SNAKE … eek

Yes, I did see one and it was semi close. On this outing there were animals that we had rarely seen or been able to capture with the camera. I need to mention it was another rainy day. We drove around it after I got a picture of course. (I try never to let a photo-op pass me by). Roy asked if I wanted to get out for a close-up or a selfie. My response was um, no I have a zoom for that plus my selfies need practice. Seriously, though if anyone can identify the snake I would be happy. This is one of those instances when you hear we have snakes in the park so be careful where you step, my thought was sure. My thought is I guess I will be careful when I step out of the car especially around the prairie dogs because that is where they hang out.

I had never thought about it before, but where do adult turkeys come from? Before you answer I bet you never thought about it either. Yes, they come from baby turkeys. The other day when we were driving around we saw an adult turkey with chicks but were not able to capture them on camera. (Dash cam doesn’t count in this case.) So I now have pictures after they crossed the road and dash cam of them crossing the road. So you see they do exist in the wild. We would have never captured these if it wasn’t for a detour to the Needles Highway in search of mountain goats.

I think the fact I caught the mountain goat was a one in a million shot. I am hoping on making it a two in a million shot. So the answer is no we did not see the goat. It was raining and windy at the needle eye. I did however get a few landscape pictures on the way back to camp. The sky opened to show a tad bit of blue and some detail on the needles. We also stopped at a place called ‘hole in the wall’ It was just that a hole in the wall of a rock face. So this detour led us to the turkey chicks. (not to be confused with the Dixie Chicks).

Now what brought us to even thinking about a detour and mountain goats was our trip around wildlife loop on a rainy day which was pretty much a bust. We got to the visitor’s center and saw traffic on a dirt road that buffalo usually are hiding, so off we go. The only thing we were lucky enough to see was a prong horn grazing by the side of the road. U-turn back to the visitor center, we spot a food truck check it out. We both had a buffalo brat and were treated to a buffalo sighting right in front of the car. (This is a case of dash cam counting because I have photos). Side note I talked to a family who was out here enjoying leave with their active military father. They were also lucky to catch a glimpse of the buffalo. From here we started to head back to the campsite but not before seeing the snake. Once back at camp we decided it was not time to head in so that is where the detour came in. Mixed throughout the day we spotted deer and I was able to get a few of these also.

As of July 3rd 2021 Roy has put on 1,300 miles just driving around and no more then 30 miles outside of Custer State Park. We’ve also gone through 3 tanks of gas.

Mount Rushmore revisited

I think I have seen this carving from a bunch of angles this trip. (I have pictures) It has given me an appreciation for how large and small in perspective this sculpture is. I say this because one picture I zoom in and the Presidents take up a large portion of the photo. In real life if you focus on just the sculpture it is large. Think for a moment and let your eye pull out and see the whole mountain.

I saw the size difference when I took the first picture of Mount Rushmore from a pull out on the way to the Mount. If you zoom in you say wow that is big to be able to see it from here. As you see from the zoom out you see it only covers a small piece of the mountain. I read facts like the faces are 60 feet high that is ten six foot tall men stacked one on top of the other. The noses are 20 feet long. That is very large in the scheme of things. Here is a good look at the profile of Washington. At this particular pullout point Washington is all you see.

Compare that to the fact these are all carved into granite that is 5,550 feet tall. The mount does dwarf the presidents, but it does not dwarf the achievement of the people who created Mount Rushmore. Here are 75 facts about Mount Rushmore

I have to say the ability to be able to photograph Mount Rushmore at different times of the day and night has been fun. I was able to capture a sunset and wait twenty minutes and capture the nightly lighting of Mount Rushmore. It is amazing how one National Park can change a perspective.

Maybe there is a deeper meaning here; that if you pull back and take a look at everything IT is not so big. Or maybe my mind’s eye and camera’s eye has gotten better at noticing the different perspectives of an object. Your choice.

Getting Up Early….

Nailed IT!. Yes, getting up at 7 am to get on the road to retake Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse from the Coolidge Fire Lookout Tower. The best part of this was the fact that there were very few people here and the sun and clouds were perfect. I have to say to be able to see and take a picture of Mount Rushmore that is 9 miles as the crow flies is awe inspiring. Crazy Horse is 10 miles as the crow flies. With Rushmore however you only get Washington’s profile and Lincoln’s nose and chin. It also helps to know what you are looking for. Crazy Horse instead of the usual profile from the tower you are able to get full front. The interesting thing is the equipment on that mountain I was able to capture with my camera. These pictures are from the observation deck.

After I was able to get these pictures I head back to the car where I was able to also get a different perspective of both Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. I was able to show a family the picture I took of Crazy Horse and then point it out to them with my finger. We headed down from the lookout and from a pull out I took these pictures looking back up the mountains. This area is also where most of the cell phone towers are for the park. The rest of the day was lazy we went into town to grab some much needed internet time and headed home for lunch. I was also able to catch up on my pictures and blogs. It is needed sometimes just to have a catch up sort of day. Roy, on the other hand sat outside and people watched.

Stubborn Rabbit

I can and will explain but this is what led up to our encounter with said bunny. We are now in the cycle of getting up for morning photography that is hard (Roy is rubbing off on me). It is true they say good light happens in the morning. So the 28th I have it all planned get up early, head to the Coolidge Tower Fire Outlook, take some panoramas because the view is amazing. That was the plan. That is not how it happened.

I was woke up to my phone going off at 6:15 am glad I answered it because I am going to try an hour horseback ride. (Maybe improve the balance for a few hours. The balance has been a little off, and horse riding is good for that. ) Back to the story. I fall back to sleep, then we had a power blip a long beep woke me up. I just did not have the energy to get up and out early. I got bad light because of it. We got up to the outlook about 11 am the sky was hazy and the sun was harsh I did get a panoramic. I also was lucky enough to see Crazy Horse Monument head on and George Washington on Mount Rushmore. I did take a few photos but they did not turn out, just gave me inspiration to come back and try again. seeing this was a bust we went home to eat and head into Custer to use my hotspot. (internet not happening at the campground). Back to the campground to decide where we wanted to drive again couldn’t be too far because we had dinner at 7pm.

So we headed out to wildlife loop again with a twist. We stopped to take a picture of this rock formation because the light was perfect. We then hit another dirt road for me to take a landscape with clouds and rolling hills. I find out this is one of the roads that lead to Wind Cave. So Roy and I headed for adventure. (Roy and I were both looking for more adventure.) The fact that the roads start in Custer State Park and end right outside Custer State Park it was an easy decision to travel the V. Did I mention it was also a one lane road. Well the first thing we see are Prairie Dogs these critters are prolific and they have nothing on bunnies. More on the Prairie Dogs in a few paragraphs.

So for this one lane road we are headed over ruts and stuff at a slow speed as to be able to see everything. I was able to catch out of the corner of my eye a pronghorn with her baby. They were definitely running from something and baby was trying to catch up I am mesmerized just watching how they slowed down and headed up the hill. Needless to say I did not take any photographs, we do have the crossing on dash cam though. We had one car pass us and then there was another car that decided to wait up at a turn out. This was a good thing because we ran across a stubborn bunny.

We start up towards the hill once we realize that we are going first, we see a bunny in the road. This bunny had a mind of its own and he was not budging. The rain that we had over the previous days left a water hole just perfect size for a rabbit. Picture this we slowly inch up on it until you can’t see it on dash cam thinking we get close enough that it will move. Wrong! So we inch in reverse the bunny is still there. We repeat the process again, same result. We even honk the horn the RABBIT did NOT even flinch. Roy then decides to creep up on it and have me open the door get out and chase him away. I took my camera with me got out and before I was around the front of the car it was gone. I will be sharing the dash cam of us going forward, backing up and repeating. So the guy on top of the hill started heading down and we met rolled down our windows and explained to the other guy it was the rabbit’s fault that we were not coming up the road.

The rest of the road was narrow even for a single lane had a few steep areas to it. In one place we drove up the hill and the road just disappeared over the crest. My only thought her was please no buffalo on the road at the top. There wasn’t thankfully. Although we did see a few down the road. Now for those prairie dogs. We are ending the adventure and we see hundreds of prairie dog holes on both sides of the road and even on the road. This critters were everywhere including running up down across the road. I know I will be back to photograph them. So the off road adventure had a stubborn rabbit in the middle of it all.

Rainy Day Road Trip Turned Out

Perfect. This was because we got to do the driving in the rain and wherever we stopped there was a rain break. I do have to say on a side point Roy is getting to drive more curvy and single lane roads then ever before. I on the other hand am looking for the motion sickness pills. (just kidding) I only bring the point up because we decided to head to Hot Springs on a rainy Saturday to stay away from any crowds in the Park.

87 is a mostly two lane paved road that takes you through the northern end of wind cave, supposedly elk and buffalo hang out in the area or at least that is what the signs say. We did see some buffalo but no elk. I say mostly 2 lane except for a one lane bridge this was a short one. At the junction where 87 joins 385 there is another prairie dog town, however they were not as hyper or active as the other ones we ran across. So on down the road. The actual Wind Cave visitor center is off of 385 so I had to at least go shopping. Unfortunately due to the popularity and the limit in available tickets I did not go into the cave. (this year you had to be in line for tickets at 7 am and then come back at your tour time. I did however hit the gift shop, I got 2 t-shirts, a hat and one small stuffed prairie dog affectionately named ‘Sticks’ from ‘Live PD’ fame. I figure with the number of dogs we have seen it is all good that I bring one home. After the side trip to Wind Cave we headed down to Hot Springs.

This is a town that has a story to tell, almost like it is stuck in time and that it has an old time small town feel. The town is famous for their Mineral Springs and The Mammoth Site outside of town. The town also has the South Dakota Veterans Home and Veterans Hospital with restored old buildings. The town also had a lot of the old buildings fixed up. Roy had a craving for a corn dog because he saw the sign for it at the local craft fair. I decided then to walk the craft fair it reminded me of small town America. In the middle of town there is a waterfall that you can see the mineral build up of the water, the flag at the top of the waterfall was placed to honor Veterans by the local VFW. All in all the rainy day trip turned out to be the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow.

Buffalo Sightings

I can’t say we set out to go find buffalo on a certain day we just go driving. They will show themselves. This year we have gotten off the main roads onto the dirt roads, I’ve gotten better photos because of this. Yes, I do have lots of photos but I do not think I could ever have too many. The buffalo is a magnificent beast, they could crush you but are so gentle to their young. I have noticed that there are bulls that seem to keep away from the herd that you will see wandering around the park, you never know what you will find around a bend.

A great example of this; we were going after more pictures of the burros but when we got there we did not stop to take pictures there were too many people. I’ve explained these JAs are beggars and they draw a crowd. This was not a unproductive trip though, because right down the road there was a herd of buffalo off a dirt road. Roy drove past them and made a u-turn in a wide spot in the road so I could take pictures from a different angle. ( I love Roy’s ability to help me stretch my photography limits. ) So looking down on the vastness and also seeing all the cars on the dirt road observing them up close puts a whole new twist on things. I wonder what they think of being watched, or if they care. They care sometimes if they are snorting and shaking their head you are too close.

As I am taking pictures from the hill top I see a part of the herd start to charge towards the hill then more joined in. I am outside of the car taking photographs running through my head how quick can I move if they all charged up the hill. (answer: not that quickly.) I did venture away from the car because Roy told me they would not be here that quickly. Something spooked them so the flight instinct took hold of them. Once things settled down they started to return to the side of the dirt road and I realized that I would not be enveloped by buffalo we headed down to the dirt road to join the crowd.

It is amazing to see all the cars doing a snail slow progression to get the perfect buffalo picture or at least a cellphone snap shot. The park allow tours to find the wildlife. One of these Buffalo Safaris has multiple jeeps and because they are on a schedule they will bypass the line of cars. They looked like a colony of ants as we had about 10 of these hop the line. I think it was funny looking. I am not sure if I’ve covered this before but this year there has seemed to be a bumper crop of babies. They grow so fast, when we first arrived most of them looked young and had no horns, now you are seeing little horns appear and they seem to be putting on weight.

Once we moved up the line we did not want to travel all of the dirt road again Roy pulled a 3 point turn to head back down the road. This is where we were held up by a buffalo. His or her thought was using are car to lean on while chewing the grass. Slowly he/she moved on but not before I captured the sights and sounds of him/her next to the car. I looked up about this time and saw a mom and her calf headed towards us on the road. I much rather would have this type of traffic delay anytime. As we are winding down seeing buffalo on both sides of the road. I see a big bull standing alone on a hill looking over his domain. Perfect end to the buffalo safari.

Why Getting Out Pays Off

I wanted to practice panoramas and I wanted to include the ‘Needle’s Eye‘ (on the Needles Highway) in one of the shots. It was cloudy up the direction we were headed I said let’s try tomorrow. Roy’s like no let’s just see. I am so glad he pushed me to head up there. I got lucky. Right before the ‘Needle’s Eye’ there is a one lane tunnel, traffic was moving slow through it. We pulled up to wait our turn on the way through there was a mountain goat on one of the ledges right next to the car. I was nervous he might try and jump on the hood. He was looking for a way down. It is funny, a part of me wanted to reach out and touch him, but, common sense won out. After making it through the tunnel with no hoof prints on the car, I headed over to see if he had jumped down. He had and there was a baby and another goat licking the inside of the tunnel, this was an unexpected treat that would not have happened had we stayed home. That is the cool thing about being in a place for an extended period you can keep returning to an area and get different results. As for the panorama with the ‘Needle’s Eye’ my mind remembered it a different way,(so no picture) funny how memories play tricks on us. I had a similar experience with the Rushmore tunnels.

So after I finished taking pictures of the goats and the Needle’s Eye’ we headed off to find the burros but like every good trip you need a detour. Let me preface this with I hate heights, that said we decided to visit the Mount Coolidge Fire Tower. The road up is all gravel and climbs to over 6,000 feet. The views are amazing and I can see why this is still an active fire lookout. I will be getting some panoramas from this spot in the near future (even if I have to close my eyes on the way up.) I had an easier time going down the hill looking at rocks made that happen. I enjoy seeing the vastness from ground level. So after the detour Roy and I thought we missed the burros NOT.

These burros are beggars they will eat mostly anything, although they prefer apples but when that doesn’t work it’s carrots, or whatever you have. I was able to offer some people apples to feed them. (I’m a looker not a feeder). This boy Aiden was a little nervous about feeding one it was cool to see his smile once the burro took the apple. Also a father and his 2 daughters got in on the act. I think it is amazing how the interaction between people and animals develop. I also have been enjoying the bond between mother and child. I have photographed a nursing pair almost every day.

From here we headed off to find the buffalo because an outing is not finished until I get my fix for the day. We did not have to travel far either when we ran into a small herd just crossing the road. It is awe inspiring to think at one time the plains were full of these majestic creatures. The most we have seen at one time is about 300. Every year the park has a round up to check the health of the herd called the buffalo roundup.

We still were not completely around the loop and wondered out load where are all the pronghorns heading this year. A ranger had mentioned that the herd was having some issues and these animals are hard to find. Some one was listening because up popped a few of these animals. In fact one looked very pregnant. I was also able to get a picture of one.

So it just goes to show you never know what you will find when you head out on an adventure.

When You are Glad Roy

Doesn’t have a camera close by. Yes it is true I do goofy stuff. So I admit it. This trip has been filled with some of those times here are a few. I want a picture of the full moon rising over Mount Rushmore. Metal rails make good horses. Roy is definitely not a princess. Rocks are animals in hiding. Knowing I don’t have everything but me thinking I do.

Roy is not a Princess now please remember this is my story. I was running out of logical places to put things on this trip, so where do you store something flat under the mattress. This was a good place because I wasn’t going to be making the bed until we got to where we were going anyway. Well Roy has a three legged seat cane he uses sometimes, I know he needs it so under the mattress it went. I forgot about it and he wanted to use it, I then proceeded to basically tear the trailer and car apart looking for it, because I knew it was here. This is where Roy Not being a Princess comes in,,, Only a Princess could feel a pea under so many mattresses, why couldn’t Roy feel the cane. If he only had a camera to see me racking my brain.
Rocks are animals in hiding. The camera that would have been needed here would be for my face the look of I’m sure it was. I am amazed at how many things rocks especially look like animals. This does though mainly happen when I’m almost asleep so my defense is not paying attention.
For some reason I insisted that the full moon could rise over Mount Rushmore, (it can if I make up a picture) I just could not get it into my head the direction relation. Camera was needed here because of the light bulb that went on when I grasped it.
Knowing I don’t have everything and thinking I do. I do not know why but this caught him laughing hysterically. I have to say he did though plant the seed in my brain. It was during one of the night shoots, I was almost done and he asks “Am I going to leave my tripod there?” I say no . So I put everything away get in the car buckle up and say let’s go. He then replies so you really are going to leave the tripod there. I say no and promptly retrieve it. I say it was power of suggestion I was going to leave it so I tried.

The one that is the main reason I am glad no camera is me attempting to ride a metal rail. I was just being me. I do not know what came over me except my inner child. I had just finished shooting some long horn sheep after gracefully get out of the car for this one. (good day for balance) I successfully got some pictures, then I attempt to step over a guard rail not so gravefully. I get one leg over and mind goes blank on what to do next. So I improvise; I start riding it like a pony and getting into it. That was until this women asks if I was stuck. My answer nope just riding my horse. She proceeded to lose it in laughter. At least my being sorta stuck made her day. I did eventually did get the courage and skill to get my leg over. Roy and a stranger got a good laugh out of it. I do so enjoy making Roy smile all the while being able to say ‘It wasn’t me.’ No photographic proof I can deny it then.

The Dog and Pony Show

I mean the Prairie Dog and Semi Wild Burro show all located on wildlife loop. Hanging around Custer and giving my long lens and arms a workout (I forgot how heavy the 150 – 600mm is), Roy and I decided to go hunt up some Prairie Dogs and maybe find some burros to add to the mix. We have gotten lucky with both seeing animals and being able to take the time to shoot them. I came prepared for the long haul, my chair, my ice vest, and camera now all that was needed was some cooperating animals. Before we set up shop to watch the Prairie Dogs a pack of burros and humans blocked our way.

These burros are descendants of the original pack mules used in the park. Here is a link to another blog that also talks about the burros They were first used as work animals then were used to ferry passengers up to the top of Black Elk Peak (formerly Harney Peak). When trips were discontinued the burros were left to roam the park. The fact that their ancestors were accustomed to human contact, they have remained semi wild. This allows tourist to feed them (apples and carrots). This year has been very fruitful for the herd, as a fire damaged some of them a few years ago and they lost some to diabetes. So the babies are a welcome sight. It was funny how mellow the baby was but also how close mama was to her foal. I did pet the foal she was so soft. The photo of this little girl just happened (right place right time). I got lucky that I did not get kicked. I was telling all of the kids do not walk behind the burro so what do I do. Yup, walk close behind the burro. I was busy taking pictures and almost screamed when one of the adults nudged my arm I’m glad he didn’t like my camera. The burros decided to move on so it was time to go to town. (Prairie Dog Town that is.)

So upon arriving I pull out my chair, don my vest, and grab the camera, i did not have to wait long until they were popping like whack a moles. I was also excited that I kept bouncing around to this hole and that hole. I finally settled down with a family of five mom dad and three little ones. The interaction was precious watching the sentry stand tall while the rug rats ran a muck. Then out of the corner of my lens I catch two lovers in the heat of the moment, ok maybe just foreplay. It all started with a hug, a coy gesture, some nibbles, and then the rest is up to you. Another mound held a mom and two babies who stuck together like glue. It was almost like a game of Simon Says. a behavior I tried to catch but always just missed was the way they throw food in the air and then jump after it. I was great at catching the landing. I spent a little over an hour photographing these cute little critters and look forward to more adventures with them. Roy and I have run across three other areas to set up camp with them.