Another Great Day started out at 6AM with a thunderstorm and waking to the patter of rain on the tent fly. Crayton snoozed until 7AM when the rain turned to hail. We stayed warm and dry though. We did try to take a picture of the pea size hail and I have posted it. When it tapered off we made a dash for the car and had breakfast in Custer before heading down to Wind Cave NP. We settled for the movie since neither of us were to fired up about another cave tour but I hear it is wonderful. Nevertheless, I prefer the topside of the park. We went back to our campsite at Stockade and decided to have showers and pack up. The temp was up from the morning’s 44 to the upper 50's. I knew that the clouds would stay but North Dakota was warm and dry. We stopped back in Custer for a Dairy Queen and made tracks.
It was a wonderful drive. The Black Hills forest from Custer to Deadwood is so pretty. We went over a beautiful reservoir. I was sad to leave the forest behind but nothing could prepare me for what was to come next.
We gassed up in Spearfish and the high for our day of 75 had been reached. We then took Highway 85 from Spearfish all the way to Belfield, ND. I can’t describe it other than a lot of nothing. It was incredible and described to me later by a local as "wide open spaces." That highway drive should be a requirement for citizenship. [I am a little discombobulated as I write this for I am lying in my tent with a bull bison about 10 feet away steadily munching grass next to my ice chest].
We made it to Theodore Roosevelt NP about 6:00. We set up camp in a stand of cottonwoods by the Little Missouri River. The breeze blew through sunset as Crayton and I enjoyed our supper. At 9:00 we went to a fireside chat with the park ranger for an interpretative discussion of bison. She was very good and I enjoyed her talk. Crayton did as well and had a very good question for her when she was discussing buffalo hunters: what did they want the tongue for? Do any of you know?
Later.
