Day 6: Hill City, SD to Cheyenne, WY - 373 miles
This was setting up to be an interesting day. And long. First up was travelling past Mt Rushmore for the 3rd time and connecting to Hwy 16A just beyond Keystone, then heading south to Custer State Park. This is a wildly scenic and absurdly windy 33 mile road, built to give you views of Mt Rushmore. There are a couple of tunnels - blasted through the rock and they are lined up so you can see the The Heads as you drive through. Awesome
At the bottom of 16A you enter Custer State Park - 71,000 acres of granite peaks, rolling plains and lakes. You could spend a week here. We had a few hours.
First up was the Wildlife Loop. There are roughly 1,300 bison here and they had just rounded them up the day before (full on cowboy stuff) for annual shots and monitoring. A couple hundred are sold off each year. The loop takes about an hour.
The road winds around rolling grasslands and hills. Very Scenic.
A short movie in the visitor center explained that you may also come across some friendly wild donkeys. Fact check: True.
Really glad we had an apple. The wife named him Walter.
Had a great lunch at the Legion Lake Lodge overlooking, well, Lake Legion.
Then headed north to the Needles Hwy 87 for some tremendous views of granite spires. Slow and windy.
The road is narrow and there is no centerline. 20mph, tops.
Stunning colorful vistas
And a couple of tight squeezes. Folded the mirrors in.
The road eventually brought us to the marvelous Sylvan Lake. Just wow.
We turned south, left the park and picked up Hwy 89 to Custer. Another cute town, but no time to stop. Continued south on Hwy 385 to Wind Cave National Park. It was the first cave in the world to be named a national park in 1903. 152 miles of explored cave passageways makes it the 7th longest cave in the world. You need a timed entry given out early each day - no internet reservations. A quick look through the visitor center and we're off again.
A couple of bison standing on top of the caves.
10 miles further brought us to Hot Springs, SD. The town is full of many pink sandstone buildings.
Gassed up here and jumped on Hwy 71 south out of Hot Springs. Things really dry out and the landscape becomes hauntingly
desolate. We are heading to Nebraska, a new state for each of us. My wife's mother was from Lincoln, NE, so there's a connection.
The border is reached in 36 miles.
We cross into the Oglala National Grass Lands in NW Nebraska. Just grass and grass and grass. And cattle. Never really saw any people or ranch houses. Just grass. Fascinating stuff.
After about 30 miles we finally stumbled on to some human habitation.
We ducked into Crawford, NE and saw what 4:00 on a Saturday night looked like. Not that much.
Continued south on Hwy 71 and connected to Hwy 2 going west. Grass gave way to corn and an abandoned farm house.
Heading to Scottsbluff, NE we stopped to look.....at the grass.
Scottsbluff is a fairly good sized farming town - and, again, with the old downtown. 5:00 Saturday night - no people.
Had dinner in Kimble, NE. Caught I-80 west and blasted to Cheyenne. Arrived about 9PM. What a day.