Hey all! The next few posts will be about my vacation to South Dakota and North Dakota last week! I love South Dakota, there are so many things to see out there like Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, Bear Country park, many caves, the Badlands, and Devil's Tower! Our first stop is to see and feed the Prairie Dogs right before you enter the Badlands, this is one of my favorite things to do! There is a gift shop and you pay 50 cents for a bag of unsalted peanuts for the prairie dogs. They are kinda skittish at the beginning of the season so they were a bit hesitant to take the peanuts from my hand. After a little coaxing though, they come up.
They are so adorable, I wish I could take one home! I know, you are all thinking about Monkey Pox right now, but the prairie dogs that had Monkey Pox where imported from Africa so it is now illegal to import prairie dogs. You can purchase them from a breeder if you want one as a pet and they are Monkey Pox free!
Our next stop was Custer State Park. We camped in the Grace Coolidge campground and found out that there was a resident Bison that lived there and in the adjacent prairie across the creek! We soon found out that the pathway to the creek was THROUGH our campsite! He was fearless and he didn't seem to care who was there taking his picture or what! When we first arrived he was hanging out near the resident camper scratching himself on the dumpster and on signs near their camper.
One morning while I was sleeping (in the van and NOT in the tent, I might add) he startled John when he was making breakfast. John heard a noise looked to his right and the Bison was approaching fast! He had very little time to run around to the other side of the picnic table to watch the Bison walk through our campsite and cross the creek! There was maybe 5 or 6 feet between John and the Bison! Here I am hiding in the van taking his picture as he walks across the street to walk through our campsite!
This is our picnic table, he just crossed the creek and stopped to take a drink before continuing on his way.
It was pretty terrifying at first but we soon got used to him and just got out of his way and let him walk through! John named him Bucky Bison! It was quite the adventure and not what you usually encounter while camping!
