Today started with a trip south to Hot Springs. Home to a number of natural hot springs (ya, I know, who would have thought), it’s a very quaint historic town that was a busy place around 1890. People came to the area to ‘take the waters’ both for bathing and drinking to cure all sorts of ailments. Today it still has 

several active hot spring spas and a public pool heated by spring water. 

We came to visit the Mammoth Site. Brian first found out about it back in 1983 and has been bringing the family there since. Back about 150,000 years ago there was a spring fed pool with steep sides and Mammoths and other pre-historic animals came to drink, but if they got in too deep they couldn’t get out. There are hundreds of fossilized remains in the filled in pool. Every time we visit, they’ve uncovered more animal fossils. We were talking to a volunteer who’s been there for 11 years digging and he showed us a pronghorn antelope toe that he had just recently found. It’s the first they’ve ever found, he is hoping to find the rest of the skeleton. 

We then headed south to a small park for lunch. It has at least two natural springs (not hot) on site and and was a nice quiet place for lunch. We saw some red dragonflies, something neither of us have ever seen.

After lunch it was getting near 100° so we drove north toward Custer State Park (we drove through Wind Cave National Monument to get there). Saw many, many Bison, numerous Prairie Dogs, a few White-tailed Deer, and a couple of Pronghorn antelope. While in Custer we came across a herd of Bison who decided to cross the road, we literally had a front row seat! They were all around the truck (we stayed inside). Was fun to watch them interact with each other and see all the young Bison following their moms.

We had a nice drive through the park, winding through the hills and forests. Then it was time to head back to the camper for dinner and to prep for tomorrow. Our plan is to hike to the top of Black Elk Peak (7,500 feet), it’s about a 7 mile roundtrip hike. Wish us luck!