Today was a slower start kind of day for us. Since the last few days have been long ones we took it easy first thing. Pulling out of camp at 9:35 we had a beautiful morning...69 degrees and partly cloudy.

Arriving at Custer State Park at 9:50, we started on the Wildlife Loop . Shortly after entering the park, we passed (and took a picture of) our (as it turned out) only buffalo of the day! Point of interest: the Civilian Conservation Corp had a large role in building and maintaining Custer State Park from 1934-1941.

Suddenly, our lives for the last few days flashed in front of our eyes! Could it be? Surely not!! Is that a Pilot Car flashing its lights in front of us?? It was a very fear fraught moment for us before we stopped hyperventilating and realized exactly what it was that we were seeing...and even then we were not sure that our eyes were telling us the truth. Believe it or not (we saw it and STILL aren't sure we believe it!!) SLOWLY tooling up the narrow (no where to pass scenic byway) was not one, not two, not three...but OVER EIGHTY arthritic, smoking and belching antique farm tractors! We could not believe it. Holy Farm All Tractor, Batman!

We could not see to the front of the line of these preserved behemoths ...and they were CREEPING up the road at the average rate of 10 mph! We crept behind them for over 45 minutes before they came to what was an apparently prearranged staging area where they all pulled off to the side of the road. At that point, the LONG line of vehicles that were also creeping along behind US was finally able to continue on their way. The place where the tractors chose to stop was the one where we usually have seen both buffalo and burros. At least least the buffalo part was not to be...maybe they didn't like the tractors. Who knows. There were a few burros there and they seemed to be delighted to be petted and fed by some of the folks that were there with the tractor group. These folks were from all over the place both local and out of state. I guess they haul them in like the Model A clubs do for a rally, and their big moment was driving the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Made our day for sure!

Driving today we saw amazing and unbelievable rock formations, pigtail bridges, and three rock hewn tunnels . The views were fantastic, and none of the places we were in today were very crowded at all. Mt. Rushmore had more folks than anywhere else, but after Lake Louise last Sunday it was a piece of cake. 

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore at 1:30 and the temperature was a very comfortable 74 degrees. There have been a lot of changes there since we were in the park at least as far as parking and amenities at the entryway of the park is concerned. They now have a fantastic amphitheater where we understand they have a wonderful light show after dark. It is too far back for us to go this evening, but we were very impressed with the infrastructure there. 

After leaving Mt. Rushmore we drove about ten miles to take a quick peek at Crazy Horse and see how it is coming along. We didn't go into the attraction because we were here just a few years ago and had toured the museum and shops there at the time. I did get a shot or two of the carving. We are sure that quite a bit has been done since we were last here, but from a distance we couldn't discern any.

From Crazy Horse, we drove back into Custer where we stopped at the Purple Pie for our evening meal. John was also able to get a piece of plain old Rhubarb Pie for dessert which made his day. He says it wasn't as good as yours, Barb A., but it was really good! From Custer we continued back to our RV park and are settled in for the evening a little earlier than some days have been. If all goes as I hope, you will have several videos along with pictures this evening. I was able to upload them to the TravelPod site via my cell phone thus not having to wait for what I already knew would be a slow wifi connection here in the park. Pictures went up fairly easily from here yesterday and I hope it will be the same today.

We drove 77 miles today.