Lover's Leap or It's All About The Timing

We were in the car for one day before we decided it was time for a hike.

Due to the Feds shutting down all the National parks, and due to the season change out here, we are finding it hard to pay to enter the parks. Instead, when the gates are open, which is not always the case as you see here, we just drive right in...this has saved us up to $50 so far. And we thought the Senior Park pass was a deal!




We wanted to visit Custer State Park in South Dakota since we've never been in this state and it seemed like a nice place to visit, ha! We did the around the park drive (with a quick one mile hike) and an internal, dirt road drive. That is how we saw all the Critters mentioned already.

The buildings were very well built to blend in with the environment and the few we were able to enter were cabiny feeling and nice.


Unfortunately, since we just left 2 months at Yellowstone, this park pales by comparison but we were greeted by some fall leaf folliage. The bison round up which is the big annual deal here is already done.







Here is a stand of port-a-potty's on the crest of a hill...really? What genius thought this position up? When the wind is blowing, which way will they fall!










We drove to the end and did the Lover's Leap hike. It gave us about 5 miles for a nice loop, some exercise and vistas at the top. Oh, and nobody leaped while we were there, yea!

Bob did the high points, climbing around like he had good sense while I stayed below with the camera.

He finally convinced me to come up and another guy came along and took this picture. It is hard to tell how high we were but looking down made it hard to imagine how anyone would have the nerve to throw themselves off the ledge. The first blow on the rocks would not be nice!!

This little bird almost looks like a parakeet but I believe its a female blue bird. She posed very nicely for Bob to snap this picture. Her mate was not so cooperative.


We had fun walking in and around the rock outcroppings and then got back on the trail to make it back to the car. In the 4th mile it began to get worrisome that we were going the right way and would actually be able to find the car again without having to hitch hike half way around the park. But find it we did. A nice park, a pleasant day, a fun stretch of our legs. Thank you to Custer State Park.