Out West day Five

This morning I walked down the grassy road to a little pullout and looked back towards the van.  Today we saw more birds such as Greater Prairie-chicken, Sharp-tailed grouse, Western meadowlark etc.  Our first main stop today is the Badlands then Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park.

A beautiful sunrise to wake us up

Some mist in the valleys

Opposite skies pink

Looking back at our campsite

360'

Another 360'

Another selfie?

Perfect grazing

More and more sunflowers as we head west

Another flower in amongst the sunflowers.  Species?  

Free range

Ok precious, ease your bum off the road please!

And yours too, for that matter!

Ah, the bad badlands.

A steep cliff at the top, down to these wilderness valleys

Please don't fall, my love.

Looks like a mad map

What a lovely feeling to crunch these under your feet.

Look down towards the visitor's center

Back up the hills from the visitor's center

Some history to learn

Prairie dog city

Nice fat little rodents

Some painted hills

Then we rushed to Mt. Rushmore, where we couldn't rush more because we were there.  Can you name the presidents?

Wait a sec, one more fa... oh wait...

Such a curvy road into Custer State Park that we turned on ourselves.  

Numerous tunnels carved out of the rock

"Sound the horn" it says for Piet's sake!

Thank you for posing so nicely, Mr or Mrs Pronghorn

A field of bison peacefully grazing

I hate to say this but they corral them into various fields.  They don't roam at will, it seems. 

Awww, the suckling baby

Our campsite at Custer's Gulch campground.  Being Labor Day weekend, we felt lucky to find a spot.  And it had hot showers!