Day 13: More Wildlife, off to Badlands

We’re still trying to make the most of our time while maintaining work/school hours. This morning we headed out for a second round of driving the Wildlife Loop at Custer. It didn’t disappoint!

Based on our previous drive, we knew where to expect the bison. Rob had to get back for an important work call, so we didn’t stop for little things like deer, or a group of bison hanging out at a picnic shelter or even one lying on the beach (perhaps we were already jaded).

When we got close to our bison rendezvous point, we ran into our donkey friends again. Many cars must feed them, because they were very persistent and wouldn’t let us pass. One rubbed its head on our side mirror, and we had to drive slightly off the road to get around another.

The bison this morning turned out to be even more incredible than last time! We could see them all starting to walk across the road, which put is in one of those “bison traffic jams” we’d read about.

After the bison, we finally got to capture a picture of these grouses we’d seen earlier.

Next we headed back to the campground for the day’s calls and to get packed up for our drive to Badlands. We took advantage of the showers again, knowing it might be awhile before we get an unlimited warm water shower.

All went smoothly until it came time for the dump station. Rob was giving me a tutorial on how to dump the holding tanks and had said that the sewer line had been leaking a little, so we needed to be quick with the hose attach. Well, this time there was 2+ cups of sewage that spilled in the utility area, and the smell was horrendous. Rob had another work call, so we had to empty what we had, try to clean up, and park at the visitor center for 2 hours so Rob could get through his meetings.

After a visit to the Visitor Center we are now informed that the American buffalo and bison are the same animal so that is why the names are used interchangeably. We went on a little nature walk and visited the beach where we had seen the bison earlier. It was really cool to see the indentation where it was lying and follow its footsteps in the sand.

On our drive out we had to stop for two goats in the road, adding to our list of animal sightings.

After leaving Custer, we were on to the Bandlands, with just a brief stop at the tourist trap Wall Drug.

With the different time zone, our later school days have given us a wonderful opportunity to see so many sunsets in so many beautiful places.