On our last day in Hot Springs, we decided to take the “Southern Hills” route to see the Crazy Horse Monument. There were some beautiful farms along the way, but not a lot else interesting to see outside the park. We did look around Custer which is a very small town.
I was very disappointed in Crazy Horse Monument. It does not look much different than the last time we were in South Dakota, and that was over 20 years ago. i am sure the facial features are more refined, but from the visitor center you really could not tell. There is a bus (another $4/each) that will take you closer, but we were told it is only a mile closer. We didn’t think that would be worth the extra money. We did look at some of the artifacts and the gift shop, but did not stay too long.
On the way back to the RV, we took 16A to the south-eastern section of the Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park. Since it was mid afternoon, we did not see as much wildlife as we had on our early morning drive through the park a few days before. We were lucky to again see the burros, some longhorn sheep including several lambs, and the large herd of bison. We had missed them the day before and were wondering where they had gone. They really move around a lot, as they were almost to the Wind Cave National Park.
Once back at the campground, we lucked out for the second night in a row. The weather prediction was for strong thunderstorms, but the front split around us. North of us in Spearfish and just below Hot Springs got some terrible thunderstorms. We had some dark skies, wind and lightning off in the distance, but no rain. Ty must be losing his hearing even more because he didn’t even notice the storm!
