What a great start to the day! We broke camp around 8:30 in the morning and headed to the Visitor Center. Decided to pass on the gold panning demonstration and set out on the Wildlife Loop Road. It did not disappoint! Not too far into the road we encountered our first bison followed by a few more scattered throughout (including a couple of cows with their calves). I jumped out to take a picture of the first one that we saw; being that close is pretty awesome in the truest sense of the word: just watching and listening to it walk through the grass and seeing it up close gives you a sense of how powerful (and looks like surprisingly nimble) these giant creatures are. The loop treated us with some views of turkey, prairie dogs, mule deer, and pronghorn sheep. We've taken to calling Sophie "Eagle Eye" due to her affinity for spotting pronghorns. Pretty cool to watch her get excited to look for and find animals.
After a quick gas and go stop in Custer, we tried to head up to Little Devil's Tower but the trailhead was on the other side of the first tunnel (poor information from park ranger) so we walked around the Sylvan Lake area. Visitor advice for anyone traveling to Custer with kids: go to Sylvan Lake. In fact, make a day out of it and bring your suits. We just did the little hike around Sylvan Lake and it was perfect for our kids. There was enough of a challenge that they felt like they were achieving something, it had interesting overlooks of the lake, and it was often safe enough for them to explore on their own. How cool is it to see them get to explore!? Max was disappointed that he couldn't go swimming and we did have to make a stop at the map so he could check it out, but he held up pretty well.
Both kids are tired but couldn't get them to take a nap on this ride to Deadwood. Pretty happy that we did Mt. Rushmore yesterday; it's one of those things that you should see but you don't want it to monopolize your time. Our schedule today is looking pretty good; we left Custer at 1:30 (that actually matched up with the itinerary, even though we didn't try) so we should be to Deadwood before 3:00. Looking forward to settling in to camp, getting the kids to the pool, doing some laundry, then off to town for dinner. Plan on hitting some casinos tonight so wish us luck.
Some other notes from today: Sophie calls cattle gates cow bridges so that provides a small chuckle each time. Also, Mike was able to find a new hat while shopping at Sylvan Lake so he found probably his best souvenir for the trip.
We'll be in Deadwood soon and hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures tonight.
