’t find it and it was late enough that it was too early to stop and too late enough to want to try to go on.  So we decided it would be smarter to stop - and we started to look for a motel….

Long story short, one had no vacancy,  The only place listed in AAA was outrageously expensive and we hoped to do better in the middle of nowhere.  So on the basis that the Rainbow Motel had orange doors,  I decided to try it and M. figured it was all probably a wash.  The first room we were given turned out to already be occupied.  The second room is okay.  I wouldn‘t recommend it, but… I‘ve been in worse and it beats the car and the price was, well,  we are getting what we paid for.  We have agreed that after some sleep - even if it‘s 3 am, we‘re okay to leave.

With the room taken care of we decided to try to find food.  Not an easy task.  DQ was in the lead.  But it happens that today is Heritage Day in town and they are having their festival.  This means that Main St is blocked off with carnival rides. (I asked M. if he wanted to ride, but he said no.  Go figure?)  But on the other side of Main St there was a big tent and smoke. 

Granted I may have chosen a not so great motel on the basis of orange doors, but I do know big tents and smoke usual mean food - and in this case I was hoping for a civic group’s bbq chicken or something.

I think because M. was more scared of the DQ than the tent, we parked and went to investigate,  We were standing before the roped off parking lot, me trying to sniff to see if I could smell food and M. trying to figure out what the deal was.

Clearly they were selling tickets but it wasn’t clear if it was tickets to get in or tickets to eat or…  When two nice old ladies came up to us and asked if we had tickets.  We said um, er, ah, no, we were trying to figure out what this was… and the nice lady told us her kids were down but they had to leave, so she had two extra tickets.  She handed them to us explaining there was free hot dog, hamburger, brat’s, the best corn ever and free pop.

Can’t beat that.  So in we went.  The brat was okay, but I do think it was the best corn ever.  We ate under the tent, listening to the local karaoke concert.  I’m pretty sure we had the best meal in town.

After we found Carhenge.  It was, in fact, a bunch of  dead cars stuck in the ground and place on top of one another.  Maybe I’m just tired, but I didn’t find it all that intriguing - even liking such things.

Now we are back in our cheap motel room.  As I type this in Word - I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post it tonight or tomorrow night - as I think ‘no bars’ is an understatement.    If we do have some kind of internet - there will be no pictures today as it will take forever.  I’ll post pictures tomorrow if we have service.