Custer State Park
Our good weather was predicted to end today, so we wanted to get an early start driving through the Custer State Park. Custer is a huge state park with sharp granite peaks called The Needles in the north and rolling green hills and huge valleys in the south. Our plan for the morning was to drive the wildlife loop around the southern entrance. We wound our way down the ridges and through the ponderosa forest to the grassy valleys below.
Sharp, high-pitched chirps announced our arrival at Prairie Dog Town. Each colony had sentinels to warn their community of intruders. The sentinels chirped continuously until the intruder left or until they dove into their burrows. They were the nervous and highly-agitated members of the group. Fortunately, there were other prairie dogs who weren't as skittish and just kept a wary eye on us--even if the other sentries around the area kept up their warning calls. We photographed the prairie dogs for about an hour. Most of the prairie dogs that disappeared into their burrows when we arrived never came out the whole time we were there. Two young prairie dogs right across from us continued to eat and play, even as the warning sentinel chirped continuously behind them. They were extremely cute and very cooperative. They got used to us and allowed us to approach to within a few feet of them. I spent most of my time a little down the road with a second colony of prairie dogs. I learned if I approached always at an angle away from them, I could get very close--as long as I watched their behavior and stopped as soon as they got nervous. Their curiosity outweighed their fear, and they allowed me to get even closer after a couple minutes of waiting. My goal was to get as close as I could without scaring them into their burrows. It was a game that also got me some very good images of the prairie dogs.
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The open grasslands in the valley were a perfect place for pronghorn, and it wasn't long before we saw a small group right across from a turnout. It was perfect. They were feeding fairly close to the road with some rolling hills behind them. I climbed the ridge behind the pronghorn to try to get a different angle and discovered a female in a little draw enjoying lunch. Pronghorn are gorgeous animals and always fun to photograph. This group of four was no exception.
The wild burros were one of our more unusual wildlife sightings of the trip. They live along a stream in the southern part of the park and beg for food along the road. Cars in front of us stopped, rolled down their windows, and fed them as they stood next to the road. We saw a mother burro with her young foal, so we stopped to photograph them under some trees.
We briefly photographed three bison in a small meadow shortly after we entered the park, but we were looking for a large herd of bison in a picturesque valley. We had nearly completed the wildlife loop when we found our large herd of bison. But then we had an unusual challenge. Some of the bison were too close. We weren't allowed to move away from our vehicles, and as the bison surrounded us, we were trapped in the Explorer and forced to shoot from inside it. We had nowhere to go as long as there were bison all around us, and they were content to stay in our area. We could shoot with our long lenses for close-ups, but it was impossible to get the shot of the herd in the grassy valley after about the first five minutes we were there. It was weird!
Anniversary Dinner
We drove back to camp, ate lunch, took showers, and got ready for our anniversary celebratory dinner at the Blue Lake Lodge. We had been looking forward to our night out and a good dinner. It was a huge disappointment. It was so bad it was almost funny. Our young server was having a very bad day. First, she forgot our salads and served them with our over-cooked salmon. Then she came back to take our dessert order while we were still eating our entree. And finally, she threw away our leftovers instead of boxing them. She spent most of our interaction time apologizing. I'm assuming she is summer help and is just learning how to do her job. I hope she gets better fast.
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