Custer State Park, SD

We returned to Custer State Park for the third time and what a change.  We loved it before but now they have added new spacious campgrounds, a couple of open air theaters and playgrounds.  None of this takes away from the beauty of the area.

On our first evening we were welcomed by thunder and hail, quite dramatic and reminiscent of Anna Lee’s youth in Denver.  Once it was safe to leave the RV, we went to the Tatanka Theater for an evening musical performance by Bonnie and Brad Exton.  Former employees of the park and forest service, they now travel the West singing cowboy songs.  Their songs were of life and death on the range.   Along with their own songs they took us back to radio and cowboy movie days by singing Home on the Range and Ghost Riders in the Sky.  One of the musicians, a sawyer, plays the singing or musical saw.  Her accompaniment to They Call the Wind Mariah sounded like the wind whistling through the rafters, it was fabulous.

Between sets Cookie, a chuck wagon maker by avocation, told of cattle drives from Texas to Montana and risks of infection  to “domesticated” cattle.  He explained that the herds were driven water to water.  Sometimes it rained so badly, the cowboys slept for days in their saddles.  Most of the early cattle wranglers were young boys, hence the word “cowboy.”  No one wanted to get on the bad side of the Cookie because you never knew what he might feed you.  Usually a cowboy who was too old or injured to ride the herd, the coookie was also the local doctor and dentist.

Like the show, the movie in the Visitors’ Center was an excellent way to learn more about this area. It is a land of stunning landscape and exciting wildlife.  The buffalo is the symbol of the area but this has not long been true.  In the 1700s there were 30-60 million, by 1914 there were less than 1500. The herd in Custer State Park is about 1400 and is culled each year to keep it sustainable.  Tatanka means buffalo.  They stand six feet tall and weigh as much as 2000 pounds.

We found a few on our first drives along the Wildlife Loop but our best siting was on our next to last day when this herd came ‘round the corner outside our campground.

 We also found pronghorn antelope which are the fastest animals in North America.

prairie dogs

and these returned-to-the-wild burros who are very demanding of food payment in order to pass by them.  We managed to sneak by without giving them any treats.