When we planned this trip starting last year, we had a long list of things to see in the Black Hills area. With COVID restrictions, many of those things are not open, so we’ve had to be a bit flexible with our travel planning.
Today got off to a rough start, we headed out of the campground around 10 only to realize about 8 miles down the road that our water tank was empty. So we had to turn around and go back for a fill. Once that was settled, we only had 80 minutes to sightsee before David had to do a conference call. We chose to drive Spearfish Canyon yet another breathtaking scenic byway. That drive ended back near yesterday’s fish hatchery. There was a giant wooden playground there that the kids had begged us to play on, so they were thrilled to get the chance to run.
From there, we had hoped to go to one of more of the caves in the area. But for reasons varying from a broken elevator to social distancing, they were all closed. Most of the family didn’t want to hike, so that took out many of our options. We settled on the Hot Springs Mammoth Site. In the 1970s, they were bulldozing a hill to build a housing development and unearthed bones. They stopped digging and turned the land over to scientists. Turns out it was a deep sinkhole where at least 61 mammoths met their end. Over the years, the sediment of the lake became a hill as the less dense rock and soil eroded. The site is still an active dig site, where they try and leave as many bones as possible where they found them.
It’s now in a warehouse building (ugh, inside, but cavernous with few people), but we wore masks and kept good distance. Jason, in particular, has been really into archaeology on this trip. It was a long way from where we started, but glad we made the stop.
From there, we drove up through Wind Cave National Park on our way to Custer State Park for the night. Wind Cave is closed, but we decided to drive in anyway. We were able to take a short hike to the natural entrance. And it lives up to the legend - windy! Glad we made the detour.
On our drive into and through the State Park, we saw individual bison, herds of bison, wild turkeys and pronghorn antelope. We hold out hope for some bighorn sheep sightings, and are going to head out early tomorrow in hopes of seeing them.
Tonight’s campground is on Legion Lake. Lots of nature to explore here, and the kids took to the hills for quite some time. There is also a small beach here, so we hope to get in some swimming tomorrow. And the fire haze seems to have lifted, so we were able to have some stargazing time. The kids really appreciated staying up late and lying still enough to see the stars in a dark sky.
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