4 Days in Custer, South Dakota-Straight from the horse's mouth!

More about this guy later.On our first day in Custer, South Dakota, everyone told us that the snow would stop and it would melt tomorrow. Well tomorrow came and it just kept on snowing. But that didn't really slow us down. They keep the highways pretty clear so we took off over the hills to the Mt. Rushmore Memorial on Friday. It was snowing pretty hard but we got some good peeks at the sculpture anyway. They have a good visitor's center with lots of history about the Presidents as well as Gustov Borglum, the sculptor of the memorial. We also saw our first Mountain Goats on the drive up to Mt. Rushmore. But there are actually two mountain sculptures in the Black Hills. Hayley and Jack are pictured above at the Crazy Horse carving. It was started in 1948 by a sculptor that had previously worked for Borglum on Mt. Rushmore. This statue will be much larger than Mt. Rushmore when completed. It took them 50 years just to get the face completed. But now that the face is complete, many more people are visiting and progress will probably increase. Unlike Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse is in no way supported or financed by state or federal government. The family of the sculptor (now deceased) is carrying on the project. At the base of the mountain they have an American Indian Museum and in the future will have the first American Indian Medical University.So on the third day, everyone (including the weatherman) kept saying that tomorrow the snow will stop falling and begin melting. But they didn't know what they were talking about because it got down to 4 below zero in Custer and kept on snowing. Here is Hayley at Horse Thief Lake.

The real highlight of our time in Custer was our daylong visit to Custer State Park. Calling it a state park really doesn't do it justice as it is like no other in the country. It is 71,000 acres. It takes all day to drive it in a car (we can attest). On our visit we saw free ranging wildlife everywhere: Buffalo (1500 in the herd), Bighorn Sheep, Wild Turkeys, Pronghorn Antelope, Mule Deer, Whitetail Deer and Prairie Dogs. Lots of Prairie Dogs.

But everyone's favorite animals in Custer State Park were the "Begging Burros". These Burros are wild but are descendants of a herd that were used by the settlers of the area. The Burros come running up to your car and stick their heads right in hoping you'll give them a treat. Well what a treat we gave them! You'll remember that it was snowing most of the time we were in Custer. Our car was carrying around literally pounds of road salt from the highways by the time we got to the prairie area of Custer State Park. The Begging Burros were happy to lick it off for us.
This is what your car looks like after it has had about 30 minutes of licking by a herd of Burros!
As you can see, they really aren't very shy.

So, given the heavy snows and the fact that we really couldn't bear to leave the place, we spent 4 cold nights in Custer, South Dakota.