What should have been an easy 3-mile prairie hike turned into a strenuous mountain trek.

Oh give me a home

Where the buffalo roam

And the deer and the antelope play

Where never is heard

A discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

—Home On the Range

Custer State Park is full of free-range wildlife and we were out to bag us some Bison - photo-wise, that is. The Wildlife Loop, a 14-mile road through a lush rolling-hills grassland, is supposed to be the best chance to view them.

We only got a mile down the road from our campsite when we came across two buffalo bedded down a few feet from the road. They didn’t give two hoots about us and never even stirred. We drove on.

We drifted along the Wildlife Loop for 6 or 7 miles before we came across a herd of Bison on the move. They all but dominated the road forcing us to stop and admire them. This herd numbered in the hundreds and all I could think of is what it must have been like to witness a herd in the tens of thousands. What a sight that must have been.

Although I did get out of the van, I heeded the signs that said, “buffalo are dangerous” and “don’t pet the fluffy cows”. The big papa buffalos, with their oversized heads and pointy horns, stared at me, sizing me up. Those giant penetrating eyes kind of un-nerved me when they stared at me.

A prong-horn deer.

Once we got through the herd without getting skewered, we came across what looked like an easy 3-mile prairie trail loop. I lobbied Wanda to take it on for a warm-up. We hadn’t hiked in a few days and we needed to get the blood flowing. She acquiesced.

Whoever laid out this trail was a pure sadist. I thought prairie meant gentle rolling hills. Somehow, this trail blazer conjured up steep mountain sides where mountains didn’t exist. That’s magic for ya.

After dragging along for 3 miles, we finally came within a 100 yards of the van when we spotted a humongous grandpa buffalo blocking our way to the van - and he was giving us the “Big-Eye”. I could practically read his mind - “wouldn’t it be fun to charge these two little creatures?”

We daintily walked by giving him as much of a berth as we could. The whole time he just intently stared at us. We finally made it to the van and quickly drove off.

A group of young ponderosa pines with their “charred” looking bark.

Our target was Wind Cave National Park. It butts up to the southern border of Custer State Park and occupies a good section of the southern end of the Black Hills. Wind Cave is interesting in that it is one of the worlds longest caves with 155 miles mapped so far. But, here’s the thing. All 155 miles are packed within one square surface mile. The labyrinth of shafts zig-zag at many different depths. Shafts run above and below other shafts. They run parallel to each other. They run perpendicular to each other. And they haven’t found the end yet. In fact, doing some fancy pressure testing, it is estimated that they have only mapped 10% of the cave.

We bought tickets to tour the cave, but had about 3 hours to kill before our tour time-slot. We went into Hot Springs, the nearest town, to explore. Two things immediately struck us about Hot Springs: 1) BROWNSTONE. Almost all the buildings were brownstone. I love brownstone buildings, so I loved Hot Springs. 2) EVANS PLUNGE HOT SPRINGS. There was a big building housing a water spa and tons of people were going in and out of the building. We have swam in several of Germany’s fine water spas and we have never seen anything in the US that comes close. We had to investigate.

Utilizing thermo-heated mineral water, this spa’s water was 87º. Although not hot, 87º is warm-ish. The springs that feed the giant indoor pool bubbles out of the ground at 5000 gallons a minute. Unlike the German spas that feature lots of water massage jets, this one concentrates on water sports and a water slide. The kids seem to love it.

Hot Springs not only had a gushing hot spring, it also had a gushing cell phone signal. We parked under a shade tree and tapped into the fast internet for nearly an hour. Then it was off to the smoked BBQ trailer that pumped primal smoked-meat scent into the air. We couldn’t resist the instinctual urge to belly up to the counter and order one beef brisket sandwich and one pulled pork sandwich. Both were excellent, but the pulled pork nudged the brisket by a nose.

So how did they compare to the world’s greatest BBQ from Lockhart, Texas? The beef, although good, came up short in my estimation. The pulled pork, however, came darn close.

The side of the street with the two-story boardwalk.

Hot Springs must be proud of their high school grads. The downtown street lamps are adorn with these banners of each 2021 grad.

The BBQ food trailer we ate at. The pulled pork was sensational.

Wind Cave was very different from the other three caves that we toured on this trip. There were no stalagmites or stalactites, no popcorn, no blades, no eerie or colorful formations, and no straws. What it did have, was mail boxes. These are square-ish features that reminded someone of post-office boxes. The name stuck. I can’t say that they looked like mail boxes to me. They looked more like spider webs. However, what you call them, Wind Cave is just about the only cave in the world with these formation.

This webbing is what was called Mail Box.

This formation is called popcorn. This was the only example of popcorn I saw in the cave.

After two days of meat, we stopped off the Custer grocery store for fruit for supper. We picked up some delicious cold watermelon, bananas, apples, and grapes. We nibbled on them while parked at Custer’s Visitor Center. The cell signal was great and we did some more work on the internet.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

Get Vaccinated To Save Lives.

Virtual Business Card

North America . Europe . Mexico . Asia . Product Reviews . Books & Maps

Please send us your thoughts and any errors we may have missed. We're on the road and cellular service is intermittent in the remote areas. As soon as we get online, we are eager to read all of your messages.

Text: 715-252-6664 | 715-252-3326

Email: [email protected]