Never be afraid to take the road less traveled!
The animals started out small. Turkeys and rabbits at first… then, a herd of Pronghorns right on the road.
The further we traveled away from civilization, the more animals we saw peaking around the corners!
And if you looked close enough, you could see a whole colony of Prairie Dogs hiding in their mounds EVERYWHERE!!
I was in wildlife heaven! Taking the dirt road and getting off of the beaten path completely changed the whole experience. After 4 miles, the dirt road came to an end and we were back on the Wildlife Loop road. We pulled over for a few minutes and overheard another tourist complaining to the Ranger that there were no animals. We tried to tell them where some were but getting off the main road for some people is hard to comprehend.
As we continued along, we decided to take one last detour on an even smaller dirt road that was also open to the public. We knew that we only had about 3 miles left on Wildlife Loop Road before we ended up back at the park entrance, so, we took a chance hoping to find one last animal in the wild.
I had almost given up on seeing the native buffalo, but that one last detour was worth every dirt road mile!
Hundreds of buffalo!
We were completely surrounded and were able to take our time enjoying their company.
They were spectacular and totally made this day complete!
Custer State Park is so diverse and unique! Yesterdays hike was the complete opposite of todays driving tour, but both were beyond remarkable! With only 2 days to visit this park, I feel like our time spent here was perfect!
Tomorrow, I’ve got plans to check another National Park off my bucket list. Keep following along to see where this crazy amazing adventure takes me next!
