SD – Black Hills / Custer State Park | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

A quick peek outside around 11:30 p.m. gave us a good idea of what was in store for us on Day 6.  We were so glad we moved from the tent to a cabin.  The scene was all too familiar – the first snow – but it was way too early.  Snow is not necessarily what I want to see on September 11th, but it was quite beautiful and hard to get too upset about.  The fresh blanket of snow was going to make for lovely photos.  We awoke to an accurate forecast – about 6″ of fresh snow fell overnight.  It was a bone chilling 27 degrees as promised.  It was brrrrrrr-eautiful!

I made short work of the snow on car with the broom from the cabin – no brush in the car this time of year.  It just didn’t feel right turning on the heated seat this time of year, butt it felt alright soon enough 🙂  We headed into town for our coffee and bagel at the 1881 Bank Coffee House.  This was our third visit.  As the name implies, the store was originally a bank; the interior is quite nice.  The coffee was wonderful.  The bagel situation on the other hand had issues every day for some reason.  Two of the three days a cream cheese or butter was missing each day and this day one was toasted and one was not.  FYI, the dash defrost barely provides enough warmth to reasonably heat up a bagel.  Check your bagels before departing 🙂

The Scenery

We didn’t really have a plan for today.  We didn’t know what to expect from the snow fall.  We ventured into Custer State Park to see what we could find.  The fresh blanket of snow was quite pretty.  Back-roading was out of the question today; we tried.  The roads were snowy, wet and extremely muddy.  We made it as far North as Pactola Reservoir (last photo) on the main roads and decided to head back to the park to look for wildlife.  We ran into a group of long horns that where pretty lively in the fresh snow – especially the little one.  Cute lil bugger.

Pactola Reservoir

The Wildlife

We explored several Custer State Park roads today in addition to well-traveled Wildlife Loop Road.  4 Mile Draw Road (CSP 7), Swint Road (CSP 5), Fisherman Flats Road (CSP 2) and Oak Draw Road (CSP 3) were all nice to drive.  You never know what is around the next corner.  We were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon several Mountain Bluebirds having just read about them at the Wind Cave National Monument.  We found more Elk, but the herd was not any closer than earlier days sightings.  The buffalo and pronghorn looked great against a snowy backdrop. //Custer State Park map//

Buffalo

Buffalo

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Buffalo

Pronghorn

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Elk

Blue Heron

Here is a video clip from heading into Custer State Park the morning after the snow fell.

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